...And they all escaped somehow. |
Sorry guys; I'm afraid the time has come for me to end Youthtopia. Actually, it's somewhat overdue. Frankly, I should have done this months ago, but... well, I'm bad about pretending things I need to do aren't there and hoping they'll go away.
The fact is, I’ve basically been keeping Youthtopia about one-quarter alive, on the kind of negligent, substandard care that nursing homes get sued over. Half the time, when I actually get off my butt and make a new cartoon, I end up writing the damn strip as I draw it, a day before I’m trying to put it up.
This is not the way to do a comic. It’s not fair to what few readers out there check back in spite of my sparse and erratic update non-schedule, and it’s not fair to the comic itself (which I still feel has some good elements to it, in spite of the numerous flaws it’s accrued over its run). I’ve spent the last few months trying to grind it out and get it to it’s final conclusion but… it’s just not happening. I’m ready to move on to other stuff. I’ve got other stories I want to tell, and enough know-how now to tell them in a way that isn’t so rough-draft-ish and meandering. Not to mention without using Arial font for the first hundred-odd pages… cripes what was I thinking.
So… yeah. I’m pulling the plug. At least on Youthtopia as it stands now. I may come back to it a few years down the road, and try to do it over again, and this time do it right. Like I said, there’s still plenty I like about Youthtopia as a story and about the characters, and I think it deserves a proper conclusion. But right now I want to do other stuff, and I’m really burned out on coming up with new entries that have to fit this awkward hybrid of the “gag-a-day”/”new episode” style of strip. I could definitely see myself coming back to it in more of a “comic book” or “graphic novel” kind of format (whether printed online or on planes of pressed wood-pulp)… …but not for a couple years yet.
Suffice to say, Youthtopia, the serial webcomic, begun in October of 2001, is dead. It’s honestly been dead since about my Junior year… I’m really just making it official. If there are any readers who haven’t already gotten completely fed up with me, I just didn’t want to keep stringing you all along.
I plan to keep this website and the archives up for the foreseeable future, but anything new I do on this site, it’ll probably be mostly related to new art, new comics (including The Tailybones), and the like. Youthtopia, as it has been up to now, is over.
Thanks to all my readers, my original hosts at the former ClanBOB, and my current hosts at Ranters. You guys have all been awesome.