I’d like to apologize for the really miserable state of updates the last 2 months. And really, all this year. I’ve been trying so hard to bring this season to a close the way I want to, but the truth is that after being out of town for work (conventions and other stuff) so much this year I have just completely burned out. Or rather, I’m several years past burned out at this point. I don’t even remember what its like to not be fried. This doesn’t mean I don’t like working on the comic. I love it. But I’m so tired, all the time. In the last two months since I got back from our trip across the country, and specifically in the almost 4 weeks, I’ve been struggling to sleep, struggling to get to work and struggling to get anything done at all. Its been bad. Depression has certainly been part of it, but more than anything I’m just exhausted. And the result has been very slow updates. I think I’ve only updated one strip a week for the last month. Which sucks.
The good news is that things in my life are slowing down. I don’t have to travel as much, and the conventions I have left are small casual ones here in town. Nick and I are going to the Portland Retro Gaming Expo this coming weekend, and I plan on taking the bus each day. Its about a 25 minute ride. I’ll get lunch at my favorite sandwich shop on the way.
My hope is that I can take a deep breath as I end this season and move into the next. I’ll be doing less Yeld work, and less conventions (and none out of town). I’m looking forward to working on more Medusa stuff, and some other comic projects. As busy as I’ve been this year (this decade), I’ve done very little art at all except for my strips. My Yeld art output has been minimal. I miss being creative. I’ve been really pleased with this season of Modest Medusa, but I also feel tense and drained. I have very little left. But unfortunately…
The bad news is my financial situation is about as poor as ever. I’m at the point where I can barely pay bills, and I am very worried about losing my studio space (which costs about $700/month). Which means I’d have no where to work, since I have 0 space or capability to work at home. Since Patreon support (which I really appreciate, thank you all) hasn’t grown in several years (and in fact never recovered from the almost 70% drop during the pandemic) and book sales have been flat (since my first and 2nd books are more or less out of print) I’ll be spending more time doing freelance work and commissions to pay my basic bills. That’s not great. My hope is that I can get away with just doing this extra work one day a week. I’d like to be spending that day doing anything else, but that’s just not how things are going.
So that’s the state of things this Fall. I’m hoping things will get better. Thank you al for sticking around. I think you’ll like the next season of the comic. Its a beach episode.
It makes me wonder how much of her arm has grown back by the time she meets Modest again, or if that was just empty armor.
She looked at her hand while talking about how Yeld’s changed her. I wonder if Marah’s new arm is the right color.
We’ll see next time we have a Marah season.
Just how far ahead have you started to plan it all, Jake?!
At this point? 10ish years?
Or even if it’ll be a regular human arm.
If it grows back but is armored all the time she’s going to have the opposite of a farmers tan. This will either be unimportant but draw a lot of attention or be a Tolkien like, “this dagger we found in a cave’s origin story” pays off two books down the line level important that no one notices.
Makes me wonder if it just affects the arm or if she now slowly regenerate any injury that doesn’t kill her, even if it was fine at the time the prayer was applied.
Its just the arm.
Jake, please don’t ever feel the need to apologise for the rate at which you produce comics. I can only speak personally but I value slowly enjoying something that’s been produced at a comfortable pace far more than binging the product of an artist suffering to work quickly.
I appreciate that. Thank you.
Part of it is that I feel like I let myself down. Making comics is all I’ve ever wanted to do, and delays like this are disappointing and frustrating.
I also feel like I let my readers down. The deal we have is that I produce strips every week, and you all show up to read them. I know that it can be disappointing to show up and see a “Late again?”, or nothing at all. I also know that it just doesn’t take much for people to stop reading a comic. Its usually not even a decision. Readers just get out of the habit, and missing updates fosters that.
I met a lot of readers while i was traveling to cons this year, and the #1` thing I heard was “I used to read your comic, but I stopped. Sorry.” And I understand that, of course. But every time I miss an update I know that people are leaving.
There’s nothing really I can say, except for “I’ll understand if you officially decide to work at a slower pace”, “I hope life gets easier for you soon” and “I hope readers come back”…
Thank you. I really appreciate it.
This could not possibly be because you occasionally miss one post out of whooping three per week!
Maybe they simply lost interest and could not say it in your face.
LFGcomic was once interesting, and he went all out, posting up to 5 comics per week. And I lost it because it was just not entertaining.
No, no. Of course. People lose interest, and they do tell me. No one is shy about that, believe me! But losing interest isn’t always the same as not wanting to read the comic anymore. Its really common for peopek to pop up here and say they haven’t read the comic for a few years, but they came back and caught up.
And of course, there are people who do just decide they don’t like the comic anymore.
But what I mostly hear is that people just fell off because of life. They missed a few strips and got out of the habit. Thats a really common thing with webcomics. So the trick is making sure that doesn’t happen. And if you do webcomic is you know that the best way to ensure this is to keep to your regular schedule.
Oh! that. Right.
Well, one way to make catching up a bit more entertaining is to remove all those “late again?” strips, they king of ruin the flow…
That’s true.
I have been (very) slowly working on a update that will clean up those and some of the other problems with the site.
Looks like she’s getting the Jord the blacksmith treatment on that arm.
I’m not sure if this will be useful or not. I’ve been in a financial crisis for a while, so I can’t help on that one.
There’s another comic, Sluggy Freelance, where the author does his subscriptions a little differently. It looks like it works. I don’t know his backend workings.
Anyway. His support is per comic. People become a “Defender” of his comic and pay a support level donation from between $0.50 to $12 for each strip he posts. Each support tier also gets something else as a small bonus, like high-quality/ bigger size archives, all the way to signing any books you buy.
It’s always looked more tangible to me. Like you know if the artist is struggling from burnout one month and only posts three comics, you’re donating for those three comics. If they’re feeling better, you donate more for the (making up number here) ten strips they produce that month.
Again, I don’t know if this is useful. I’m also not sure if he uses a service or ended up doing it custom.
Thats interesting. I’ll consider that. I’ve kept the same model for years because i thought it was easy for readers, but maybe I should reevaluate that? Thanks for the input!
And I’m sorry to hear you’re also in financial crisis. It seems like thats more and more common.
So she’s part Namekian now? Cause if we’re in DBZ world they could just summon Shenlong and have him fix it lickety split!
I’m glad she’s too young to have heard of Götz of the Iron Hand!
Yeah, I doubt she would have. But reading about Gotz was one of my primary inspirations for wahat happened to her.
Hey Jake! This is my first comment here, and I’ve followed since, I THINK, 2012?
Point is, I love the comic and the world in it. And the characters. It’s a weekly joy of mine (Usually check every wednesday to have 1 or more to read at a time)
And man, ya gotta take care of yourself! You’ve been doing this a long time, longer than a LOT of people can say they can! If you need to take a break here and there, that’s just normal! People go on vacations from work after all!
I’ll still be here weekly to check in, and if there’s nothing new? Well, there’s always next week :>
Thanks for being here so long. I really appreciate it!