May the Fourth Update!
Hello there!
It has been a very long time. Maybe the longest hiatus I’ve ever taken? Kinda seems like every time I get this train rolling something brings it to a halt. But I have some great updates.
First explanations: Last check-in I mentioned the reason for the break was my computer basically taking a shit, and I was trying to fix it. WELL I couldn’t fix it. My boss couldn’t fix it. And the harddrive was complete unrecoverable. I basically had no way to make comics for a very long time. Around January I bought a brand spankin new PC though and started experimenting with a new drawing software called Clip Studio Paint. I used it to draw the Knights of the Old Republic fan art you see as the featured image of this post!
So good news? A new story arc is on the way. No, I’m not just “working on a script”. Script is done. It’s been well past done. The pages are being drawn. Best part? This is my longest story arc yet. It’s 78 pages long, TRUMPing the election story arc by 18 pages. All of the pandemic I had been trying to find a way to capture the chaos of COVID in a story fit for Austin’s Inferno. But no matter how many times I tried writing it, I just threw it away. And I realized it was because I was rushing it. I was trying to write something I could knock out in 20 pages and move on. As a result, I just felt unattached to everything. 2020 was insane and to try to rush through the results of such a year would be a waste.
Another issue I kept having was feeling like I was going to “miss” the window on COVID. That by the time I’d get any story arc written, COVID would be a thing of the past and everyone would be wondering why I was still doing comics about it. But I’m realizing to some degree COVID might not go away for a while, but the vaccine is at least giving us some hope for an end to lockdowns.
In either case, I fictionalized the virus in the comic as “The Taco Flu” so that it wouldn’t have to be restricted entirely to real world events. I then developed a story unrelated to the virus that ties into Easton’s current pandemic predicament (and this side story is actually one I have had planned since the comic’s inception, and traditionally I am usually very happy with how those ones turn out).
So how will this story arc play out? I’m trying something a bit different. While, yes, I am trying not to rush myself, I also still want to land the more COVID related parts of the story right now, while it’s a thing we are still very much going through. That theme is heaviest in the first half of the story arc, so I am completing the first half ahead of time. At my current rate of productivity, I can see the first half being done and posting hopefully mid-June. I will post 5 pages a week until those pages have depleted. As they post, I will be finishing the next 20ish pages, which will post three days a week upon completion, as I wrap up the last 20ish pages.
So sit tight. I hope you guys enjoy this new story arc as much as I am enjoying working on it.
TL;DR: Story arc is in production, first half will be posting in June.
Can’t believe I didn’t see this update! Fantastic, I’m glad you’ve got everything back up and running! I’m very excited for this new arc!