Obviously, things are not cranking like they used to. It’s been, what, 3 months since my last update? I’m no less interested in making the comic, but it’s just harder than it used to be. The actual pages are harder… “Yes, let’s do a huge set piece in a riot, at night, with a bunch of weird light sources and special effects, that’s a good choice”… but it’s harder to sit down to make them, too. I’ve been wondering why that is. I’ll be honest, I’m tired all the time now. I don’t know if it’s work stress or what. I definitely need to be more active, but for whatever reason, I feel drained, and that’s not a headspace where you’re like “Let’s draw for 4 hours!” Also, I think I have to face facts and admit that the dumb way I draw has a lot to do with my frequent back pain. I don’t think it’s a coincidence I’ve been feeling a lot better this year, when I’ve barely produced any pages. So, you know. Intellectually spent, tired, and worried that drawing physically injures me, plus the hardest comics pages I’ve ever attempted to make… that’ll do it, I think. That will slow your progress to nothing. And there’s the constant, looming spectre of journal comics. I’m about to go out of town for awhile. It took me months to get caught up last time I did that (Right after the last update, not-at-all-coincidentally). Feel like I gotta do those before I do this, don’t often want to do those. It’s a confluence of circumstances.
And yet, having said all that, I also kinda feel like I’m back? I’m more engaged with dailies than I’ve been in ages. I really enjoyed making this week’s page. Drawing is, after all, fun, once you get past all the extraneous stuff. And as much as I’ve been kinda dreading these chaos pages, doing one (and prepping 2 others at the same time) has kinda made me think, “Oh, I can actually do this.” I’m not going to say “Expect more frequent updates” because I’m about to throw my journal comics out of whack, but you got this page, and I took a break from working on the next one to type this. I may not be back on schedule, but I feel like I’m back to… wanting to be. Baby steps, yeah? Baby steps. Let’s see if we can see what happens to our intrepid gang in the midst of this madness.