Clattertron

[dc]T[/dc]here’s some changes coming. The big one is, Stephanie and I are (finally) moving into our new house in a couple of weeks. We closed on the house in mid-May, but spent the time after that painting and fixing things.

With the real move upon us, I decided to take August off from publishing comics. Comics will return in September.

The move will be a very draining experience, what with packing, moving everything (we hired movers though), unpacking, and getting our lives up and running again. Plus, getting the cats used to a house will be an adventure as well (see: stairs and hardwood floors).

To say the stretch of time since closing on the house in May has been stressful is an understatement. It’s been a rough road these past few months: spending all of our free time working on the house and packing, leaving little time for anything else. It affected plenty of things in my life, especially my output here.

I decided I needed to only focus on moving, and house things, for the short-term. This also means I canceled my appearance at the Michigan Comic Book Expo on August 6. I hated to do it, but our actual moving date landed right by the day of the show. (However, I am still attending Capital City Comic Con on August 27)

Regarding other changes, please note I said I would take August off from publishing comics. This doesn’t mean I won’t be working on comics (I will still write blog posts too, I’m sure). I’m going to use this “time off” to rethink my comics and what I want to do, and maybe shake things up.

I’m interested in giving serial, longer form comics a try. Stepping away from my usual ‘gag-a-day’ style and going more for character driven humor and stories. What this would actually look like, I’m not sure, but I’m kicking around a few ideas, and the time off will help me flesh things out a bit—or make me realize it won’t work.

When in doubt, I look at the content I’m enjoying. I’ve been reading a lot of long form comics (like Drive, Scary Go Round/Bad Machinery, He Is a Good Boy, and Back to name a few), enjoying cartoons with on-going stories (Steven Universe, Gravity Falls), and even serial podcasts (like The Adventure Zone, although interesting enough, not Serial).

Now, I’m not planning a 100-part epic or something. If anything, smaller stories, but maybe part of something bigger when viewed as a whole. We’ll see, as I said I still need to brainstorm this out.

After a little over four years, I think it’s time to experiment a bit and see where things go.