Welcome to The Utopian Foundation! While we’re here on hiatus between volumes, I figured it would be good not to “spoil” the ending of the first volume by just having the last strip sitting out here as the first thing people see, so here’s a friendly reminder that if you’d like to read all 176 Utopian Foundation strips in a lovely, square-bound edition that you can take on airplanes, to coffee shops, or in the bathroom, you can buy it here.

I will be appearing all day inside the dealer’s room (I think?) at the Los Angeles Comic Book & Science Fiction Convention this Sunday, Aug. 12. I’ve never attended or exhibited at this event before, but figured I’d try something new, and it’s only about an hour commute from where I live, so why not? The big attraction is that Tom Welling and Michael Rosenbaum, a.k.a. Clark Kent and Lex Luthor from Smallville, will be there taking photos and signing autographs. So, if that’s your thing, you could come to The Reef (1933 S. Broadway, Los Angeles) from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., pay (?!) for a Kryptonian autograph, and then stop by my table for high fives. Or to pick up one of the myriad Pop! Goes the Icon comics and trades I’ll have available for sale–including both volumes of The Utopian, duh.

Speaking of which, if you have purchased/read/enjoyed the latest volume of The Utopian (a.k.a. Foundation), please consider leaving a review at Amazon.com. It, like, helps or something.

Thanks and maybe I’ll see your faces on Sunday?

“But, Pj,” you might be asking, “Why would I buy a collection of the same comics I could read here for free?” Well, I have some reasons:

1. Maybe you’d like to share what you’ve read here with someone who’s less likely to read a webcomic, and more likely to read a graphic novel.
2. Maybe you just can’t wait to read the five bonus pages of annotations that reveal the secrets behind each page.
3. Maybe you have a hole on your bookshelf that can only be filled by the neon pink cover crafted by yours truly with colorist Jason Lewis.
4. Or, maybe, just maybe, you’d like to help support this free webcomic by, um, paying for it? It’s like listening to NPR: It’s always free to listen, but becoming a member makes the listening guilt free.

Anyway, so yeah, you can preorder The Utopian, Vol. 2: Foundation from the Pop! Goes the Icon website right now and it’ll be shipped to you on or around July 17. (It’s also available at Amazon.com if you’re one of those kind of people. I am. Sigh.)

Well, as you might have guessed by the ending caption there, this is the last Utopian Foundation strip … MAYBE. It’s interesting timing–and totally unplanned–because today is basically the nine-year anniversary of The Utopian webcomic (which first debuted online April 15, 2009).

As mentioned last week, The Utopian going on hiatus for just a little while, while I get a few other creative/comic projects launched/underway/etc. One of those projects is the trade paperback collection of THIS webcomic, which I’ve mentioned several times before. I debuted a limited edition at Emerald City Comic Con last month, with the intention of releasing the book officially this week, but it’s probably going to be more like May or June for the official release of The Utopian Foundation trade. I should have a confirmed date on that soon, hopefully by the end of this week.

However, I’m making the remainder of the ECCC copies available for sale in my Etsy shop. And I’ve created a special discount for you loyal readers: Use the code UTOP02ECCC or just follow this link and you’ll get 25% off the $19.99 cover price. (Bonus: I’m making the discount code good for any of the comics in my shop, in case you wanted to grab anything else while you’re there.) This is only good until May 15 or until supplies run out. This version of the book (with the golden cover seen below) will never appear in print again!

A side effect of spending so much time with this comic during the process of preparing it for print and distribution is revisiting every single strip and all of the characters and, I guess, falling in love with this world again. It’s weird, because the in first iteration of The Utopian that preceded “Foundation,” the supporting cast was almost incidental, mostly one-dimension characters designed to move the plot forward. I didn’t expect them to grow into living, breathing characters or spawn a world in which I’d still have interest almost a decade later.

Anyway, all that is to say, if you still have interest in these people and their world, there’s more coming. And if you really like what you’ve read in this comic, I hope you’ll stick around for what’s to come. Thank you for your support thus far!

And we continue our whirlwind tour of The Utopian cast dealing with the aftermath of the gala’s sideways turn to tragedy. And, so none of you are taken by surprise, we’re also approaching a hiatus following next Monday’s strip.

I know, I know–we just got our momentum back, at least as far as the posting schedule. But as you can tell, we’re nearing the end of a major story arc–one which has been in the works for six years. These strips are all new to you, but for me, I’ve been mentally done with them for a long time (and, thanks to some help, physically done with them for several months).

I have a whole new set of stories for these characters and this universe lined up, but first I have to wrap things up with the current storyline, finish publishing the print collection of these first 176 strips, and get a few other projects out the door. Then it’s back here.

But we can chat about that more next week. Hope to see you there!

Shout-out to Ali Cooney-Uribe for the assist with the colors on today’s strip.

Somewhere in my original outline for this scene, there was supposed to be a little kiss happening here. But you know how much I love to keep the relationships between characters in this comic in that gray area between platonic and romantic. Like Ross and Rachel!

Thanks for the exposition, Mrs. Aguila!

Yeah, we’re checking in on everyone in our cast post-gala. You got a problem with that?

Was anyone else wondering what happened to Principal Praglin in the main stage explosion? I sure was…

(Another Ali Cooney-Uribe assist with the colors on today’s strip!)

I don’t usually put a whole lot of thought into the titles of these comics (because each individual strip is really just part of a whole, right?), but I did wrestle over this one for a while, but ultimately, it kept coming back to #blacklivesmatter, because, well, it was the entire movement that inspired this scene and the sequence of events that led to it, so … here we are.

In totally unrelated news, I came back from Emerald City Comic Con with the worst case of “con crud” I’ve ever experienced (OK, the only case, but it’s … baaaad). “Con crud” is the generic term those of us in the comic world refer to as cold/flu developed immediately after spending a number of days at a comic book convention, usually as a result of being exposed to a whole lot of strange germs in an enclosed space and a bunch of people who, I’m sorry to say, have widely varying levels of hygienic responsibility. (To be fair, it probably is also made worse by the exposure to airports, public transportation, different climates, etc.)

What started as a minor cough on Monday turned into a fever and chills by Tuesday, which continued to kick my butt into the next weekend. I was pretty useless most of the week, which was not very helpful at the day job, where we’re in the mission-critical stage of a massive project for which I’m supposed to be the go-to guy. Wracked nerves probably did not help with recovery. But the weird fever/chills/fatigue stuff leveled out by Saturday, and today (Sunday) I was feeling at least good enough to work from my couch all day, walk my dogs, and eat a few meals (or try to). I have a yucky cough and sinus congestion, but I can deal with that.

Anyway, due to all of the above, I still have yet to do a proper decompression/debriefing from ECCC. The next 10 days is going to be nuts due to the aforementioned work stuff, which gives me one more reason to be thankful that I have a cache of new strips done and ready to schedule (thanks, again, in part to Ali Cooney-Uribe, who did the color flats for today’s strip).

I needed a minute to catch my breath, not literally, of course, but because I spent the last six or so days in Seattle prepping for, exhibiting at, and decompressing from, Emerald City Comic Con. It was four days that felt really long while they were happening, but in retrospect, went by incredibly quickly. I’ll get more into the specifics in a future post (either here or at my personal blog), but one of the great things that seems to always come out of doing a comic book convention is getting inspired to create more stuff. I concocted and refined a lot of ideas over the last week, and now all I have to do is bring them to life! Easy, right?