Out-of-Placers

Here it is, the answer to the mysterious question that just keeps getting asked, answered by someone who probably knows way too much on the subject.

 

Sorry about the wait! Lotta stuff happened, so I had to do stuff so there wouldn’t be too much stuff anymore. This might happen sometimes, but I’ve never once considered going on an official hiatus or anything; there’s so much of this story that I want to share, and I always get antsy when it’s been a while since a new page got posted.

This seems like as good a time as any to share, so listen up!

I started this comic under the assumption that it would barely ever get any attention, and that I was content with having something to draw to keep myself in the habit, in a way that was fun for me. Obviously, that changed a while ago, and this thing started getting a lot more attention than I ever anticipated. It was only at that point that I thought, “Hey, maybe I should go beyond thinking of this as just a little side hobby, and see where it goes!”

On one hand, the unexpected attention has lit a fire under my ass (in a good way!) and made me put more effort into improving my art style and speeding up the process, and got me to start doing things like commissions, which I never planned on when I started. But on the other, I realize that I just don’t have the free time I need to turn this comic into a full-time thing, with a goal of an update at a scheduled time every week.

At the moment, at least. I’m very close to getting my mountain of student loans paid off, and that alone requires me to spend a good 15-20 hours per work week freelancing to keep those bills paid, and have been slowly checking other things off my “Things that are getting in the way of drawing time” list in the meantime. I still see a good number of things I want to improve in my art style though, and I’d like to bulk up the archives a bit more before going “official” with this comic, and doing stuff like advertising it, or opening a Patreon.

So while there’s a lot of ways this could go in the future, I’m going to keep things around here on a smaller scale, at least until I’m sure I can produce new pages on a steady schedule and such. For now though, I continue to be overwhelmed with all the attention this comic has been getting. After almost 2 solid years of drawing this stuff, I’m still trying to wrap my head around the concept that some people out there really like the story, or the yinglets, or specific characters, etc etc, and want to see more of it. I mean, I know the feeling of finding a story/character/etc that I really get into, but the very idea that the stuff I’m drawing is that, to someone else? Crazy stuff, man.

I honestly hope I never get used to the feeling, because it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside each time I see that someone got a kick out of this story.

So all in all, I started this with no real expectations, got really surprised and motivated by the attention, and while I’m not yet ready to go full-time with this comic, I’m slowly working towards that longer-term goal, and am still thoroughly enjoying myself and sure as hell am not going to stop anytime soon. If a new page doesn’t come out on time, you can safely assume I’m off somewhere getting something done that I’d love to finish so I can get back to drawing ASAP.

 

 

Wow, that was a pretty heartfelt message for text below a comic about scav humpin’.