June 2026 pages (Patreon)

Man, I am in no fit state to try and do this tonight...

The show must go on...

I started this "bit" of jumping from place to place in the comic's settings because I tend not to do it all that often. As you all well know I will stick with a group of characters for week sometimes because there's stuff there worth seeing, in my opinion. I also have generally expected you all to just figure things out as far as where the characters are spatially. I try to stick to established color schemes for specific places. Blue green hues with some brown for Megatainment, the bicks for the outside, windows for Rulettes, red for God Be With Brew, and so on. As my art has improved over the years I never felt the need to spell things out very much and just took it as read that everyone could keep up. Really though the shorthand of a little blurb of info for scene changes is something I really should have been doing a lot more. It struck me as funny to overdo the idea in the lead up to the 3000th page. I also wanted to get as many of the established characters on screen before resolving to Thomas and Carol. I said as much in the blog for the 3000th page but I reiterate it here for completeness. I was pleased by the results of my work, which is rare for me. The new screen made me feel less hindered and I've tried to make use of that. Anyway the end of the month is the beginnings of the lead up to the gravesite arc which is going to be... a lot. I wrote a lot of it almost 20 years ago and have never felt the need to substantially change it because it has served as the basis for much of Nina's personality as I write. I very much hope I can stick the landing...

Which brings me to my next subject. Which I will warn you to just skip if you don't want to ride a rollercoaster of emotions with me. I wish you well and hope to have you here for another month and many months to come.

This weekend my mother was diagnosed with lung cancer. My Aunt Debbie also died of lung cancer. I don't suppose I need to tell you that I am extremely emotionally compromised. Even typing the words is making me shake from the reality of setting them down in text. There is no being on earth I love more than my mother. I've never tried to hide the fact that I am a momma's boy. We share many interests and she is smart enough to understand me while also not getting irritated by me. This 4th of July was going to be the best one so far because it's the 250th and we love America together. She will likely be hospitalized over the 4th and I am irrationally heartbroken that this celebration has been taken from us. I was looking forward to it all year. The 4th is our day and this one is once in a lifetime. I am so mad at myself for not making her go to the doctor sooner somehow. I wish I had made her go the first time she had the spell of vertigo that incapacitated her. I knew it was wrong in my gut but I let her convince me it would pass. She wanted to take care of my nephew and not disrupt my sister's work. We don't get sick randomly like that in my family. I was extremely worried and now I'm kicking myself for not catching it sooner.

There's a spot that they can't identify on her brain that's causing the vertigo. So far everyone involved has been very positive that things were caught early. In fact, the vertigo caused the scan that caught the lung cancer before she was having symptoms. In some ways this is a victory. But I can't let go of the feeling of dread. Everything I do feels hollow and fake. I was able to make the latest pages by sheer force of will. I have to keep it together for her. I refuse to be the part that breaks and causes problems when she needs me. That means I make this comic on time, every time, so she can know she doesn't have to worry about me while this all gets fixed.

Before you say anything I already know that I am spiraling through the stages of grief over and over. I'm self aware enough to know that. My grandmother had a golf ball sized tumor on her lung and lived 20 more years. Cancer wasn't even what killed her, it was fall damage. Logically I know that cancer isn't the instant death sentence it was when I was younger. I'm just not in a place where I can maintain logical thought for extended periods of time. Mom had me when she was so young that I had my grandparents in my life way longer than most people. The thought of my nephew not having her for almost that long destroys me. He loves her SO MUCH. It reminds me of me with my grandma. I can't stand the thought of that being taken away from him. I know we don't get to choose such things but man...

For a while I can't guarantee the quality of my work. The place I go to tap into that part of me is not working correctly. I have enough things set up in advance that I think I can muddle through, but my ability to focus is crippled. I'm making this post at 4AM because I've been trying to get my shit together since midnight. I just need to stop this and let you get on with your life.

You have my apologies for inflicting this on you. I know that for many of you I am your safe place on the internet and I take that seriously and as a great honor. I will humbly accept any prayer, from any god you choose to call out to on behalf of my mother. If you follow no god then I'll take good vibes, scientific breakthroughs, or whatever the hell it is atheists comfort themselves with. There is no religious or lack of religious discrimination here.

Hopefully next month we can look back on this and say "That sucked, but things will be okay for a while now."