Let’s break this down:
How to tell when the comic is back?
The easiest ways to know when the comic is back is through the RSS feed, the Facebook Page, and the Site’s Twitter, all which automatically update when the site does. I’ll use tumblr and my personal twitter for the news as well, but you’ll get a lot of other random shit from me in the meantime.
How long will this be?
Indefinite hiatus. I’m not quitting, I just need to get things sorted. Life has been too scattered for too long.
Okay, so why is this happening?
Again, life has been too scattered for too long. Honestly, I should have done this a year ago, instead of several small, ineffective hiatuses. Trying to keep my shit together at the same time as updating the comic as much as I can has lead to often less well made comics than I would like and less joy in making them. I want to be updating more and having more fun to with it and have more time to do so. The past few weeks, where I was hit harder than I have been financially because of delays in payments has really accented a need to change how I do things. I’ve been pouring a lot of time into job hunting and will be continuing to do so until I have something so that I have one stress (a job) instead of all the stresses related to being unemployed. I don’t want to bitch and moan about all my problems (they are, after all, my problems. You shouldn’t have to worry about them) so I’ll just say that this is really needed before I have drag myself towards a full blown breakdown.
So what’s happening with the comic?
Like I said, I’ll still be working on stuff in the background. I’m going to make the rest of this arc in a large batch, a proper buffer that I haven’t had in years. I’m rewriting the scripts so they’re not just something knocked out, and I’m making little notes so when the arc is ready to be posted, I’ve got a bunch of things to move work on immediately to keep the comic updating without sitting around in writer’s block. I mean it when I say the comic is coming back with 3-times-a-week updates, there’s a good 25 comics for this arc that I’m making fully before posting so the rest of the arc is uninterrupted. That’s a good two months of comics buffer to work on the next stuff.
I also want to use the time to work on an overdue new site. New art, cleaned up layout, stuff like that. It will also have the long overdue cast page that I’m often asked about. I want to be well into making comics before working on that stuff though. Comic is first.
So this will be forever, given your current rate of comics, right?
I make comics a lot faster when I’m not stressing out about them. The more fun I’m having, the more comics I can make at a time. I’m not going to make a claim of when we’ll be back right now, I’ll make that kind of announcement once I have a better idea. First I need to spend time getting my non-comic shit together, then it’s comic-comic-comic time. But I’ll keep you posted of the progress.
How will progress be reported?
Up above the “comic” image for the hiatus, I’ve added a string of numbers. 30/25 outlined, for example, is that I have 30 comics outlined at the moment out of the 25 comics for the story arc. The story arc number might change as I do the script rewrites to make it better, but that’s the number of completed needed for the comic’s return. For those 25, I’m not moving on to the next step until all 25 are ready for the arc. It makes the flow easier if I do all the scripting then all the sketching then all the inks, etc. Shifting gears will throw it off. You probably won’t see those numbers change at all for a week or two at the very least because I’m focused on the job hunt at the moment but I’ll try to update those numbers at least weekly once I’m able to return to comic work.
Will there be any kind of content in the meantime?
I’ll still draw up occasional answers on the tumblr just to keep drawing and have fun. Might get some other art done I’ve been wanting to do and post it there. I’ve drawn almost only just the comic for so long that I need to draw other stuff to grow.
Last thoughts for this post?
Again, I hate doing this, but it’s long overdue and will result in better comics and more comics. I apologize to all of you who have stuck through this, and it’s for you that I want to make better comics. (It’s for me that I want to have fun doing so again, but you also benefit from that selfishness because I think the comics are better then.) If you have other questions or comments, you can e-mail me or leave comments or tweet angrily at me or what have you, I’ll try to answer them when I can.
Thanks for reading, thanks for the patience and support, and we’ll be back hopefully sooner than later.
- Carl and Ginger’s Bread
