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January 07th, 2020

1/7/2020

Welp, it's a New Year. As usual, it's time to take a moment and take stock of everything and try to figure what the plan is for this year, just so I can monkeywrench the whole stupid thing three months in.

So, first off, for the last few years my major plan of attack has been what I like to call "The TORC Press Funny Pages". I have been trying to build up a series of daily comic strips in a variety of genres, and I've tried my best to promote them. I've spent years now throwing my strips onto other webcomic hosting platforms, hyping stuff on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, making YouTube videos, hyping my work on me and my brother's podcast. I've tried. Maybe I could have tried harder. Maybe I didn't try the right venues, or maybe I didn't keep at it long enough. I dunno. All I know is I've tried, and I've not really gained anything for all of my work waving my arms and yelling "Hey! Over here! I'm doing this really cool thing over here and every day there's a new cool thing and all I really want is for you to buy a book every so often or maybe pledge a buck or two a month to my Patreon!" Instead, I'm pretty sure my Readership is actually shrinking. Oh well, ce la vie. Time to try some new stuff. If people aren't in to comic strips, then I'll try some other stuff. So, here's where we're at, and here's where we're going:

Quixote Coyote: Okay, I know I was a little gloomy in the above paragraph, but rest assured, Quixote Coyote is going nowhere. I can't stress enough, that this little newspaper style strip about a plucky Coyote vs. the World is probably the best thing I've ever done in my 20 years of making comics, and I plan on continuing to do it for the foreseeable future. Again, I know that a good chunk of my Patreon supporters are specifically supporting me for Quixote Coyote, so I certainly can't disappoint them. Also, I've got a ton of ideas for the Strip. Specifically, I have ideas for the next (gimme a minute) 5 Arcs. I can't promise that all of them will be as epic as the last 2 have been... but at the same time, I didn't think I could ever top Pirate Island, and I honestly think that The Big Pig Brigade is at least as good, maybe better (let's see if I can stick the landing). Anyway, the strip will continue on its regular schedule, and I will put out issues of the comic every so often. I eventually need to also collect the various arcs in TPB form, but I'm not sure how to format for that, and I get really lazy when it comes to digital stuff.

Dolphin Bros: The epic Sky Islands story will wrap up this year... sometime. There's been a lot of internal debate about whether or not to continue the strip after that, and after some excessive soul searching, I've decided to end the Daily Strip after Sky Islands ends. Whoa! Slow down! Don't throw your shoe through the computer monitor (or smartphone)! I'm not done with the Dolphins, not by a long shot. For starters, I actually completed a Dolphin Bros Children's Book about a year ago, but I never mass produced it. I'd like to take the time to do that sometime this year. I also wrote a second Dolphin Bros Children's Book that I haven't done the Art for yet, and I would also like to take the time to work on that this year. Since all of you reading this aren't Children, I also want to collect all of the Color Dolphin Bros Stories from the One Shot Comic, the various Anthology Stories, and the stories that appeared in "7Worlds" in a TPB. Speaking of "7Worlds", I never finished the Dolphin Bros Time Travel story from that comic, so I would like to take the time to do that as well (and collect that story into a TPB). I'm not sure when I'm going to do all of this, or what order I will do it in, but I would like to get to work on it sometime this year. Which is the main reason I want to wrap up the Dolphin Bros Daily Strip. BUT, make no mistake, I will NOT be rushing through the Dailies. I have an Epic Conclusion in mind, and I have no plans to shortchange it.

Spook Haus: You might have noticed Spook Haus didn't run on Monday. I had hopes that Spook Haus might attract some New Readers, but like most things I do, this was not to be. I was going to continue to run the strip on a MWF schedule, but I also recently realized that I just don't have enough ideas to keep the strip going. So, I'm going to take my time and finish the "Attack on Spook Haus" story, and then collect the whole strip into a single volume. As such, Spook Haus won't be running on a set schedule; I'll simply upload strips when I've completed them.

Cozmic Taco: You might also have noticed that Cozmic Taco just kind of disappeared. I have a whole stack of Penciled strips waiting to be inked, but after I started running Bootleg I just kinda lost touch with CT. I would like to finish the Cozmic Taco strips I've penciled, and post them here on the website/Patreon. And, much like Spook Haus, I would like to collect the whole thing into a single volume. There won't be a set schedule for any of this, I just want to kind of do it when I get around to it.

Project Bootleg: I think a few of you are enjoying Bootleg. Obviously, I am very much enjoying it. Cozmic Taco was good, but Bootleg is so much better. It's the closest I've come to developing a strip that can almost keep up with my Mind. Almost. I do Project Bootleg for me, for my enjoyment, for my sanity, for my soul. I'm not sure how long I'll do it. Maybe I'll junk the whole thing next week, maybe I'll be doing it when I drop dead on my Art Table at the Age of 85. But, again, straight up, I love this weird thing I'm doing. Oh! And as if this thing isn't ridiculous enough, on Sunday I came up with an idea for a... Bootleg adjacent project that I got really excited about that I may or may not do, but I'd really like to do it. So that may start this year, too.

So, long story short, the plan this year is to:
1) Keep doing Quixote Coyote the way I'm doing Quixote Coyote.
2) Bring all of my other strips to their conclusion.
3) Start actually collecting my work in Trade Paperback Format for realsies instead of just talking about it and not doing it. I want a Book Shelf full of my Work Dangit!
4) Try to find the balance between continuing to do Project Bootleg, and not letting Project Bootleg consume my entire life.
5) Explore Dolphin Bros in other formats.

In many ways, I want to throttle back a little this year, but I also want to become a little more organized. I'm so devoted to The Work, sometimes I forget that I need to put The Work in different, potentially more accessible formats for people. Anyway, that's my plan for now. Thank you all for supporting my Work, and I hope I continue to produce entertaining comics for y'all.