Hello again! If I have any readers left after my 6-month hiatus, you have hopefully been looking forward to the return of Cooties, and the exciting conclusion of “Infestation”! I had originally planned to take a longer hiatus to completely finish writing, drawing and coloring each remaining strip in my first chapter, but I had too many requests to continue the story that I just couldn’t ignore them. Therefore, Cooties will be a weekly strip, updating every Monday, until I have a buffer large enough to go daily for the rest of “Infestation”. After 3½ years, all of you who have stuck with me deserve the big payoff, so I will do my best to deliver. Be here every Monday for the ninja-y, superhero-y, alien-y goodness of Cooties!

Cooties was begun as an experiment. I’d done four years of a regularly-running comic strip at my University paper, plus a few years of editorial cartoons for a small-town rag, and wanted to try my hand at a long-form story-based comic. About 3 years and 175 comics later, I thought I’d try another experiment and make Cooties a comic that updated every weekday. That experiment ended in spectacular failure. The strip as a whole, though, has grown very dear to my heart, and I can easily see myself working on it until I’m an old man.

That being said, I’ve been forced to take a hard look at what I’ve been doing and ask myself what has worked and what hasn’t. I think I’ve figured it out. As a result, Cooties is officially on hiatus. My little characters deserve better than a hastily-scrawled punchline that I stuck in at 2 in the morning because I needed to update on time. I am going to spend some time plotting, writing, scripting, and then penciling, inking, and coloring. This will be done without a deadline looming over me as if this were a job. I want to start putting my best work on display, and taking the time to do it right.

Once the rest of the comics for “Infestation” are completed (written, inked, and colored), I will start updating the site again, one update per day. I really wish I’d done this to start with, now that I’m a little more experienced with this webcomicking thing. Anyway, I don’t know how long this is going to take. Hopefully not longer than six months, but no promises. I’ve got a house to sell, finances to fix, kids to raise, and a marriage to nurture, and turning Cooties into another job wasn’t helping.

To my dedicated readers, even though I can count you on all my fingers, you are truly appreciated. Some of you have read this thing for a very long time waiting for me to finish the first story. I promise, though, that the wait will be worth it. And I won’t drop off the face of the internet, either. I owe several people some guest art and stuff that I want to finally get around to, and still want to be an active participant in my host’s community. I’ll try and keep you posted on the site and Twitter and such. Until then, be excellent to each other!

Hey, everyone, go check out the first of two guest pages I did for Lightbringer ! I did the art off of Lewis’ script. I get the honor of kicking off his return from a 5-month hiatus! I hope any of you out there who are his fans enjoy my depiction of his characters. Welcome back, Lightbringer!

So I’m noticing that if I don’t totally screw it up, my 200th strip and Cooties’ 3rd anniversary should fall on the same day! June 23rd. It’s coming…

Number one: SpiderForest is accepting submissions for your totally awesome webcomic to join the collective and be assimilated by us. Try it, you’ll like it!

Number two: Mark Mariano of the fabulously smack-you-up-da-head-with-the-awesomeness-stick webcomic Flabbergast gave Cooties a review and he was seriously nice about it. Go check it out and see why I’m getting a big head!

I’ve been reading many different discussions and books about the art form of webcomics lately. There seems to be a tendency among so many of us to imitate the form (if not the content) of printed newspaper comics and comic books. There’s nothing wrong with that, as we tend to bring the mindset of the form over from the comics and creators that inspired us to make our own stories and jokes; however, in keeping ourselves in that mindset, we tend to limit ourselves and not take advantage of the opportunities that being on the web affords us. Some are making great efforts to expand the form of their art to match the online medium (i.e., infinite canvas or animation). Others keep the same physical form of newspaper strips or comic book pages, but prefer to expand the possibilities in terms of content (this tends to find expression in mature-themed comics that could never be published in a newspaper, for instance).

But what I’ve noticed is that almost all webcomic artists are stuck in the mindset (as I’ve been for the most part) that they have to choose a standard page or strip size and stick to it day after day, as if they were still trying to vie for limited space that’s been doled out to them by an editor of a comics page or comic book publisher.

Why are we doing this? Are we trying to make people feel comfortable, like somehow they’re still reading a newspaper strip every morning over their coffee as they’ve always done? Are we planning on eventually publishing our work into a printed form, and making our comics a standard size to match? For many, it’s the latter, but I don’t think that will be a concern for me.

So I realized: if I want to keep Cooties pretty much exclusively online, why do I continue to limit my strip sizes to a standard form when I really don’t need to? And furthermore, would varying my strip sizes enable me to change my update frequency? I’ve done some reflecting and experimenting, and decided that Cooties needs to be more or less a daily strip (I’ve been on my first story for almost 3 years now!) and that by varying the size of my updates I can make it happen. So starting Monday, May 11, Cooties will now update 5 days a week. Here is the rundown, so you’ll know what to expect.

Mondays - short 1-2 panel strip; these may or may not be colored.
Tuesdays - newspaper style. Probably will color, but I may experiment with some new black-and-white techniques
Wednesdays - see Monday
Thursdays - random sketch, drawing, guest art, etc. Separate from the story
Fridays - the big, full-color Cooties strips you’re used to seeing.

So yeah, it won’t be a giant colored page every day, but I think it’s better than what I’ve been offering up until now. I want to make stopping by the site every day for something new a part of your routine, and hope not to disappoint! See ya on Monday!

I’ve recently joined a neat little drawing social network called Sketch-Out. An exercise is assigned every week, and we all do a drawing or sketch to practice our stuff. You can check out my first couple assignments here. I think sticking with this group will really improve Cooties over the long run! Enjoy!

The unannouned hiatus I had is now over. Sorry I never posted anything about my lack of updates; it’s been extremely hectic, or at least it felt that way. Things are falling back in order now, and regular updates will continue for the forseeable future. They may be small ones like today’s, but I will at least keep plugging along with something on schedule. Thanks for putting up with me, folks!

Do you have a webcomic featuring kids or adolescents in a school setting? Cooties wants to request some guest art from you in which you can feature your own characters and promote your own comic!

Imagine your characters’ town or school has been invaded by the Q’utees! Would they fight back? Flee? Surrender? Or something entirely different? I’d love as many as would like to to participate! See my forum post for details.

Comic is going up later today, possibly tomorrow. Guys, lot of stuff going on recently. I am going to a Fridays only schedule for the next month, maybe two. Sorry, but it has to be done…