I'm happy to announce that starting with the December issue, The Packrat has found a new home here on MATRIXSYNTH!
The Packrat has been featured on MATRIXSYNTH many times
in the past (and of course the MATRIXSYNTH Packrat on the right has been a staple of the site since 2006), but now it will be a bit more official. You'll find some words from Dave, the creator of The Packrat, below.
But first, click the image for the full size comic. You can find previous issues on
Dave's Packrat site here, and be sure to check out
The Packrat Book! It's a great bit of synth history and it makes a great stocking stuffer. MATRIXSYNTH and a few other names in the synth community are featured in the book.
Regarding the future of The Packrat, Dave has the following to say:
"The Packrat is by all accounts among the smallest, most niche-y comic strips in the entire universe. Nevertheless, it has its fans, and just in case they have any curiosity, they are owed the backstory of the events of the past few months.
I came back from my August, 2014 camping trip through the Canadian back woods with a hot, steaming case of Lyme Disease (I'm fine now!). I was covered in a rash for several weeks and ended up submitting one comic strip too late for print. The following month, specifics too unexciting in which to delve (exclusively involving the publication's administration, going higher than Keyboard Magazine itself) created problematic logistics preventing the print of the next two installments.
I bear the magazine itself no ill will at all, and consider the matter unfortunate only for the fans who had perhaps thought that the Packrat had been retired (by me or the mag). Indeed, those of its followers who are wise enough to follow it on
Facebook or my own personal art site
umop.com have been able to see monthly synth-tastic adventures at the usual periodic times, so hopefully the notion that the Packrat went to Synth Heaven wasn't too widespread.
Comic strips are trifles in this world, and this one is damn near the, uh... trifliest? So the details about how this strip gets made surely must consist of the silliest orts of minutiae ever to cross anyone's plate. But here they are anyway, every last crumb of them.
Anyway, inasmuch as the break from the magazine was unintentional on the part of everyone directly involved with its creation, I'm using the resultant reality of things as an excuse to move onward with the Packrat. It will now be available online on all the aforementioned sites, and Matrixsynth has agreed to be the exclusive first link to it every month (and possibly, in installments of a more timely fashion!). Neither he nor I are currently making any money at all from any of this; we're both in it for synth-love alone right now (and for me, exceedingly rare
book sales). While I was formerly earning enough for a couple of tanks of gas a pop from the magazine (and was lucky to get it in this economy), even that modest honorarium will be gone.
This comic strip has somehow survived ten years of life come February, and I have no plans of slowing down any time soon. In order to help keep it going, I plan on setting up a Patreon page this week. I would consider even $100 per month a major victory, since that would at least cover its own dodeca-annual creation. Details about the page will follow once it's all set up.
Thanks for reading the Packrat comic! Enjoy this first Matrixsynth-exclusive episode, featuring an appropriately green synth to start off the maiden voyage."
"Housed inside an incredibly chunky wooden cabinet with inch-thick end caps, the perfectly-dubbed JX-3PG brings together a hard-to-find PG-200 controller and a standard JX-3P body. It's a perfect alternative to using two separate units connected with a cable.
You can purchase the Moogsaic t-shirt here and you can read more about David's artistic process in developing the t-shirt here. 
Anyway, inasmuch as the break from the magazine was unintentional on the part of everyone directly involved with its creation, I'm using the resultant reality of things as an excuse to move onward with the Packrat. It will now be available online on all the aforementioned sites, and Matrixsynth has agreed to be the exclusive first link to it every month (and possibly, in installments of a more timely fashion!). Neither he nor I are currently making any money at all from any of this; we're both in it for synth-love alone right now (and for me, exceedingly rare book sales). While I was formerly earning enough for a couple of tanks of gas a pop from the magazine (and was lucky to get it in this economy), even that modest honorarium will be gone.
