Crash and Consequences

So here’s how it is:

Thanks to some computer trouble, Draconis Wicked is going to have to take a short break. However, starting next week (Monday, July 7) Urban Underbrush will update on Mondays and Thursdays until Draconis returns on August 4.

Or, if you ever wanted to write a guest comic to help me get back on track, I probably wouldn’t say “no” to one of those.

That should be all the info you need, but if you’re interested in the long version, read below:

I’ve been busy lately, but it’s been a good kind of busy. In addition to making comics, I’ve been preparing to teach my annual summer art classes, getting ready for a big family wedding, and making some art for one of the auctions at Anthrocon (Pittsburgh’s Furry Convention). Not an impossible amount of work, but a fuller plate than I’m used to.

Still, this has been one of the worst times for computer trouble. So imagine my surprise when my computer started running slow and wouldn’t open all of my art programs. When restarts, advice from online forums, and voodoo failed to fix it, I took my computer back to the store where it was quickly diagnosed with failing hard drive sensors. It’s kind of like my hard drive had a terminal illness. It was going to gradually work less and less until it stopped altogether. (At least it gave me some warning so I could back up all my data.) To complicate things even further, my computer was a custom model, built to my specifications, which meant that it took the Apple Store five days to get the special parts they needed to replace the malfunctioning pieces. (At least it’s still under warranty.)

If that wasn’t enough, my printer/scanner seemed to have some kind of suicide pact with my hard drive, because it promptly stopped working forever as soon as the hard drive glitch was discovered.

Now this Murphy’s Law-proving technology incident is finally getting resolved, but I’m still about to start teaching my two-week computer art class and I’ve been unable to create a buffer of comics to get me through those weeks, as I’ve done every other summer.

I’ve looked at this problem from every possible angle, and the only solution seems to be that I stop production of Draconis Wicked comics until summer classes are over, then give myself another two weeks to get caught up again.

However I can ramp up production of Urban Underbrush comics and fill the void. This is possible because:

1. Urban Underbrush is much quicker to color than Draconis Wicked.
2. Urban Underbrush already has a buffer of comics stashed away, as I was able to keep working on Underbrush, even when the computer was failing.