Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time.

So this is something I’ve been wanting to write for a really long time. I’ve been putting it off for a number of reasons, not least of which is that I still haven’t come up with a decent solution that I feel I can live with, and that won’t upset or anger anyone who has supported me in the past.

Every now and then I’ll get a concerned e-mail or a curious message through Tumblr, Twitter, or a comment directly to the comic’s website, asking what’s up, if I’ll ever continue this project, and sharing their memories of reading new content and following along with me in this weird little horror-fantasy adventure. I have a hard time responding to these messages because, honestly, I don’t know what to say.

I’ve told myself that I haven’t given up on this story. That one day, when I have the time, I’ll get back to it. But there are some realities that I really need to face:

1: I wrote this story when I was 18, and I began posting online during one of the darkest points of my life. The first Awakened story was written for NaNoWriMo when I was a teenager, and I worked it into comic format and began posting online in 2006, not long after I tried to take my own life. A lot has changed. I’m in my mid-thirties now and I’m a very different person. The experiences and goals and worldviews of my 18 and 21-year-old selves differ wildly from the person I am today. The stories a conflicted and confused teenager wants to tell are not the stories a (mostly well-adjusted??) 30-something person wants to tell. I find it difficult to relate to this story now. I am compelled to, at the very least, give it a very significant overhaul to reflect my own personal growth as a storyteller and artist, and incorporate a more mature understanding of the world and its diversity. But this wouldn’t be the first time The Awakened has undergone an overhaul to try and make it work with my own changing world. Will one final re-write now that I’ve settled into my adult life make this comic work again? Maybe. Will it still be the same story my readers were interested in a decade ago? Maybe not.

2: I have numerous new ideas for comics. And I have held them back for years because I feel so guilty for leaving readers hanging with The Awakened. How can I post new comics when people are still sending me kind messages, waiting patiently for this old story to continue? My passion has always been storytelling, and comics are still my favourite medium. It’s been painfully hard limiting my personal creative pursuits to convention art and tabletop games with friends. I badly want to create comics again.

The Awakened is still my homepage. I see it every single day when I turn on my computer and open my browser. I want something to happen with it, one way or another. I’ve even tried to rewrite it when ideas come to mind. I’ve redrawn some of the characters as I rework their backgrounds:

More than anything I just want to tell stories again.

So this post is a mix of letting you know where I’m at, asking for feedback, and seeking out a sort of blessing to go forth and create again.

Would you be content with an entirely re-worked Awakened story? Or would you be okay with letting it rest as a young artist’s early storytelling attempt, paving the path for something else?

Apologies for the length of this post, and for getting kind of personal. I know a large part of my Tumblr following hasn’t read this comic and knows nothing about it, in which case IGNORE ME! For everyone else, thank you for reading and thank you for your understanding/feedback. If you contacted me over the last while about the comic and I didn’t respond, I’m sorry, your message was set onto the “I’ll answer this as soon as I think of a good reply” anxiety pile. But I hope this helps.

When I ended my first comic, Today Nothing Happened, even though I like, officially ended it, announced it was ending and gave it a proper send off, I still got people for years afterwards asking me if I would ever “consider picking it back up again.” But the truth is that even though I did love that comic, once I moved on from it, I was happier, and able to make work I was excited about – and I did lose some folks who didn’t care for the new story’s genre, but I also found lots of people who were just as excited about my new work. 

A lot of times I think that readers will have something they really do believe they want, but they’re working off incomplete information – it’s only based on what they’re able to see. They see the comics you made before and go “yes, that’s what I want, it’s okay if it’s slower, it’s okay if it’s reworked, I want the thing I was getting before.” But what they really want is for you to be invested again, and my dude, that’s not possible sometimes!! And I think if you try to keep going with what your audience wants the most, that can hurt the work and your own confidence a lot, because suddenly it’s not You Telling Your Story like it was before – it’s You Guessing What Story Your Audience Might Be Looking For, and that’s never a road to compelling narrative.

I agree with you a lot that sometimes you cannot tell a story anymore – like writing a song for yourself and years later finding that your voice has changed and it’s not something you can sing anymore. People might want that song, but you literally can’t make it. I really believe that stories have expiration dates.

You could rewrite The Awakened to be a comic you’re able to make but like, at that point, it’s a completely different new thing – so why not pick the new thing you most want to actually do? Webcomics are gruelling, man!! If it’s not something you really truly like… have to get out of your brain and bring into the world, it’s hard to stay motivated. And if that turns out to be a rewrite of The Awakened – COOL! and if not??? PLEASE FEEL FREE TO MAKE THAT OTHER THING!

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And I’m just generally floored by everyone’s replies, public and private. It’s like a dam has been released. I spent all of yesterday working on stories like I haven’t in years and it felt really great. 8D

I’m opening up commissions for the first time in ages as I’m between animation/board contracts right at the moment (I start a new job very soon but have been off for almost a month), and my little Auger is going in for a tumour removal surgery tomorrow. The cost is steep as heck so any money at all coming in right now would be super awesome!

If you’re interested in having a character drawn (OC, fan, human, critter, anthro, what-have-you), drop me an e-mail with some ref and a personality description and I’ll get on it! :)

Unfortunately, the night before, I found a second lump on her. The vet very skillfully removed both, but it meant the surgery was more costly.

So if you know anyone who might like a lineart commission, I’d appreciate it! Money is going to be very tight for a little while.