I'm still suffering with the fact that everything I try to do takes longer than it used to. But the books need to get done and the Pawnz and Bookmarks need to get made, and the last few chapters of the Sluggy Freelance story need to be told, so I'll keep on keeping on!
The first week away from the strip, I decided to prioritize Book 24. There's always the goal post of a 'New Book for Christmas' but this was such a late start that I was pretty sure I'd miss it again. What I didn't expect was how smoothly everything went. The normal pitfalls never manifested. This will be, I think, the longest Sluggy Freelance single (non-Megatome) book yet. But it laid out easily, the bonus art and content were all easy to fine, the spot images were a piece of cake, and the 5-page bonus story was scripted and half the art done all in that first week!
I still have to finish the other half of the art, and design a cover and title page, and there's a lot of content to cleanup throughout the book. We're not making December with this book, but I'm feeling confident for January or February.
The Second week I wanted to shift to scripting. I really wanted to be more tightly prepared for Chapter 75 because there is going to be a lot of defining content in it. I'm now in a good place for Chapter 75: Blood & Bone. For those of you keeping watch on the approaching end of Sluggy Freelance, I felt I needed to break Chapter 75 out of Chapter 74: Monstrous, because that chapter was becoming unwieldy to me. But if things work out (and when have they not? (Don't answer that)) Chapter 77 should be the end.
What I never got to was the WAY-TOO-LONG backlog of Pawnz and Bookmarks. Once the story is underway and the book is of to the printer, I may take another week off from the daily strip to focus on that. I appreciate all of your patience with me when I take this time away from the main strip. I dislike doing it but its one of the few tricks in my tool box that provides undeniable results. That's all for now! Stay nifty everyone!
 Above is a non-spoiler piece of art from Sluggy Freelance Book 24 FULL HOUSE Bonus Story. I haven't settled on which title from a short list yet, but connects to Jim Orsin of Orsintos Labs and maybe a certain redhead. |
Hey everybody! Its my birthday! I thought it would be a good time to point out my failures in life, because, I mean, you can't judge me negatively on my birthday, can you?
I'm sorry I haven't posted much beyond the comic lately but there hasn't been anything to report. I'm still falling farther and farther behind on Pawnz & Bookmarks and I need to get the ball rolling on Book 24 to have it ready by the end of the year. The problem I keep running into is it takes all my time to keep ahead on the scripts and produce two comics a week. I keep thinking 'as soon as I'm ahead a day or two I can dig in to the side projects' and it never comes. It's just harder and harder for me to create new things. This comic is still my passion and joy, but my head-meat seems to be getting slower at doing head-meat stuff. Wait, is head-meat not a good slang term for brain? Feels right to me!
Anywho, I keep trying to take a step back, think outside the box, and come up with a plan that works, but nothing has yet. There's one thing I KNOW will work and that's to NOT produce two comics a week. So I'm going to take two weeks off after the end of Monstrous (which is approaching) to see how far I can get wrangling Pawnz & Bookmarks, and Book 24. And then maybe I'll have something to report. That's my birthday wish for me! Be nifty to others, and I hope others are nifty to you.
-Pete
I’m shooting for February and March of 2025 to get on top of the pile! What could go wrong? :)
OK, so I’m still working on the bonus content for Sluggy Freelance Book 23, Mohkadun. This bonus story (called, suspiciously enough, Family Reunion) is going to be very nifty and touch on some cool plot points. But life events and rewrites caused a delay of a couple of weeks on this project.
I was very aggravated when I realized I would NOT have Book 23 available to offer to you all in December for the holidays. But I’ve come to realize it’s OK. I fall behind sometimes. But I always get there eventually. I’ve currently sequestered myself in my office-cave and I have removed all non-essential distractions to work on this thing (and maintain the flow of new strips). It should just be a few weeks more, I hope!
What about the store?!? I was going to keep the store closed until the new book was in my hands, but I’ve decided on a different plan. I do have small quantities of some of the older books. I also have plenty of Megatome 1’s (Contains books 1-3) and Book 9’s and the Beanie-style plush Bun-buns which are still the best and you all should own one! So on the off chance anyone wants these in time for the holidays for any reason, I feel like it’s my duty to give you a chance to!
The Sluggy Store will open around noon-ish Eastern Time on Wednesday November 27th. All international orders need to be in by Wednesday December 4th or they might not make it to you by Christmas. The store will close on Wednesday December 11th. I will push to get all international orders out first, but domestic orders might take a week longer to fulfill. I’ll have family invading my house at that time, so I’ll make them do some of the packing-and-shipping leg-work. That’ll teach ‘em!
Sluggy Store Reopening- MarchUnless something unforeseen happens, the Store will Reopen with a full book catalog including the new BOOK 23 MOHKADUN by March!
It will take about a month for the printer to turn the book around once I get them the files. So I’m just going to assume I’ll have it in hand February at the latest. The first batch will go off to the higher level Defenders, as always. But then my intention it to open the store AGAIN, early March, with stock of all the other books! It’s like Christmas in March! I know SOME of you will still have your decorations up! That's not my style, but I understand.
TL;DR: I’m behind on Pawnz and Bookmarks (as usual these last few years). I’m taking off a lot of February and March to get on top of that pile. I NEED to do this as the END LOOMS CLOSER...
So I’m over a year behind on sending these postcards and bookmarks out. Again. But now I’m almost a year behind on designing and announcing them! In January 2024 I was supposed to start laying out Mohkadun style Pawnz and Bookmarks and catch up. It’s perplexing to even me, who is living it, why I was not able to succeed on this.
I’m slowing down. It’s getting harder and harder simply keeping up with one-to-three strips a week, let alone moving the ball forward on something else, like books or Pawnz and Bookmarks.
I want you all to know this is important to me. I will get you what I owe you. I’m just trying to figure out how without sacrificing the comic itself.
What I’m going to try is to limit new comic strip releases in the months of February and March, and dedicating myself to getting on top of that pile. Sending out Book 23s and creating and distributing Pawnz and Bookmarks is going to be my focus at that point.
I tried this two years ago with subpar results. This time I’m going to task some friends to help me.
Once I’m past that I can focus on the most important thing. The comic itself. You’ve all put such faith in me to do right by it. And I must. Because it is coming to an end.
Sluggy Freelance will end in the not too distant future. I’ve mentioned this in more detail in the Defenders Blog. And I’ll discuss it here with you all once Book 23 is in hand. For now I’ll say it’s still at least a couple of years away. Two major stories beyond Monstrous.
This is why its so important for me to get on top of the pile and stay on top of the pile, early 2025. So I can focus on ending things right. By the way, those of you who became Defenders of the Nifty are the sole reason the strip didn’t vanish years ago. My appreciation knows no bounds. And all the non-Defender readers owe you thanks as well. THANKS for being the Niftiest.
Onwards and sideways, with, perhaps, a slightly upward turn!
Be Nifty to each other.
-Pete
Another anniversary? It feels like the 25th anniversary was two minutes ago! Possibly in real time for the characters! Admittedly 'Immortal King' is probably the longest story* I have ever done, and the less-comic-output for the majority of this year has made it feel like a much shorter year.
So this is how time has been going for me lately. Speeding by while my creative output has slowed down.
But coming to the end of the year, I find myself over a year behind on mailing out physical Pawnz and Bookmarks to eligible Defenders, and we've been two years without a new book (I'm not counting re-releasing Megatome 02).
How long will this take? I honestly don’t know, and I don’t want to guess wrong. Did I say how much I hate to do it? For me, it extra painful because we are hitting an action-climax, and the momentum is going to drop from slow to a trickle. Grrr.
And it almost didn't happen. I've been so busy, tired and stressed, I didn't think I'd have time to do anything celebratory beyond some kind of animated strip. But with the help of my family, we came-up with a design that turned everything around. Big thanks to my daughter Leah for helping me design, render, and then animate the 25th anniversary "statue" art. We're using it as the main-page-parallax, in the comic itself, and hopefully you'll be able to purchase it as a poster in the store! One of the many reasons for the store's delayed opening was I wanted to proof the quality of the poster and also have the product in hand before taking orders. 
Thanks to Shirt Guy Tom, Joe Sunday, and my daughter Leah for throwing together last minute artist-trading-cards to help me celebrate the day. There are so many people I could have and should have reached out to, to join in, but as I said, this was very last minute. Maybe I can do something bigger for the 30th Sluggy Freelance Anniversary (assuming I haven't wrapped everything up by then and the amazing Defenders are still supporting the comic)!
