When I had to put Sadie to rest I had one comic ready to go, another partway done, and a third in the beginning stages. I had another two written out as scripts with no art started. I could have easily finished the two partial comics because all the hard part –figuring out the art, pacing, and layout– was done, but I had nothing to follow up with.

One of the pitfalls of writing comedy is that sometimes you just don’t feel very funny. Obviously this has been one of those times. However, in times like this it is important to maintain a sense of normalcy and routine, a way to help keep your balance when things are turbulent. So while I took time to grieve the loss of one beloved pet, I also devoted attention to my other dog, Butter… and started building momentum to resume posting again.

So above is a sample panel from the partially-done piece to let folks know that, yes, I am back at the old art forge and hope to resume posting this Thursday. I’m also thinking about making some videos that will be made available somehow (maybe free to the public on Patreon and at my YouTube channel) that will show the process of comics creation as I do it, and talk about some of my ideas and inspirations.

Another thing I’m going to do is dig out my old Iraq journal from when I was deployed. It was the one time in my life when I kept a journal; I’d tried keeping journals in the past but never could discipline myself to keep at it each day. I kept the journal fairly meticulously but then came home and riffed briefly through the pages, and stuffed it away in a dark corner of the closet and never looked at it again. It is probably time to change that and go in there and mine it for some more real-life situations that can be looked at with new perspectives, and contextualize them through the lens of humor.

After all, as an artist I know that “with distance, comes perspective”.

So once again thanks to my many readers and supporters for being patient with me, and comics will resume on the 15th.