What's Up? Progress Report, New Ideas, Plans for March (Patreon)

Hello hello! It's time for another News Post! I've been putting this one off a bit because there's a ton to cover, but it's time to get detailed.

I don't have time to cartoonify this one, as I'm writing under a bit of crunch that you'll understand in a bit, but you should definitely imagine that I'm making all kinds of funny faces as I write what you're about to read.

First of all, in case you missed it...

... I added some new tiers to the Patreon a little while ago! I've reorganized the feed into three "channels" based on what kind of content you want to see.

The original tier is now the "SFW channel," where I post the same sort of stuff you're used to. The two new tiers are the "18+ Channel," where I post Drools Cutely content, and the "Everything Channel," which collects posts from the other two channels in one convenient spot. They all cost exactly the same as the original tier, so if you want to make the switch, go for it!

Part 1: So... Comics???

First, I want to say that I'm very happy with how CURSE/KISS/CUTE has been going. This is a project I've been excited about for a long time, and that excitement hasn't faded a bit!

Buuuut... you've probably noticed that these pages just aren't coming as fast as you -- or I -- would like. They've been a bit of a struggle for me to put together, and the reasons why are non-obvious.

See, when I was having trouble with Goodbye to Halos, my rationale was that the problem had to do with scope, expectation, and the impact of one project monopolizing my time when I had other ideas I wanted to experiment with. And those definitely were the main problems!

But with CURSE/KISS/CUTE, I've got a comic project with very limited scope, which I've given myself permission to draw as loosely as I want, and a space of a few months all to its own. And I'm kind of still struggling?

So... what gives?

A week or so ago I finally sat down and worked through everything I was feeling, and my goals and interests as an artist, and I came to the conclusion that the problem might actually be that I'm trying to make a comic in the first place.

I'm going to do something kind of unusual here and just paste a lot of text directly from my diary, because I think it might be useful in understanding my thought process. I've articulated my thoughts here in more depth than you probably need, but hey: this is Patreon, and I figured if there's one place where excessive detail is welcome, this is probably it?

Maybe I don't want to do comics. Maybe I'm in love with the idea of comics, maybe I love reading comics, but maybe they just aren't a good fit for my particular suite of storytelling skills? Comics scratch the drawing itch, but that's just one of my many, many itches. I'm itchier today than I was in 2014; I'm itchier than I've ever, ever been.

Let me appraise my own skills real quick, in descending order:

1. Visual art. I'm good at this one! I should be at least decent; I mean, I've been doing this for how many years? We're way, way past the ten thousand hour mark by now. People pay me to do this!

2. Writing. Probably the thing I've done the most of, though in the least professional capacity. I write all the time, whether or not it's actually on a page. I think the things I'm best at writing are characters -- their dialogue, inner thoughts, conflicts, and interactions -- which form the basis of all my stories. Everything I write is character-driven. Even I'm a character!

3. Songwriting. Still kinda new to this, but I'm at the point where I'm able to write songs with a clarity of purpose and evoke the moods I want to evoke.

4. Coding. This one isn't relevant. Or, like, mainly isn't relevant. I can write a mean Python script, but that doesn't have storytelling applications. I'm definitely not making any games from scratch... probably?

When you look at it this way, comics definitely jump out as a medium well-suited to my skills. Comics are basically a cake of art with an icing of character writing.

But what are my interests as a storyteller? That's a little more nebulous, but maybe we can find something in there. Again, in descending order:

1. Characters. Their feelings, their interactions. Dialogue. Romance, kissy lovey gooey fluff. Uplifting and cool character moments; but also, heartbreak and misery. Embarrassment!!

2. Textures. How it feels to inhabit various bodies, or interact with others. Unusual sensations. Color, weight, fluffiness, roundness, softness, luminance, slime, and incandescent warmth. What I mean when I say texture can be hard to define. Texture can be expressed visually, but it can also be insinuated through metaphor, choice of words, sound and music. When people describe my art as "soft," I take it as praise for the texture of the art; the factual elements of my art, the lines and shapes, are comparatively full of hard angles!

3. Atmosphere. This is sort of a subcategory of texture, but it's one I devote a lot of focus to. My interest in atmosphere is why I put so much effort into coloring. Atmosphere is the ambient texture; the texture of merely existing in a particular place and time as a particular person. A well-defined atmosphere gives the audience a space to play and imagine.

4. Authenticity. The hardest possible thing to define... For me, authenticity means honesty; vulnerability; a refusal to moderate my own tastes, interests and experiences out of my work, even if doing so might make the work more popular, or make me more money. In particular, authenticity means a certain emotional rawness.

5. Catharsis. Stuff that the reader (& myself) can take with them out of the story. Fulfillment of a wish, or acknowledgement of a truth long avoided, or the simple feeling of commiseration. Or enlightenment -- a story can teach you about yourself. The "lesson" can be childishly simplistic and still be cathartic; we are all, more often than we admit, childishly simplistic individuals. Representation also falls under this category. Catharsis used to top the list for me, but now I think it has to sit at the bottom, because character, texture, and authenticity are necessary prerequisites for emotional fulfillment.

When I look at it this way -- focusing on my interests rather than my skills -- it's suddenly way less clear cut that comics are a good fit for me. Comics are great at one thing above all else: Action. But action, or words like it, are completely missing from this list.

Action is inevitable in the stories I want to tell, and there have been moments in Goodbye to Halos where I've found the comic format indispensable -- even beyond the obvious things like fight scenes, there are subtle character beats that just cry out to be acted via sequential panels. But these opportunities don't constitute the bulk of a story, especially not my stories.

Instead, I've listed things like dialogue, texture, and atmosphere. To me, these ideas don't really cry out for action per se. I want to embed the reader in moments, and explore those moments fully before moving on. In a comic, things must always by necessity keep moving, because comics are motion. For dialogue in particular comics really give me trouble -- having to draw a bespoke illustration for every single line of dialogue, and fit those lines in cramped panels, hugely restricts how dialogue flows and how much of it you can get away with.

So... okay. I think I've convinced myself, more or less. But the question is: If not comics, then what?

I don't know yet!

Straight prose isn't quite for me. Video is absolutely out. Visual novels, while a treasured favorite and excellent at all the things on my wishlist, still require way too much prerequisite sprite-smithing and background-wrangling and audio-engineering to suit the kind of serialized workflow I crave.

If I want to change things up, I think I straight up have to invent a new medium!

What would that medium look like? Spitballing:

- Mainly text-based. Prose and dialogue would form the bulk of the storytelling, though obviously it would still be heavily illustrated.

- Must have "screen breaks" or "page turns." In a visual novel, dialogue, prose, and action are all divided up into individual screenfuls of data that the player clicks through; in comics, panel breaks serve this function. These breaks add a "time" dimension to the experience, and I have a really strong intuition built up by now for how to use them.

- Audio should be a possibility, though not required. I want to be able to punctuate certain passages with music, sound effects, or leitmotivic jingles to enhance the atmosphere.

- Ideally, I should be able to tailor the design of different "pages" around what's going on. How cool would it be if I could sort of "code switch" between prose, comic-style sequential art, or IM-style back and forth dialogue to fit the needs of the moment?

I don't have a name for this, but I can see it so clearly in my head. I've been seeing it for years?! I keep on coming back to this concept... how do I actually execute it?

Twine may be a convenient way to do it. Twine has lackluster to no builtin support for images or sound, but it should be extensible enough to do exactly this sort of thing. I used it to make Aster Asks! #1, which was along the lines of this concept, and people sure seemed to enjoy it for what it was. Plus, being able to run a Twine on any device makes it a good candidate for serialization -- no barrier to entry for the reader beyond clicking one hyperlink, the same as for a webcomic.

So the TL;DR here is that before I get myself too deep into any new comic projects, I think I want to spin right back around and try something completely different. The only way to know whether some other as-yet unnamed rich media format is a better fit for me is to get out there and make one!

For this purpose, I've elected to dig back up the Animal Girlfriends remake concept that I've been chewing on for years now. I'm going to produce the first chapter of that remake in this new format, with illustrations, prose, and music, and my hope is that by doing so I can prove to myself and to everyone interested whether this concept has any merit.

I'll be real with you: I have a very, very strong hunch it's going to go well!

And, if it does (though this is getting way ahead of myself), I suspect this will be a more entertaining, fulfilling, and above all else expedient way for me to produce CURSE/KISS/CUTE -- and the future Goodbye to Halos concepts, which I haven't forgotten!

Thus concludes my plans for March.

...is what I would say, except

PART 2: DEAR GOD MY TAXES ARE DUE

So every year, I run into this little problem. If you've never been self-employed, the gist is that I make roughly minimum wage, but I also pay a huge amount in taxes on top of that due to the ~Self-Employment Tax.~ So even in a non-pandemic year, I rarely make enough money after rent and groceries are paid to save up for the tax bill that comes around every April.

That means I have until the end of the month to create something I can sell to fundraise my way past this hump! It's an incredibly awkward time for this to come up, given all the stuff I just went over, but I'd like to make the best of it and create a real treat to put up for sale.

I think I'm going to produce a short (~6 page) minicomic. It'll probably be smutty and sweet. My concepts aren't fully baked, and I have a few days to get a script written, so I'm open to suggestions!

My lead idea at the moment: I think it would be cute to write a short Animal Girlfriends "beach episode," featuring Izzy, Lia, and Fran, with cameos from the other Halos characters. The theme of this one is "bulge positivity."

I'll also be selling a PDF edition of "Confession" and a new single of "Phases of the Moon" and "7777," which I'll also post here for patrons.

The End

That's all for now!! This is a lot of information -- some might say too much -- but you know by now that I like to be thorough. Despite the rocky start to the year, I'm extremely positive about where things are going. I've been considering this an extended experimentation period, and the results of that experimentation now form the basis of what I believe will be a deluge of stuff coming down the tube at you this year. I feel like I've found my way!

Or at any rate, I will once I've paid my taxes. Bye for now!!!!!!