These things I have not done:

1) Delivered the promised post on Starslip Crisis the weekend I proclaimed I would… or anytime within the next month, or even the month after that. Or, in the end, at all.  

2) Followed through on my claim from the month before that, even in the absence of proper content, I would post at least one brief update each week to keep the blog from vanishing into the dreaded indefinite hiatus. As, in fact, it did.

3) Live up to my goal to, if nothing else, keep open a line of communication with my readers, since I have always proclaimed that while constant and regular updates are nice, they are not the most important thing, which is to keep readers informed on when updates would be… and when they would not be. As, of course, I have failed to do.

I’m not altogether pleased with my failings in this matter, and I’m sure my readers are even less so. and while it is a disappointment that I’ve fallen behind in not just my writing here, but all my writing and creative work in general, it is even more of a disappointment that I retreated into absolutely silence, rather than even given an indication that posting was likely to be absent for a while. That has always bothered me when I’ve see it done, and now I find myself just as guilty. I can offer little explanation nor can I give a guaranteed date when my posts will return to their former abundance.

All I can say is this: I resolve to do better in the year to come.

That said, let me also try to answer some of the questions sent my way during the downtime:

Have I been ill/dying/dead/suffering amnesia on a desert island?

No, I can’t say I have. 

No major illnesses have struck me down during my absence, though I have been plagued by a thousand petty annoyances and frustrations, each one more bothersome than the last. I have a particularly amusing story to tell about how the very medicine I was taking to combat one afflication did, itself, traumatize me even further – and when I solved that problem by cutting back the dosage, and decided to compensate by increasing my fruit intake as a home remedy for the original problem, I thus discovered that, as a matter of fact, I’m allergic to a wide variety of fruit.

So that was fun.

I fnd myself taking drugs for blood pressure, which has always been a danger in my family. I find myself being warned about cholesteral and other elements of my diet in need of fixing, and so I have been working on eating healthy and adding more exercise to my schedule, even as my responsibilities at work grow ever more hectic – which, I suspect, is not exactly helpful for any blood pressure concerns.

Yet I am, by any genuine standard, healthy. Allergies and diet concerns and the hustle and bustle of life are no more than the norm, challenges intrisic to the walk of life, and I am threatened by solely these such minor vexations, which merit only the complaint I have given them thus far, and nothing more.

Have I lost interest in the ways of comics?

No… and yes.

On the whole my interest remains. And in many ways, I am pleased to say, the comics that stand out are the ones that excel and continue to surprise, with brilliant plots and gorgeous art and characters I feel genuinely connected to, rather than frustrations over comics that have failed to live up to their promise or proven a disappointment in some way. Which is a good thing, since that was the original goal of this blog – to focus on the accomplishments, and recognize work done well.

Yet… in my webcomic queue on Piperka, I’ve got well over 2,000 updates floating in wait. Oh, the majority of those are from a few dozen comics I’ve fallen behind on over the last few months… but it has become a trend. Many comics I’ve always followed because they were “good enough” for me… are no longer. I’m willing to follow the best of the pack, but I don’t have the time or motivation any longer to keep track of the rest – let alone to go hunting through new ones. To all the many souls who have sent me comics for review: I appreciate the sentiment, and would certainly love to take a look at all the ones presented to me, but I’ll tell you know – don’t hold your breath.

And unfortunately, as my reading list does drift towards focus on a smaller section of quality comics… it also means it is focused on comics I have reviewed before, and talked about all that there is to talk about, so long as they keep the quality at the same level of excellence. Simply writing a post to say, “Hey, this update was just as awesome as all the rest!”… well, it only goes so far.

In spite of this, I do have things to talk about. In the last few months, I’ve seen several of my favorite comics come to an end, and some came to an expected conclusion in a satisfying fashion… while others simply stopped. Webcomics has had the usual share of drama, and somewhat more than the usual share of theories on how to make a living from it – and while many of these discussions are over, they are sure to crop up again, as they always inevitably do.

So in summary – yes, I plan to continue writing. I’d like to say I hope to get regular posts started back up within a week or two. (Likely the ‘two’, as I am largely without internet access in the upcoming week.) And I’d like to say that I do have a wide variety of topics on which I’d like to share my thoughts in the usual rambling fashion. But given my past few posts, I think any specific promises of content may well be met with disbelief… so I’ll simply say that is the plan, and let the future bring what it may.