Today, March 1st of 2009, is the 60th day of the year. So was February 29th of 1968, which means that a full 41 years have passed since I escaped the womb. (cue Matthew Broderick saying "what a memory...") As a present to myself I'm wrapping up Book 10 today. BAM. Done. See how easy that was? I only finished tweaking the line art on Thursday, which is kind of rare for me. Things got down to the wire there when I decided the first row needed a complete re-write. Monday's strip is the first in Book 11. By way of setting your expectations, this is going to be a wonderful story, funny and uplifting with action, adventure, peril, and character development. But there will be NO Schlocktoberfest in 2009. Crafting a one-month mini-arc that maps perfectly to the calendar is hard work, and it just doesn't fit this time. It might never fit again. This doesn't mean I'll never tell another spooky story, or do another send-up of horror-movie tropes. It doesn't mean I'm never going to kill off characters or launch the midden into the windmill again. It just means I'm going to do those things when you can't let the calendar warn you about them. I'm going to relax and let this next story tell itself at the pace it wants to. I think it wants to go in five directions at once, like an organ fugue written for four hands and shared pedals. It's a good thing I have a degree in music...
