The Far Side of Utopia

I will try to keep this not too long – I say try to avoid blatant lying, since those that are here are already aware that my idea of a memo requires a table of contents to navigate.

Update Schedule and Future Consistency:

As I’ve mentioned in passing, I’m starting a new full time job soon. Next week, in fact. The comic was never my primary job, so it’s not a matter of replacing my comic hours with the new job, and thus I anticipate the comic will continue to update like normal. Sort of. Ultimately my historic job during the time frame of this comic has been one of self-employment; while, to be honest, I usually worked more than forty hours a week toward it, it was ultimately more flexible and the comic was generally the most important deadline I had. This is why, besides a few times I ended up getting surgery’d on and things, it didn’t miss updates.

Moving forward, it will move from a part of my ‘job’ to a hobby. My favorite and most time consuming hobby, mind you, but ultimately it will no longer have the deadline priority.

All this is to say that late or missed updates may be a thing, and I apologize in advance for that. I also removed the 4 update a week goal from Patreon (though we were never close to that, obviously 😛 ); as realistically that’s not possible in the short term anymore. I will come up with more rewards and goals for Patreon soon, so stay tuned for some improvements and revamps.

Lastly, there is, unfortunately, the distinct possibility that the schedule could move to twice a week. I will keep you posted on this, and it is my goal to avoid that.

Patreon and Donations:

First let me say that I’m deeply appreciative to all those that have chosen to donate to the comic so far. You’ve helped keep this a central part of my job, and perhaps above all, really made me happy that it was something people wanted to support.

My decision with this is I’ve decided to keep the Patreon and remove the donation button; this may be a strange decision as I made far more from donations that I do on Patreon, but there is a method to this madness. There are, in fact, two methods to this madness.

The first is I’m a lot more comfortable with Patreon as a value-added system; hopefully Patreon’s get at least a small something from Patreon (and I will focus on improving this), and have the direct feeling they are helping build something – hitting goal tiers and the like. It’s a system where everyone wins – obviously the supporters are usually doing so out of kindness and fondness for the product they are supporting – something that is deeply appreciated by creators such as myself – but they also have some semblance of value to their investment (which is why I personally am a pretty big fan of Patreon as a system).

Second, Patreon is sort of the future of a comic; while donations may have made more in the short term, it’s virtually impossible make business decisions based on donations (decisions like how to invest my time, to bringing collaborating artists, etc); some months I made a few hundred in donations… some months I made $5 (okay… it’s been awhile since that, but you get the point).

I understand that many one time donors aren’t interested in Patreon’s monthly billing system, and I totally understand; I deeply appreciate any and all support given so far.

Lastly, a revamp and improvement to Patreon goals and rewards is coming. Ultimately I’m okay with the comic going a little more value-neutral in the short time to invest more in the long term of it now, which can lead to decisions I was less able to make when the comic had to represent a portion of my income.

The Don’t Worry Too Much Promise:

I can tell since most of you have seen at least one webcomic go belly up when the creator walks away that some of you are now paranoid I’ll leave the story hanging. I’ve said before, but that’s not going to happen – not because I absolutely guarantee that I’ll have time personally to keep doing, but that I will hire and artist to continue it with me just doing the writing if I have to; there are several points I could end the story in the far future – to be frank, I intend to go past all of them – but I likely won’t get to the first one for years, and I certainly won’t end it before then. Quantity of updates may decrease, but won’t get less then weekly at the bare minimum (which is where I would almost certainly look into replacing myself as the artist).