What happened, and what happens next (Patreon)

Hi guys.

I promised this post a while ago, and then disappeared again.

So this is the explanation I should have given you much earlier.

Over the past couple of months, I had a pretty serious chain of hardware problems with my main workstation.

It started with my power supply.

The problem was extremely difficult to identify. It had already killed one motherboard and came very close to damaging the replacement. Eventually, the computer started shutting down intermittently, and at that point I stopped using it completely.

That machine has my RTX 4090 in it, and after already losing a motherboard, I wasn't willing to gamble with the GPU too.

So I went back to programming for a company I've worked with before and spent around 20 days doing that to put together enough money to replace the PSU.

And, somehow, my ancient battle-scarred notebook carried me through all of it.

I'm very glad I never sold that thing.

After replacing the PSU, I thought the nightmare was over.

It wasn't.

When I tried getting back to my normal workload, I discovered a second problem: my water cooler was no longer able to keep the CPU under control. Under heavier workloads, the machine would overheat, shut itself down, and sometimes refuse to start again until everything had cooled down.

That one also took me a while to properly diagnose.

And because I still didn't know exactly what was happening at first, I shut the workstation down again rather than risk damaging the 4090.

So... back to programming.

Another roughly ten days of work, another replacement part, and finally the hardware saga ended.

The good news is that the machine is now ridiculously stable. I've pushed it harder than anything I normally do while producing the comics, and it simply refuses to die. Temperatures are dramatically better too.

In retrospect, those two failing components were causing far more instability than I realized.

Then came the part where I handled things badly.

I was exhausted and stressed, but I was preparing to finally return.

I could have paused Patreon during all of this.

I didn't.

The uncomfortable truth is that after paying for the repairs and everything surrounding them, I was afraid that pausing Patreon would leave me without enough resources to recover at all and that the whole thing would simply collapse.

But regardless of the reason, I should have told you what was happening.

I didn't.

I kept thinking about how people would react, kept postponing the explanation, and ended up doing exactly the worst thing I could have done: saying nothing.

I know a lot of people unsubscribed during this period, and I completely understand why. Even with all the older content available here, people subscribed expecting new work, and I wasn't delivering it.

So to everyone who stayed, thank you.

And to anyone reading this who was frustrated or disappointed with how I handled the silence: that's fair.

I should have been more transparent.

Then, because apparently this story needed one more chapter, just as I was preparing to come back I started having problems with my eyesight.

My vision became badly blurred for around two weeks. For a while I couldn't comfortably watch TV, use my phone, or spend meaningful time in front of a computer.

That one honestly scared me considerably more than the workstation.

I was diagnosed and treated, and thankfully the recovery has gone well. I'm still using temporary corrective glasses while my vision finishes recovering, and working with them for long periods can give me headaches, but I'm at roughly 80% now.

More importantly: I can work again.

So, where are things now?

I've reorganized the production, written the upcoming pages and scripts, and made the decision to freeze some of the multiple comics I had running at the same time instead of constantly splitting my attention between everything.

The first priority is finishing Super N0X Chapter 11.

Chapter 10 leads into story elements that will eventually cross into other things I'm planning, while Chapter 11 can be completed without waiting for all of that. So I want to finish it instead of leaving another chapter hanging.

There were also a couple of good things that came out of this mess.

While I was doing all that programming work, I finally finished the new website I've been building.

It will give me much more freedom in how I distribute the comics and introduce new content when I'm ready. I’ll also be able to experiment with new types of content and different variations of releases, including bonus material, alternate versions, and even textless versions of comics for people who just want to enjoy the artwork without dialogue covering parts of the images.

I should finally be able to do that properly.

Something else unexpected happened through the company I was working with.

An opportunity for a partnership came up, and together we developed a new plugin for Daz Studio that can create HD morphs.

For me as Haseu, this is actually a pretty big deal.

I helped conceive the original idea, and the tool is going to become part of my own production workflow. For the first time in a long time, I think I have something that can meaningfully speed up some of the most time-consuming parts of creating scenes instead of just making small improvements around the edges.

The company also plans to release the plugin publicly soon, and because I'm involved in the project I'll receive a share of its revenue.

I'm hoping that gives me another source of income outside Patreon.

And strangely enough, that might ultimately be good for Patreon too.

Being less financially dependent on this page means less pressure every time something goes wrong, and gives me more room to concentrate on making the comics instead of constantly worrying about whether one bad month is going to destroy everything.

So that's where I am.

The workstation is fixed.

My eyesight is recovering.

The scripts are written.

The production is reorganized.

And I'm working again.

I can't undo the last two months, and I'm not going to pretend I handled the communication well.

What I can do is start producing again and let the work speak for me from here.

Thank you to everyone who is still here.

Seriously.

Let's get back to Super N0X.