TheGouldenWay

Hey, guys.  To anyone who notices I haven't uploaded today, it's because I've gotten halfway through a longer comic that should be finished tomorrow.  See you then!

I'mma jus' updayt y'all reel quik.

I've been uploading one comic per day for the past few days, and that's been fun, so I think I'm gonna try to keep doing that for this coming week.  This weekend seems a little iffy, but I should still be able to get one out for both Saturday and Sunday, they might just not be at the usual super-late times.  Thanks to all the readers who've come back to read these after such a long break.  It feels great to be updating regularly again.  I'm not sure how long the regular updates will last, but then again, that makes it like a super deep metaphor for, like, life 'n stuff I guess, you know?  Shoot, man.  Like... whoa.

I just wanted to write a quick update and let anyone who follows me know that I'm not dead, and I'm also not disappearing forever from DA (again).  I just had a huge computer meltdown crisis, which threw off my drawing habits a bit (but is fixed now), and I've also committed to another cartoon project, which has to take priority.  It's only a short-term thing, though, so I'll be back to puns and madness soon enough.  Thanks for your patience.  You guys are saints, despite enjoying the unjustifiable violence portrayed on this profile.

THE SHORT VERSION:
I'm writing a new choose-your-own-adventure disaster story; it'll be split up into three or four short installments and will include some illustrations and music.

THE LONG VERSION:
I didn't mean for it to be so long before I got to posting another story, but here we are, more than half-a-year after "Just Short of the Dead" ended, and still nothing.  I was working really hard on planning a non-apocalyptic story, but I got caught in a rut whilst designing the plot, which meant I wasn't writing anything at all.  A few weeks ago, I finally decided that I had to write something if I was going to grow at all, so I put that other story on hold and started a new disaster series (my obvious comfort zone), and split it into short parts (chapters) that'd be easy for me to handle in short periods of time.  I've got a general plot-line down and almost the whole first chapter written up, along with a few simple illustrations to add a little visual interest every few pages.  Since the parts are short, there are less choices, but a denser population of consequences, allowing me to experiment with more long-lasting effects than ever before.

I won't give too many details just yet, but the story revolves around a questionably natural disaster in the vicinity of southern California.  I wanted to give you swell folks a fair heads-up so that any of you who are interested can stay tuned in the following month-or-so.  I plan to have the first chapter out before I move (at the end of the month), but we'll see how that works out.

I just published the finale to "Just Short of the Dead", my first series of Choose-Your-Own-Adventure zombie stories.  I give a lengthy thanks to the players at the end screen of the final episode, but in case you miss it or see this first, I'd like to thank you all again for giving me the chance to improve myself by sharing my work with you.  Having an audience really puts things into perspective for me, and getting feedback and support is immensely important, so again, thank you.

Some people were wondering about whether there would be a continuation of the story, but I'm afraid I have no plans of making one.  This'll be one of the hardest lessons I force myself through as a wannabe writer: letting a story go.

That's not to say that I won't be revisiting the zombie apocalypse in a future story, but when I do, I want to start over.  I don't want the characters to be oblivious to what the monsters are, because that idea has been done to death (GET IT??!!!); I don't want humanity to fail so miserably in the first week of the outbreak, unless I come up with a damn good explanation for you; most of all, I don't want the series to feel like it was written one episode at a time with no overarching plan, because even though I had a plan going into this one at first, I came across a lot of unexpected changes along the way, so I felt a little lost between some of the episodes, which meant I had to spend more time planning where it would go again, which meant more waiting for you lovely people.

Now that I understand this medium a little more, I know I can do better next time, but I think I'll put some effort into a few short stories and just practice writing in general before I go for another series.

When I do get around to making another series, though, I want it to appeal to the people who follow me.  You guys are the ones that'll see it and spread it around, so if you don't like it, what's the point?  If you have the time, tell me what kind of story or genre you'd like to see me try in a future series, and I'll take your suggestions into serious consideration as I move forward.

Once again, thank you all for everything.  I'll post more comics and shtuff as they pour forth from my now unoccupied mind!