“Terribly clever and surprisingly compelling.”

Rue Morgue Magazine

By Nathan Olsen & Robert Olsen

Site News

A Haiku Comics Sampler

Welcome! If this your first time visiting the site, we’d like to invite you to take a look at some of the highlights from our comics archive. While Haiku Comics generally follows the gag-a-day format, many of our best strips have featured reoccurring characters and story lines. Here are some of our favorites:

The Aliens
Oops (February 25, 2009)
Fits Like A Glove (May 1, 2009)
Teenagers (May 13, 2009)
Plausible Deniability (August 19, 2009)
Earth Invaders (December 6, 2010)

The Little Ghost Boy
B.F.F. (March 27, 2009)
Friendship Bracelet (June 1, 2009)
See Saw (August 26, 2009)

The Hapless Clown
Clowning Around (May 18, 2009)
Clown Chowder (June 29, 2009)
Can’t Win (September 4, 2009)
Final Trick (January 14, 2012)

The Killer
Jailbreak (May 27, 2009)
Killer Party: Part One (July 13, 2009)
Killer Party: Part Two (July 15, 2009)
Killer Party: Part Three (July 17, 2009)

Werewolves Vs. Vampires
Fresh Bait (April 1, 2009)
Werewolves Vs. Vampires: Round Two (May 20, 2009)
Werewolves Vs. Vampires: Round Three (July 6, 2009)
Werewolves Vs. Vampires: Round Four (July 29, 2009)
Werewolves Vs. Vampires: Round Five (October 9, 2009)
Billy Mays Here (January 14, 2011)

The Dare
The Dare (March 6, 2009)
The Dare II: Part One (April 6, 2009)
The Dare II: Part Two (April 8, 2009)
The Dare II: Part Three (April 10, 2009)
The Dare II: Part Four (April 13, 2009)
The Dare II: Part Five (April 15, 2009)
The Dare II: Part Six (April 17, 2009)
The Dare II: Part Seven (April 20, 2009)
The Dare II: Part Eight (April 22, 2009)
The Dare II: Part Nine (April 24, 2009)

If you’ve gotten this far, perhaps you’d just like to start from the beginning?

Finally! Er, a new comic?

With no new comics in over a month here at Haiku Comics headquarters, Evelyn Poor of Trans Girl Diaries has apparently taken it upon herself to keep the strip alive. Check it out.

Meanwhile, if you’re wondering where we are and when to expect a new strip, well, I’m not sure. The blame can once again be placed entirely on me — this time a back injury put me out for a couple of weeks in January and I’ve been scrambling to keep up with my workload ever since. My back is fine now, but my schedule is still pretty packed. Hopefully I get something going here again soon.

In other news, the first edition of the Haiku Comics book finally sold out. Neat!

Happy Anniversary!

Today, Haiku Comics turned 2 years old. I think that’s pretty amazing and I’m very proud the work my brother and I have done here.

Anyway, I’m tired so I don’t think I have the energy to say much more than that. Thank you all for reading and encouraging us with your feedback. :)

…And We’re Back

So, new comics! What did you guys think? Happy to see us back?

Rest assured, there will be more comics very soon. In the meantime, here’s a little sketch of everybody’s favorite undead cranium, Zombie Head!

An sketch by Nathan Olsen of the Haiku Comics character, Zombie Head.

Make Believe

My MFA thesis exhibition, Make Believe, will open this coming Sunday at California State University, Long Beach. If you live in Southern California, you can learn more about the event over at my blog and RSVP on my Facebook event page. The reception is open to the public.

It’s still hard for me to visualize my life past this coming Sunday. Having days off and actually leaving the house for non-work purposes seems like an impossible dream. If all goes well, however, I see comics production ramping back up as we head towards the end of 2010 and in to 2011. Stay tuned!

An Explanation

Well, I didn’t expect this to happen. Just so you guys know, we are not dead. I’m just trying to draw a thousand things at once and have had to put us on a temporary hiatus.

Until I have my show in November, things are going to be a bit rocky. Sorry!

What’s New?

Wow, our last news update was in May? Where has the time gone? I think there are more grey hairs in my beard than the last time we spoke. And I think this wrinkle might be new. Our time on this mortal coil is fleeting, dear readers, our lives so easily slipping away unnoticed into the long dark night of eternity. Every passing day filled with changes that remind us that things will never again be as good as they were when we were young, vibrant and beautiful.

Haiku Comics continues its own decline into mainstream irrelevance by this week introducing a new website design. It features bigger comics, a better logo and thumbnail-based archives. No doubt our long time fans, who remember the website we limped by on for the first six months of our run will just see this as further proof that we are “selling out,” which is entirely justified. Bob and I would be quite happy to “sell out,” as “selling” indicates some sort of income, which would be a nice change from the current paradigm that requires us to spend a lot of our own money so that you all can have the pleasure of reading our work for free.

On that note, buy our stuff.

I had a longer post in mind for this subject, but since we are at that awkward moment in the conversation where I rattle my empty cup and you attempt to avoid eye contact with me while mumbling something about “giving at the office,” I think perhaps a few words are in order. Bob and I have always wanted to avoid bombarding you all with pleas for money. We sell a few items in our online store and we would love if you bought some of them, but we are happy to have you as readers even if you can’t afford to buy anything from us. In fact, we have intentionally resisted asking for donations because we ourselves don’t like going to websites that make us feel guilty for not giving away our money to strangers.

However.

Haiku Comics can make money two ways: selling goods or increasing our readership. If you can’t afford to buy our merchandise, you can still help Haiku Comics earn income by bringing us new readers. We make a small amount of money off of every person who visits our site. For all the hours we have put in making these comics, if you could take 5 or 10 minutes each month (or even once!) to promote our comic on the internet, it could make a real difference. Reddit, Digg, Stumble Upon, Twitter, Facebook, Delicious, Tumblr, Blogspot, Livejournal — the more effort you, our readers, put in promoting our comics on the internet, the greater chance we have of expanding our audience into something that might actually allow Bob and I to spend more time on this project. If every single one of our readers Stumbled us or Dugg us, it would be a game changer.

I would be remiss to not mention that some of you have put in time promoting us — I assure you that we have noticed and your efforts are very much appreciated. But the number of people who have done this is no more than a couple of dozen — we have hundreds of readers and we need more of you to help us.

So, anyway, there’s that.

The comic schedule, unfortunately, is going to remain erratic for the time being. All the time I spent the last week updating the website took away from the time I have drawing comics, although Bob and I have a few good ideas for the next couple of strips. I’m hoping to have something for you by Friday. However, as some of you may know, I’m also currently working on an M.F.A. in Illustration and, as I turn thirty-four next month, my wife is understandably eager to see me graduate this fall. You can follow my progress over at my blog.

Bob and I will also be exhibiting again this year at A.P.E., which also requires some preparation — a new book, buttons, maybe some limited edition prints. If you’re in the Bay Area, we’d love to see you at the convention, even if it’s just to say hello.

So that’s that. How have you all been? Any reader requests? Any characters you’d like to see return? Do you like the color strips? Did you enjoy the return of the black & white strips?

Stay cool.

UPDATE: Bob and I will not be attending APE after all. We are instead focusing our efforts on putting together a table for Wondercon next spring. Stay tuned!

The Scoop

Hi everyone! No doubt a few of you have noticed that we didn’t manage to get a new comic up this week and you are wondering when you will be able to get your fix. Unfortunately, I have a deadline looming and I seem to have miscalculated the amount of time it would take for me to meet it.

So, the bad news is that I don’t think I’ll be able to get to drawing our next comic until around Friday. The good news? I don’t see any reason why I couldn’t draw several in a row at that point. Imagine — a full week of updates! It might happen. See you soon.

Snail Mail

The last of the domestic preorders were put into the mail today, so hopefully all U.S. residents who ordered a shirt will be getting theirs soon. International orders will go out on Monday as I need to go to the Post Office to mail those. However for those who haven’t ordered a shirt due to not being sure if they were an actual item, now is your chance. We have them in stock and they are waiting for you. So head on over to the store and pick one up today. More sales = more money = more types of shirts = more mayhem, so it’s a win-win.

Haiku Comics iPhone Wallpapers III

iPhone Wallpapers

Series III

Right-click on image to download

I know some of you have probably been a bit impatient with the comic’s slower schedule these days, but I’ve really been enjoying the opportunity to put in more time on the artwork. I’m really proud of these last few comics and thought it would be fun to turn them into some iPhone wallpapers. Enjoy!

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WARNING

Haiku Comics often pokes fun at the horror film genre and may contain humorous drawings of nudity and violence not suitable for children or the workplace.