Apologies to the TH faithful that thought there would be a new comic waiting for you today. But as it turns out, I'm leavin' on a jet plane and will be out of town this week for an extended business meeting.

It's something that I knew was on the horizon and thought I could prepare for. But as it turns out, what with everything that's been going on (details I am deliberately withholding), I wasn't able to muster up a stable of strips ahead of time to run while I was away.

But you are in very capable hands this week. Take for example my fellow Dayfree compatriot Jim Burgess from Able and Baker who was able to whip up today's excellent guest strip. It pays homage to both Theater Hopper and Little Gamers at the same time! Well done, old man!

At any rate, expect guest strips on Wednesday and Friday as well. I'd tell you who is doing them, but I don't want to spoil the surprise!

This has been the third time this year that I've sprung guest strips on you guys and I feel kind of bad. I did it once when Cami and I visited relatives in Texas back in April and did it again when Cami and I moved into our new house back in July.

On the one hand, I think it's really great that there are enough artists out there even FAMILIAR with Theater Hopper to do a guest strip and WILLING to do so that I shake my head in disbelief. I've made a lot of great friends through web comics and I'm thankful for every artist that takes the responsibility in tandem to the responsibilities of their own comics to produce something extra for me.

But on the other hand, it makes me feel like I'm asleep at the switch - that I'm not providing the content that you guys come here for. I have no excuse. It's been one of those years, y'know?

Hopefully things will start settling down soon and I can go back to providing you with regularly scheduled content every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Hey, if anything positive came out of this, I was able to take the time I would have otherwise used to make today's comic and package up all of the shirt orders I had that were piling up. The only two I weren't able to get to were those for Sarah Cathey in Gainsville, FL and Christoper Orme across the pond in the UK. I'm name-checking you guys now because it might take a little while before I get your orders back in stock. But everyone else can expect to see their stuff in the next few days. International orders might take a week or two.

It's a very strong possibility that once I get back from my business trip that I will take the weekend to reorganize the store and increase prices on all t-shirts, baby-doll tees and hoodies. I have a lot of these items in stock right now, but some of the shirts that have multiple colors, I had to order in larger quantities - so I ended up sitting on some extra merchandise. Along with the price increase, I will also likely return to doing pre-orders so I can get a better sense of where the demand is.

Anyway, that's probably enough blubbering for now. Be sure to check back through the week for more guest strips from exceptionally talented artists!