by Josh Phillips on Thu Feb 27, 2003 11:43 am
Every once in a while I post this in the front page News section, but some people just miss it, and it eventually scrolls off as new news posts are made. I keep getting e-mails from people wondering what's going on with Avalon nowadays. So I'm just going to start a thread for it here, and make a good, prominent link to it on the front page.
First of all, Avalon has *not* concluded. It *will* conclude, eventually, but not before the story is completed. I will not alter the story (which has been planned out in my mind for years now) in order to speed up the telling.
Originally, Avalon was intended to last three years, and I chose to have everything concluded by August 30, 2002. That obviously didn't happen. Beginning in Avalon's second year, the daily updates began to falter, and there was a growing increase in missed updates, until now, when I miss whole months in a row.
I'm sticking to my original intent that there would be a specific number of daily comics left before Avalon concludes. So I'm continuing to backdate new comic strips, as if they were to be posted on the date specified (this is the date on the bottom of every comic strip image). And in order to keep the archive uncluttered and easy to read, I'll occassionally move each comic strip back to the date in the archive when that comic was supposed to be posted. (One side benefit to this backdating scheme is that you can always tell roughly what day it is in-comic)
Now, to explain why Avalon has been delayed as much as it has: in October of last year, I was pretty much debilitated by a case of depression (which, as it turns out, has existed for years; Avalon's delays began long ago when it become too difficult for me to handle both the comic and work/school simultaneously). Since October, I've been under treatment which has drastically improved my condition. Unfortunately, I'm still affected by some sort of sleeping disorder, plus I've fallen seriously behind in school.
So, suffice it to say that there have been far more important things for me to worry about than producing comic strips. But I seriously miss the early days of Avalon when I could easily post a new comic strip on time every night. For a while (especially a year ago), I tried to believe that I could, and I often let down Avalon's readers *and* myself when I couldn't. So, lately, I've been making it a policy not to make any more promises on when Avalon will return for good (and unfortunately, that means having to say "I don't know" when anyone asks, which isn't much better).
I'm still trying to find a way to bring Avalon back to reliability (even if it can't be daily). Whether it means trying to work out some form of time-management, finding means of inspiration, or even changing Avalon to make it easier for me to produce. One of the things I've been doing lately is adding more detail with colour to create a slightly different artistic experience, and it's been a positive one, but obviously not enough to kick-start things permanently. So I'm still working on it.
I think that's enough exposition for now, and hopefully that explains most of the situation. If anyone has any other questions related to the status of Avalon, please ask it in a reply to this thread, and I'll try answering it for you.
JOSH.