Cooties

I have to apologize to my readers for not keeping you all informed. I was asked to participate in a project that should see publication this summer, so Cooties had to be put on the back burner. There will be a new update this Monday, though! Thanks for your patience!

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!