Round 1 of the Starslip Crisis crossover Alterverse War is heating up, with the Steel Duck from Melonpool taken captive even as the Touch-And-Go from Schlock Mercenary pummels the museum ship Fuseli after a devastating plasma salvo. With its primary starslip arch destroyed, will the Fuseli be able to defeat a ship whose shields can withstand a star going nova?!

The Alterverse War is a crossover event involving more than thirty sci-fi webcomics. Even though I'm writing it, I'm using fanboy logic and stats provided by the participating webcartoonists to make the fights as fair (if there is such a thing) as possible. With all the other high-powered entrants in the game, Starslip Crisis may not (probably won't) come out on top!

Check it out every Saturday at Starslip Crisis!

I'm doing a brand-new Saturday-only storyline in full color that I hope gets a good turnout from the sci-fi webcomics crowd. It takes place in the year 3438, before the events of Starslip Crisis. Vanderbeam has been captain of the Fuseli for a few years, and has recently taken on Cutter Edgewise, a former pirate, as the navigator of the finest starship art museum in the galaxy.

Okay, who cares about the setup. It's going to feature interwebcomic space battles. It's one huge fanboy crossover in the vein of "who would win -- the Enterprise or a Star Destroyer?"

If you have a sci-fi webcomic with a spaceship in it, you can submit your ship and crew to be involved! The form to fill out is on the guide page here. Read the terms, and join in! And check back every Saturday to see the plot developments!

Starslip Crisis turned two years old last week, May 23. This is the strip that ran. It's a mid-storyline strip; it's more setup than punchline. I think Starslip has evolved beyond whatever I thought it was going to be in 2005. I thought I'd give myself a little sci-fi playground to have fun with the genre -- not to do parody, but play with the usual mechanics of how science fiction works. I guess that's why I gave it such an odd setting. I figured there were enough "ship explores unknown worlds" stories out there. What does a ship like the Enterprise do after all the wars have been won? And what if the war came back?

The first technical manual to Kris Straub's Starslip Crisis universe has arrived. The aptly-named Starslip Crisis Technical Manual features 38 pages of descriptions, drawings and schematics for dozens of staples of the sci-fi strip, including deck plans for the Fuseli, personal and tactical weapons, the FTL elevator, communiques, starslip drive, a ship construction chronology, a Cirbozoid anatomy lesson, and a lot more.

The book is currently available through Lulu.com.

I've done a big write-up on San Diego Comic-Con 2006 at Starslip Crisis.

[Xerexes: Also check out the latest Slipcast: Kris' Vlog (that's video journal-type thing for you not-in-the-knowers) which has a photo montage of the con.]

The second Starslip Crisis book is now available at Lulu.com. Sparkling Diplomacy features a whopping 180 pages of comics, cast bios, and extras, and a foreword by Penny Arcade's Tycho Brahe.

Also on the horizon is a San Diego Comic Con special CD from Kristofer Straub, The Precise Moment of Failure, featuring 35 minutes of "music from webcomics and the internet." Online ordering info will be posted soon!

My daily sci-fi humor strip Starslip Crisis turned one year old on May 23rd, and there's all kinds of news.

1. The Crisis storyline has begun -- the one that will finally explain the title of the strip. Start reading here!

2. The second book collection, Sparkling Diplomacy, will be ready very soon. It's even bigger than the first collection. You can preview the cover here.