Hello Patrons!! Thank you for giving me the weekend to rest and recuperate a bit! The last 20 or so pages of this comic felt like a quickening sprint, and I had to crash a little after crossing the finish line. Thankfully, this past weekend was filled with warm weather, good friends, good fun, all the things that help rebuild the soul bit by bit. And now it's back to business as usual...
...sort of! I firstly just want to thank each and every one of you for being here during the making of this comic. Whether you were here from the beginning or hopped in halfway through, y'all's support is what makes me able to see larger scale projects like this through to the end. I feel massively privileged to be doing what I do for a living, and I do my best not to squander that privilege. The best I can do is hopefully continue giving the people what they want; a physical pressing of The Common Grounds, more explorations of my characters, and more comics... and I plan on doing so, in that exact order. :)
I do want to spell out all the steps of the printing process to set some realistic expectations for how long it'll take, and when we can expect to see the books finally hit the shelves. I know y'all are as eager as I am to feel this comic in your hands, but like with the comic itself, I don't want to rush things and end up compromising on the quality of the finished product!
The Common Grounds was built from the ground up with an eventual physical book in mind, and every page was made with trim margins, page turns, bleeds, etc all baked into them from the start. The comic itself is more or less ready to go! The thing that will take time is... everything else. First off, we need a front and back cover, which I will start working on later today. Second, I need to whip up some additional interior pages to make it feel like a proper "book"; stuff like inner cover illustrations, an interior title page, some thank-you's and acknowledgments in the back, etc. And lastly, all 90 pages of the comic itself need to be fixed up and formatted for print (converted to CMYK, Patreon URL's removed, adjusting important stuff like page numbers away from trim margins, and so on), and I'll likely be doing this twice over, as I'd like to print two different copies, with one being slightly brighter than the other (This comic is quite literally very dark, and I'd like to avoid having any details lost in the darkness). Once these very tedious steps are done and dusted, I'll ship the comic off for proofing (producing some test copies to make sure I like how everything is looking), which historically takes about two weeks with my printers.
Like I did with A Show of the Ropes, I'd like to spend that two weeks going back into the comic and fixing up anything that's been bothering me over the couple years spent making it, like characters drawn weird, missing background elements, doors opening the wrong way (I historically struggle with this lol), or any afterthoughts that I think could improve the comic, within reason. I figure any of these changes will be minor enough that I'm safe sneaking them into the final pressing of the comic without proofing, and we can hopefully save some time this way. :)
Once that's all done, I'll place the big order... sort of. In June I'll not only be attending Texas Furry Siesta, but will actually be their Guest of Honor! While I don't think this news has gone public just yet, it does feel important to note, as I'd like to debut the physical edition of The Common Grounds at this con! And just two weeks after that convention, you'll be able to find me at Anthrocon, where I'll also have copies available! Once these two conventions are wrapped up and I've arrived back home, the book will finally go live in my online store! So one way or another, you can expect to see it ready to go in July.
Since I am just one woman packing and shipping these all myself (and with help from Mae Dog, bless her heart), I'll be stocking 100 copies per week on my online store. If you miss out on the first batch, there will be a second, and if you miss the second, there will be a third, and so on. Packing up orders is tedious work, and taking on 500+ orders at once might actually kill me, so this is my more sustainable solution that I've come up with. Not perfect, but it'll keep me from going nuts. :)
At this point you might be asking... Willow, what will you be up to art-wise once the comic's sent off for printing? Will you be starting your next comic right away?
Short answer, no. Long answer, there's a frustrating aspect of making comics that doesn't quite quench the artist's soul, and that's the requirement of stylistic consistency. Every page follows the same process, (sketch, inks, colors, spot shading, backgrounds, design elements, finish and post), and after a while, that process is all you know. I'd like to spend a good chunk of this spring & summer breaking out of that process, and working on pieces that challenge me artistically and improve my skills! We'll still be seeing familiar places, narratives, and characters (maybe even new one's!), just in illustrations rather than sequential art, a'la Tip Your Baristas. And somewhere in this illustration series, I'd love to whip up a Casper daki!
I'm also planning on taking a week-long road trip with my partner toward the end of summer, and that feels like the perfect way to punctuate the end of one artistic cycle and the beginning of a new one (and gives me ample time to finetune the writing!). That being said, we can expect a new, smaller comic to kick off in September. Not unlike Regular Orders, it'll be a smaller, more lighthearted, more raunchy romp starring Constance, Red, and another character you might've seen/smelled around here before. :)
And that's all! Plenty to chew on and look forward to over the next few months. Appreciate y'all sticking with me through the comic, and I hope you stick around to see what's next! And if y'all have questions, let me know in the comments and I'll do my best to get back to you.
Love y'all!! Happy Spring!
-Willow