Simon B.:  Before I go on the soapbox to talk about important political stuff that you might not care about (but should), let’s talk about the comic today!

Meet Hibiki Koumori: student of Bamboo Grove High School and its Student Council President.  Kind of looks like she has a bit of an ego, doesn’t it?  You’ll be seeing more of her throughout the comic, so stay tuned!

And if you want to see more of her now, then I have good news!

NEW CHARACTER GALLERY UNLOCKED!!!

That’s right, Hibiki now has her own gallery section on the gallery page!  As each character makes a named appearance in the comic, their respective galleries will unlock in the gallery section, and you’ll get to see concept sketches, portraits, and more as the comic goes on!  Right now, Hibiki’s gallery has her earliest concept sketches from 2009 on display!

Also, I expect to add more new things to the comic in addition to the comic itself including a links page, an about page, and more!  So keep a lookout for those!

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Now for the serious stuff:

As you may have noticed, Petite Symphony was down yesterday in protest of the pending SOPA and PIPA bills that are making their way through congress.  The protest got wide spread media attention, and successfully got 8 of the major bill supporters to back off and change their mind!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-16623831

That there is big news in and of itself, but the bills haven’t been officially killed off yet.  SOPA’s primary pusher and supporter, House of Representatives Congressman Lamar Smith, is still planning on seeing SOPA through.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120117/12563317437/its-baaaaaaaaack-lamar-smith-says-sopa-markup-to-resume-february.shtml

Yes, I know that some of you are getting tired of hearing all this, but this IS big news!  Imagine if entire websites are taken down simply because some corporation doesn’t like X, Y, or Z about them, and files a complaint with the government with no due process applied?  You get the internet blackout on a MUCH LARGER scale FOREVER!  This is why many people are openly opposed to these two bills in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.

And for the people reading this that DON’T live in the USA, don’t think you’re out of hot water either!  There’s still a matter of ACTA that could potentially cause just as much problems for people abroad as there is with SOPA and PIPA here!

https://www.eff.org/issues/acta

There are lots of resources out there for learning more, and I don’t really want to list them all now, but if you ask, I’ll gladly share anything I’ve come across for you.  Thanks for reading, and keep contacting your representatives USA peoples!

http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml