Adjusting direction (Patreon)

"Through that door, meat, our future awaits..."

— Alice Krieger, to Subject Zero. Surveillance Feed  ID FP2019080300:19, FabPharma Headquarters, Sector unknown

A bit of a prelude of things to come, this time as a segue into talking about production, work, and changes.

TLDR: Comics are out, text panels are making a comeback. Storylines continue just the same, never fear. Short and sweet: less time spent designing and laying out already produced artwork means more time for making new artwork!

Looking back to July, I think it's been a bit of a wake-up call in regards to the production and work done on the comics so far.

While I'm happy with how the comics have turned out, I think the comic book style as a medium just isn't working with the production output I like to run.

Harking back to last year, when I introduced the Sadie storyline in comic format, I remember people being happy about it, with a caveat that seemed to be echoed by most of you who commented: 

Comics sound great, as long as it doesn't hinder usual production too much.

Well, July pretty much proved it's a rather big hurdle to cross, and I think it's time to go back to the basics: making great renders first and foremost, and writing enticing lore on the side.

Simply put, laying out work in comic format that I've already put out in its standard, full resolution, feels kind of... lame. While it makes for a nice presentation, it doesn't quite fit into the monthly rhythm of work I aim to put out, as well as making it so the production becomes dominated by less interesting output.

With that in mind, I'm going back to my older style of storytelling: enticing full format frame sets, no text, with text frames woven into the sequences when necessary to explain the story line within the set. This will allow me to focus production once more on titillating, graphic moments and sequences, with the story aspect getting better footing in a more liberated, paragraph format.

So, in essence, more graphic content, less design-y stuff getting stuck in between production cycles and slowing things down.

To those that will miss the comics, I'm sorry. The story lines themselves, however, will continue as planned (with a twist to Plastic Obsessions I will discuss in a separate post after publishing the 006 story line in the next few days) and will continue to be illustrated in a (hopefully) much more interesting and focused manner.

So, to recap, the pdf comic format will no longer be used, and I will be returning to the tried and true style of image sets with story text interwoven into the sequences.

I, for one, am excited, since it allows me to focus more on production and rendering, and less on designing layouts and setting type into word balloons. I think we can all agree the former is a way, way, sexier option ;)

- bd