Housekeeping, 2024 (Patreon)

I've been working behind the scenes for the past couple of months to align the work I've been doing with my Patreon goals—namely, to reduce the friction between myself and the platform so I can post for you guys more consistently. I'm deeply sorry for going silent for months on end, and I really appreciate everyone who has stuck around through my chaos and absences (and really, just anyone who has ever supported my work). Thank you so much. It has always, and continues to mean so much to me.

My two big struggles with Patreon consistency have come from my recently-diagnosed, but lifelong struggle with Generalized Anxiety Disorder and taking work that gets stuck behind an NDA or a contract, leaving me feeling like all I have left for Patreon is crumbs, and the way that feeds back into the (often times crippling, self-reinforcing) anxiety.

So with a patch of general stability in my life right now, undertaking a self-published comics project supports my goal of having a stream of comics work I can consistently deliver to you guys without having to crop or hide for contractual reasons. Having work to show without caveats and reservation makes it easier for me to post, and harder for me to get stuck in a spiral of anxiety-originated withdrawal from social media.

Phew! Anyway, basically what I mean is that this project (Wilfrith and Grwn, and more broadly, Monoceros, as outlined in my previous post) will allow me to put you guys first as far as releasing new work goes. I’m really excited to get to do that since you have always been superlatively supportive and I genuinely love being to share stuff with you.

This also means I’ll be modifying the structure of the Patreon tiers work, in order to make it more clear what I hope to be delivering and at what tiers. With the changes I've made, you won't be getting anything less than you have been if you stay where you are, rather it should just be more.

 The new structure will be as follows:

• $1 - Contributor Tier: This will be a merging the previous $1 and $2 tiers. It'll be where I put new series and convention announcements, updates on older Safe For Work comics series (Alpha Flag, Untitled SF, Soil, and so on), access to original art sales before the general public, etc.
• $5 - Suggestive Tier: All of my self-published comics and illustration work in a safe for work or suggestive form. If NSFW isn’t for you I'm still very happy to share my comics with you, and you’ll be able to read all of the pages with some blurring. You'll also have early access to original art sales. Here you'll also have access to optional discount codes for NSFW content on itch.io (forthcoming).
• $7 - Explicit Tier: All of my self-published comics and illustration work in original and unedited form. Early access to original art sales and ultimately, collected digital files of NSFW comics stories.
• $15 - Superlative Tier: All of my self-published comics and illustration work in unedited form. First access to original art sales. When I make a new piece of merchandise, I’ll send it straight to you.

With this structure, I won’t be over-promising what I’ll already be making for you guys anyway. I’ll also invariably be working on smaller extra projects that I'll add in where appropriate.

A few extra things: now that I’m back in the United States (I moved from Scotland to Upstate New York last year!), I’m excited to start getting back into conventions again. If you have any local zine or smaller comics festivals or conventions you love, please let me know! I especially know nothing about the entire landscape of the East Coast comics scene in 2024 and beyond.

An update on Ferrochrome, the graphic novel I’ve been working on for ages. As you’ve seen from the lack of updates for it, something happened to stall the project: me splitting with the publisher. Long story short, the relationship had evolved between pitching the book and where the company had headed while working on it, so I asked to be released from my contract with them. They graciously didn’t fight me on it, so I’m going to pivot the book to a self-published model. In the end, I'm more excited by the possibilities of this new direction. Particularly as a pilliar in the plan to make comics directly for you guys first, and then the internet/world second.

I put work on Ferrochrome on hiatus so I could spend some time building my online erotica comics presence and therefore audience. Wilfrith and the Golem Stonemason for Filthy Figments was a test to see how shorter erotica releases would be received. Since that went well as a proof of concept, the second step of the plan is to segue to Wilfrith and Grwn and ultimately a crowdfunding experiment with Monoceros before returning to the graphic novel. Hopefully with these few extra steps, releasing an entire book without a publisher will be successful—but in any case, so much of it is already roughed out/drawn that I’m committed to it eventually. I just want to lay the groundwork as best as I can to help it be successful.

So yeah! If you have any questions/comments/concerns I’ll be here.

Thanks again for everything.

Jon