July 2020 Newsletter (Patreon)

Hello again! It's time to look back over a very eventful month! I hope you guys are had a decent July and I hope that August is looking up too!

What Happened in July

A lot of work has been going on behind the scenes this month. On the 11th, the brand new website went live, which has been spectacular! Thank you patrons for helping me alpha- and beta-test it in the weeks leading up to the launch! Your help was really instrumental in making sure everything went relatively smoothly.

What the new website means is that it's no longer on Wordpress, and in fact was built from the ground up with MY OWN TWO HANDS! Well, and my husband's hands, since he did all of the comic functionality when he coded up comic_git! I now can troubleshoot problems much more easily because I know how everything fits together.

It is now a static site, which means it loads basically a billion times faster; I learned how to tinker with API so I could integrate some light Patreon stuff; and I now can update my website by saving my files into a particular folder on my desktop. 

The downside of a static site is that it's much harder to roll up a comment system, so I wound up integrating Discourse as both a forum and comments. It works splendidly considering how hard it was to get working (mostly because I had to learn all about Docker, X-Access, and more). It does lack some things the old comment system had and I didn't get to import old comments, which is a huge bummer. But I think it's a good move going forward.

All in all, I'm extremely happy with the site and I don't foresee any major changes happening to it for a long time.

Changes Coming Down the Pipe for the Discord and this Patreon

There's been a LOT of behind-the-scenes work going on for this Patreon and its attached Discord. I don't have a release date for any of it, but I can tease some things about the Patreon!

Especially since Covid has kept me from my mailing assistant, a number of the physical rewards will be discontinued. Postcards will stay, though! And I plan to find a way to gather info from folks who still want some of those rewards, because I do have them here, in my house! There will be more about this to come.

Much of the Patreon will otherwise remain the same, though various things will be reshuffled, and with the redesign of the Discord, there will be more rewards on that end as well. 

To the excitement of many, I'm sure, a particular reward will be returning in a fashion I think I can keep up with. No specifics yet, exactly, but I think there will be some very happy people.

There will also be a very limited top tier, so you will all be receiving details on what changed about the Patreon ahead of time, as well as a specific time that the new Patreon will be live so folks have a change at those slots.

Here's a comic I put together to go on the front of the Patreon when it's live:

I'll probably do a slightly altered version to go on the main site between the 3rd and 4th chapters, to advertise the Patreon. ( 'u')-b

Finally, that damn page, and some health news: 

The rest of the month was taken up with trying to get assets ready for the next few scenes. Ye gods, it was a lot. I learned Blender to make the carts. I painted the background over the course of a couple of days. I drew 17 different characters on that page Just Because. 

The good news is, quality over quantity! Y'all are getting the best possible things I can offer you. 

The downside is I seem to have made myself sick powering through that page. Seeing as some of it feels lower respiratory, I went and got tested yesterday for The 'Rona. I'll keep y'all updated, but I'm doing better today after I slept a ton all afternoon and night.

Anyway, I'm taking it easy. Pages might be slightly delayed while my health is hiccuping, but hopefully everything will work out fine.

Your guys' patience and kindness have really helped me take the pressure off myself for this stuff, so thank you *so* much for all your kind words and support. Knowing I can take it at my pace is so helpful!

Posts That Went Live in July

• Pages 224,  225, 226, 227, 228 
• Illustrations: Background for Next Scene 
• Short Guest Comic Poll 

New, Returning, and Upgrading Patrons

Big, huge, gigantic thanks to Moonrabbit55, Kubulai, Shiantar, Digital Phoenix, Mary, Fox3379, Peyton, R.S., Kaito, Aaron, Igor, Draylin, and Johnathan! My gosh, I can't believe you all pledged to support me this month! You're SO nice!!

Here's to a good August! 

I hope everyone is doing well. Thanks for sticking around!!