This page was waiting for me when I got home from vacation, a week ago. I didn’t finish it until the night before it went up. I had this entire week already loosely penciled, just waiting for finishes, scanning, and lettering, which may sound busy, but my loose pencils take as long as the other three steps combined. The hold up was next week. This is the final week of our ‘Monster Makers‘ story, so of course next week is a new story, which is always the hardest part for me. Going into a new story arc, I feel generally confident, say a 7 out of 10.   About halfway in, I start to think things have run too long, I’ve lost the thread of the narrative, how quickly can I wrap this up and not gloss over too many of the important plot points, it’s a 2 out of 10 at that point. Then as the last week starts posting, I’ve generally covered the ground I wanted to, the characters are positioned for where I want them heading into the new story, things are looking up, 5 our of 10.

This time though, I was really lost in the woods. I knew the story of the Frank and the Stone would play out over three arcs, I covered almost all the ground I wanted too, but it’s felt overly long and drawn out. To some extent I feel like I’ve cheated you guys because you show up for a single strip a day and instead of a gripping drama full of vibrancy and life, it’s been a mostly ‘meh’ pitstop. Which is why when I got back into town, knowing I only had one week to get things ready for the next bit, I choked. Second guessed everything I had and started almost completely over.

The new version of this week is stronger than the last version, my new roadmap for the next story is stronger than the old roadmap. Moving foward, I’m double checking, then triple checking to make sure things start, and keep moving at a good pace, instead of constantly falling into the same steady plodding. The next story, whose title I don’t want to reveal yet because I really like it and think it could be a semi-spoiler, will wrap up our time at the Stone for now, and get the Menagerie back on the road where they belong.

And also I’m considering giving up titles for the strip, because I find it hard, frustrating, consistently disappointing, and personally I’d like to see the strips identified by which part of the story they represent.