Panel One: The Food Court at Caesar’s Palace
Panel Two: Lion Exhibit at MGM Grand
Panel Three: Outside Bellagio, watching the water fountains…the real one is much more spectacular than I can reproduce.

Second, Sorry I failed at keeping my promise of ‘two plus pages a week’…that’s gone. Sorry. I’m pretty much in Defcon 5, which basically means ‘I’m going to get a page up every week. I hope’.

This was the first time in a MONTH that I’ve felt good about getting this comic done. Luckily this is the last of the huge panels…well…one more next week, but we’re going back to ‘normal’ grouping of fewer people in each panel, but each panel is more focused.

I’m still keeping the fewer panel layout though…it’s so much nicer. And I feel better working on it. This whole page has been great. In fact, this whole week has been prettying effing good, actually. Things are looking up, schools tapering off, and I’m feeling fine.

I still need to get more work. But I’m no longer desperate.

I’m not going to make any stupid promises that I doubt I can keep, but I know one thing for certian, I still love this comic and it’s not ending anytime soon. I keep saying that like I’m trying to convince myself, but I mean it. Pages like this remind me why I love this hobby and why I want to keep doing it. I mean, this was just such a fun page to work on. My goal is to find a way to make each and every page this much fun. It’s trickey, but if I’m not challenged I just don’t care. So I’m going to do my best to work harder and harder to get better.

Starting with hands. Seriously. They’re getting better (remember when they were basically hooks?), but I still need lots of work. So I’m going to practice, and work, and have fun. Because I do this to relax, and lately I haven’t been.

So, one page a week, lots of love put into each page, lots of love put into the scripts. That’s my new goal, and promise to each of you.

And when June hits and I’m free for Three whole months? Well…I promise to get a huge effing buffer and start putting out more pages a week. How many? My goal is three. That’s all. I don’t want to burn out. If I can get a good, solid, buffer, we’re going back to three a week and I hope to beable to sustain that well into next semester.

But right now. One a week.

-Peace

I forget, more than I care to have done.

Remember when I used to religiously update three days a week?

Neither do I.

It seems like every few days something else is kicking my ass. Take right now: I’m barely able to sit down and do this. Don’t know why. But it’s taking every fiber of my being to not just say @#$% it and walk away.

I don’t know why.

I still love doing this comic, but it seems like it’s gradually slipped to the low end of my priorities. I have no explanation for it, but it has. Simply put I’ve got three jobs right now: School, school work, and substitute teaching. Then I’ve got the comic. And the comic is basically a 20+ hour a week job.

You may not think so, but I manage the site (no small task), write (nearly done with this arc’s strips), work on background sets (seriously, I love sketch-up, but @#$% the un-user friendlyness), and I haven’t even STARTED talking about the drawing, inking, coloring, shading, lettering, and other miscellaneous crap that getting one of these pages done entails.

Throw in the fact that I haven’t been happy with my method in a LONG time I’m starting to get discouraged.

I’m not saying that I’m going to end the comic. Or that I’m even thinking about it. But I’m going to try something out.

Basically: I’m going to start updating multiple pages once a week. I’m also scaling down the number of panels, it’s hard to explain, but I’m trying to make each comic page look more like a comic and less like one big @#$%ing newspaper strip.

I’ll have visual aids on Thursday. I think. I’ll let you know.

My hope is to update every Tuesday with 2-4 pages. Which evens out to about 2-3 ‘regular’ comics a week.

I don’t know if this will work. I don’t know if I’ll be able to do this. I don’t know if Tuesdays will work (maybe Fridays, maybe Mondays).

This is a total experiment.

Basically what I’m saying is:

I’m one man doing six jobs. I’d love to be able to hire someone to take over the art duties for me but I make less than minimum wage and The PKF just isn’t popular enough to financially support me let alone an artist.

But the second I win the loto I’m going to pay someone to draw for me.

But I digress.

I’m going to start updating once a week but with a larger, more ‘issue’ oriented page count. Basically I’m going to have 2-4 pages with a panel count of 1-2 pages (9-12 panels, give or take).

This is an experiment, if it doesn’t please you, let me know, I want to hear about it.

Thanks for sticking with me, once I start to get into a groove, life will be sweet. Until then, hold on to your socks.

-Peace

But who cares? It’s not like you’ll ever see this guy in the comic. Right? Or will you?

Dun dun dun…

No, seriously, you probably wont. Guardians is like Hunter, it exists in the same world as The PKF, but they’ll likely never cross over. And if they do there’ll be a good reason for it.

But really, don’t stress him. I’ve just had the worst urge to draw him since I saw Ninja Assassin a few nights ago (cheap theater, second time), that’s really the only reason he’s standing here right now. He’s kind of a ninja. But not in the Naruto way, in the ‘I’m gonna kill the crap out of you’ way.

Also, I made a wallpaper out of him to say ‘thank you’ for putting up with my shit. If all goes well I’ll have the start of the next chapter on Tuesday, with a rather large announcement about the direction that the comic is going. No, I’m not ending it, just reorganizing it…again.

But it’s not horrible. The quality should go up. ‘Should’ being the key word.

Anyhow, thanks for the best wishes yesterday. I got a new task chair, my old one’s back broke off and trying to draw on what is basically a stool sucked.

-Peace

So my two week vacation became a month. Sorry. But life got…odd

Yes, I have cancer. It’s some kind of melanoma (that’s the kind that sucks, fyi). But I won’t know more until Wednesday when I see a dermatologist. I know I should me more freaked out than I am, but I’m not. I can’t explain it. But I’m really not.

I’ll be fine. I’ll live. So help me god I’ll live. This is just one more story to tell people when I get old (so this one time I had cancer…*insert punchline I haven’t thought of here*). I’ve got many more good years of comickery in me yet, ladies and gentlemen.

Don’t you worry.

But if I go on Chemo expect sporadic updates, just a fair warning.

———————-

The Comic!!

This is easily, the worst of my pre-arc buffer. I promise. I’ve had this joke in my head in some way since Book One and I had to get it out. So here it is.

I’ve also come to the conclusion that I’m a better artist that I give myself credit for…trust me, when you see next Monday’s comic, you’ll understand. I don’t want to start going into too much detail, but I feel like I need to spend more time on each comic (no, that’s not code for ‘here come’s one day a week updates’, don’t worry). I haven’t decided how best to handle this revelation yet, but I’m debating. I’d like to continue on my way with twice a week, but I’m debating a ‘twice a week whenever it’s finished’ mentality. I don’t know. I have a buffer at the moment (small, but hopefully growing), so that should be a while off, but I need to do this comic right.

And right now I don’t feel like I have been. There are too many pages I look back at and go ‘Jesus…I could have done that better’. So I’m debating what that means…I’ll let you know when I figure it out.

———————-

Also, fair warning, if I don’t get a concrete design for next chapter’s villain soon there might be another delay. Right now I’ve got the face (more than half the battle) but I can’t figure out how I want his body to look. Nor do I have his weapon totally figured out.

This arc is too important to mess with. I need everything as perfect as I can get it otherwise It’ll just fall flat on it’s face.

I can’t let that happen. This is a precursor to the end of this book, and that HAS to be perfect because that’s a precursor to everything that happens in The PKF after this. I can’t keep stumbling into arcs like I have been. They need to be more concrete before I even draw the first page.

Ok. I’ve rambled. I’m going. But I’m back. Don’t worry.

I’m back.

-Peace

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