Goodbye to a Year (BITEGHOST's 'State Of Affairs' Remix) (Patreon)

Hey there everyone! I've been meaning to sit down and make this update post for a while now. I have news, both good and bad! I'd like to just jump right into it, so, here we go!

Firstly! What have I accomplished this year thanks to you guys?

• BACKLASH Chapter 5: House of Stone Pages 212 to 259.
• BACKLASH Question Corner 2 (2 pages)
• BACKLASH Chapter 6: Invitation Pages 260 to 263 + Title Page
• I was able to take less commissions each month - from doing approximately 30-40 to 10-20, which gave me much more time and energy to focus on personal projects like BACKLASH!
• The Gods Are Still, a short monster-romance comic, has a completed script and design work has begun
• I created a homebrew tabletop game that takes place in the BACKLASH universe, and am running my roommates through it to work out the kinks. (I would like to make this available for others to play with in the future, once it's more solidified!)
• I began to re-upload the webcomic podcast my friends NJ, Jeff and myself made in 2016, for posterity's sake! Speech Bubbles lives again - on YouTube!

Not too shabby! But, this year could have been a lot more productive.. Life comes at you fast, and it was no one's fault, but I want to be transparent about what's been happening with me these last few months. Here's what happened:

The last three months of this year have been on-and-off for me. Starting in October, right when I was finally starting to feel settled at my new apartment, I began to have car troubles that kept popping up at the least-expected times, with sizable surprise expenses attached to them. I'll spare you the laundry list of what's gone wrong, because it's depressing and also doesn't have a happy ending. I've been running around stressed out of my mind trying to get it under control, but worst-case scenario after worst-case scenario kept happening. The stress has made it difficult to be productive, my mental health has taken a dive. These car troubles are the largest reason that I haven't had a very stellar end of the year. I'm incredibly disappointed in my output over these last three months, and I apologize that I haven't been able to provide much for you all.

In other news, as you may have heard, Tumblr had an Entire Thing. The NSFW ban effected everyone, not just the NSFW content creators. It didn't effect me as severely as them, but the ripples have indeed hit my little corner of the internet, and has been extremely stressful for the last two weeks. I don't make NSFW content, but Tumblr is where the majority of my followers are, and is how I make the majority of my supplemental income through commissions. Tumblr is also where I host BACKLASH outside of Patreon for the public to view. I have had some of my pages incorrectly flagged as 'explicit', and the whole thing has just made me realize that it's time for me to buckle down and get serious. So! I am currently working with a web developer to make BACKLASH its own dedicated website, and I'm very excited about it! I've had a lot of my followers suggest different free hosting services to move BACKLASH to, like Webtoons, Tapas, or Smackjeeves, but the truth is I'm taking this whole debacle as a sign. I want to have a website that I am in control of, where I don't have to worry about a platform suddenly changing its Terms of Service and screwing over all its users. The new website should be completed sometime in mid-late January, and I can't wait for it! :D

I am also probably going to invest in setting up a portfolio site, like a SquareSpace or something. I haven't totally decided yet, but that's on my To-Do list for next year!

New BACKLASH pages might be few until the website is completed, as I will probably need the rest of December + January to get my commissions, finances, and mental health back in order. I am going to try to get pages done for you guys, but I cannot promise that they will be coming with any amount of regularity until sometime in January. I'm really sorry! No one wants to see this story made as badly as I do, and if there was anything I could do about this I would definitely jump for it. But this is just how it has to be for now. I appreciate your support and patience. I feel like this is going to be a 'fresh start' almost, and it'll be re-energizing and exciting once the site is finished and I have a central hub for my work! ;w;/

Now for some good and exciting news! I have been approached by a publishing agent who really dug my work, and I am currently working with him to try and get one of my other comic ideas (not BACKLASH) picked up by a mainstream publisher! I don't want to say too much yet, but I'm deeply flattered and humbled by this potential opportunity, and hopefully it'll work out! I'll definitely keep you guys updated as this continues. Fingers crossed it goes well! ;w; (If my pitches don't get picked up I'll still make the comics on the web instead, it just might take longer in the grand scheme of things! :>)

I'm going to be taking a week's vacation back in Arizona at my parent's house, so I don't think I'll be getting anything big finished art-wise before the new year. I have a lot of commissions still on my plate, so if any work gets done it will probably be those! Again, I'm sorry, I wish I had the energy or time to bang out some fun holiday illustrations or cute Christmas cards or something! I sincerely apologize.

I leave tomorrow morning, December 20th, and get home on December 27th, so I probably won't be very active on social media until then. I deeply appreciate the support from all you here on Patreon. Thank you so much for your patience and your kindness and your generosity. Thank you so much for sticking with me and for wanting me to succeed. I will continue the trek, and I will continue to do my best work for you all. Again, I'm so sorry I flubbed it at the end here, and I'm determined to make it up to you guys!

I hope you all have a warm, funny, kind, joyous, cozy holiday! I'll see you all in 2019, and we'll make it a better, more fantastic year, okay? <3

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TL:DR

-I've been having car troubles and surprise expenses/financial issues since October, which has been very straining and is why my productivity has been bad.

-BACKLASH will be getting its own website come mid-late January 2019.

-I am working with a publishing agent to try and get a comic picked up by mainstream publishers.

-I am going on vacation for the Holidays until December 27th.