I'm back from SDCC and everything imploded while I was there. (Itchio, the future, etc)

It's the first night of SDCC. We've just wrapped up the early access night for the convention and I'd only made $50 that night, because I don't yet have a lot of fans in San Diego. I was feeling a bit down but knowing the con had a lot more days left: Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, to be exact. The longest convention I've ever had to do.

We finally make it back to my friend's condo that I'm lucky enough to be staying at and I see the news: payment processors have not only gotten to censor Steam, but Itchio now as well, and it's bad. They've been forced to de-index (make unsearchable) any game tagged "adult" or "nsfw" and that they will have to start removing a lot of projects due to these forced changes.

The news is blowing up like crazy on socials and I'm stuck here. I can't reach certain people I need to reach and I can do very little in the fight against this, trapped behind my marathon convention table. There are so many kind, positive people coming up to me (I even got fanart) and my mind is stuck on, "What am I going to do? Is this going to ruin my career?".

As you may or may not know: Itchio is how I make about a 4th of my income each month. (You all here are how I keep the lights on and Itchio is how I could afford to do things like merch, books, etc) Direct PDF sales are often times the only thing someone will by: there are certain folks you can never convince to buy an actual book or join a Patreon, so being able to sell my products digitally (and easily) is crucial. Having that taken away is going to hurt me, and many others, a lot.

Not only that: but I had two major releases planned for the end of this year. A new werewolf comic and a new mothwoman comic. I do those projects with a friend of mine, Canary, and if I can't ensure those projects make money at the end via PDF sales, I can't ask her to work with me on those. We're going to have to figure out a way to pivot.

I'm pretty confident I can find a workaround and I'm working on seeing about just setting up my own digital storefront: but that comes with a lot of time, effort, and usually money. Doing that kind of thing is not easy and honestly: shouldn't be necessary. These payment processors shouldn't have the right to say we can't buy something legal. (Almost all art is legal to buy in the USA.)

So, there's a massive effort to push back against these policies and start making these companies allow adult content again. I'm refraining from naming names here, due to fear of being kicked off Patreon for it, but you should check my bsky and look around Reddit for information on how you can help. (A lot of us are making phone calls and sending in letters in the mail.)

What does this mean for the future of this page? As of now, it won't affect this page at all, but it will absolutely affect me and what I'm able to make. I'm confident I can keep working on Solanaceae: but you should expect to see me push the print books a lot harder than usual and you should expect to see the crowd funding for the first omnibus way sooner than I expected to need it. You should also expect to see less personal art from me unless I'm able to get the numbers up on this page: I'm going to be heavily relying on commissions to make up the income loss of my digital sales until a good solution can be found.

I really want to keep making art. I really want this to still be my job. And I'm so appreciative you're all here to support me and help me with that. I can't ask any more of you and hope you'll continue to support me for as long as you're comfortable doing so. But, I also want to be transparent with you on what's happening with me, my life, and my art.

I'm going to keep doing my best and I'm going to keep fighting. I really want to believe we can make a positive change if we all keep this going together.

I'm not really sure what else to say expect thank you and I hope you'll stick with me through the end of the Solanaceae comic and more. I have a lot of ideas I feel super passionately about and I hope we can see them happen together! Hang in there and let me know if you have any questions.