Artist's Statement: What's up with Tachyon Punch?

It's incredible that in a mere 14 months Tachyon Punch has dragged itself, fighting and clawing, away from complete nothingness. And through journey and hardship has rested itself comfortably on the gates of the promised land of near-obscurity. At least, that's how it feels to me. In reality, I'm just impatient. I want Tachyon Punch to turn into the bustling media-hub that I envision it should be. Given time, nutrition, and nurture it will be. I just wish it would be ready right now! (As I do the ceremonial Angry Dance of the Bratty Child.)

The site definitely should be a lot bigger but unfortunately, I wasn't there yet. Now before I continue, dear reader and dear fan, believe me when I say that this paragraph—while critical—is not to be read as a whiny, self-pitiable diatribe that is meant to invoke sympathy. It is just the truth. Tachyon Punch is a lesson in how "not-ready" I was to be a professional bootstrapping cartoonist. I want to say that, "It was like excitedly gearing up and stepping into the ring of your first boxing match and discovering it was against a bulldozer." But that simile is pretty hyperbolic. In reality, "It was like excitedly gearing up and stepping into the ring of your first boxing match and discovering it was against a reasonably well-trained boxer who is just better than you." Both matches have a similar level of ego-crushing realization but one requires a lot less Bactine.

It's hard to understand, but even creating a modest stream of continuous content takes an incredible amount of work, discipline, and introspection. You never really understand it until you actually try to do it. You can't miss comic deadlines because you had a crappy day at work, wore yourself out by dithering around instead of sleeping, or playing video games because you're "burnt out." You can't build readers without a comic and you can't keep readers without trust. Part of building that trust is providing a comic when you say you will and if it's something you can't deliver being honest enough to admit that you can't handle it. Perhaps then scaling the work appropriately. I didn't do this, the problem was that I wasn't there yet.

I deliberately chose the words "I wasn't there yet" with special emphasis on "I." All of our contributors are great. Andrew has dropped a ream of text on me already and Beth has been phenomenal. Originally, her role was just to code, support, and occasionally write for the site. But, she has (somewhat unfairly) evolved into my manager and producer. To be honest, she is the real reason the site still exists. To drag out the boxing metaphor, she was the one to pull me back off the mat. Otherwise I probably would've just laid there and comfortably slipped into oblivion. She kept on me even as deadlines whizzed by one after the other. She wrangled the writers, edited copy, edited the comic as I wrote it. All of this while doing is original site-editing duties. Frankly, she's ended up doing way too much on my behalf and is probably looking to give me a well-deserved kick in the dick.

At paragraph five, let's get to the point. I'm ready to take back the reins of the site. I will get over my stage fright, put down the bass, and become the front man as intended. It's time to do my fair share of the work. What does this mean for the site? A lot of things:

• Patches: The World's Cutest Zombie will no longer update in five page chunks. Instead, it will update as a single, larger-format strip on Mondays. I'm really doing this because I was spreading myself, the writing, and the art too thinly across five pages. Focusing five pages worth of work into a single page will result in a much better comic overall and a more efficient use of my time.
• More writing from me for the site. The Yelling section has been dominated by Beth and Betsy because I never gave myself enough time to do any writing outside of the comics. But ideally I should have more time to do some regular written features for the site.
• More content in general. With the addition of Andrew and the (as of yet unseen) Monica to the (thoroughly unpaid) Tachyon Punch staff roll. We should be able to do more Yelling, Fiction, and web 2.0 side-projects for the site. Even things we've had planned ever since the site's inception but have not been able to actually implement.
• And finally: More frequent and regular updates. Currently the site updates without a fixed schedule (in spite of our "about" page) around 2-3 times a month...and yeah...that's not super-great for a lot of reasons. The plan right now is to update Tachyon Punch twice a week, Patches: TWCZ on Mondays and Yelling on Wednesdays. All of which, I will do my best to wrangle or produce on time.

It is an exciting time for Tachyon Punch and I want to thank all of our contributors past, present, and future. Also you, you lucky bugger, you are on the ground floor of the something really special. I want to thank you for being here and I hope you'll stay awhile. Or at the very least try to stay for another 14 months.