Major Apologies and Changes

Yeah, so if I still have any readers, you may have noticed that I haven't updated in a while. There's a reason for that. Several reasons.

Last summer, my sister and brother-in-law kinda-sorta hired me as a babysitter/housekeeper/groundskeeper/animal handler with a little graphic designer/consultant on the side. So I moved from my apartment near my folks to my sister's basement up in Middle-of-Nowhere, North Dakota. I like it, usually, but moving in and getting settled was (is) a bit of a process.

Once I got things arranged so I could start drawing more often, woops! My drawing computer starts acting up. Or, perhaps more accurately, not starting up. That's what I thought, anyway. Something turned on, but as of a couple months ago, it wasn't communicating at all with the Wacom tablet.

Finally got the entire rig down to my brother and the first thing he does is open the converter box between the tablet and the computer. It looked like bird poop and melted chocolate. Or like something exploded.

Apparently, these sort of components aren't supposed to do that.

Yay.

Welp, my brother takes a look around and finding a quality replacement would not only be difficult but also expensive. I've also been thinking about saving up for an actual tablet computer for a while so I can do what I wanted to in the first place, see something interesting and just whip out the tablet for some drawing.

Which would run somewhere between 1,100 and 3,000 bucks.

So I haven't been working on Mary Quite Contrary or much of anything else art-wise for the better part of a year. I'm sorry. Really. I don't know if anyone is still reading this, but I do want you to know that I haven't abandoned this comic.

In fact, as soon as I can get a drawing rig up again, I plan on rebooting the story. There are a few things I ended up skipping over because I was trying have the comic's time run in 'real time.' I think I've also learned a few things about pacing and layout since the early strips. Not to mention I'd like to give a bit more focus to Mary's family.

MQC will return, eventually, and I'm hoping it comes back better than before. Cross your fingers.

Reason for the delay.

Okay, there are a number of things contributing to the current delay in a new comic coming out. One of them is that my drawing computer is refusing to talk with my drawing tablet and vice versa. As soon as I can arrange some couple's counseling for them I'll try to get back to the comic.

Chapter 15, Page 7 No spoken de Doich?

Really happened. I was half humming, half singing a Norwegian song and an old man started speaking German to me. I had a bit of a time trying to explain that I couldn't understand him.

Sorry for the long delay again! I forgot which thumb drive I was using. ^^;

Delay again... still...

Well, I'm almost done with moving. That is, I'm within a day or so of having my stuff out of the old apartment and into the new one. Not sure when the chaos of boxes and furniture will turn into something livable.

My initial plan for Mary Quite Contrary was to have Mary and her family age in more-or-less real time, like Gasoline Alley and For Better Or For Worse. The way things are going right now I'll either have to change that plan or skip a lot of stuff I had planned to draw. I think I'll go with the former. Not that I don't also plan on adding a lot of stuff to the earlier chapters. That will probably wait until I get these into 'dead tree' format. If I ever manage to.

Just wanted to let everyone who's still reading this know. I will be back eventually.

Apologies.

This has not been a good month for me so far. I could go on at length, but suffice to say that life has been happening with unusual frequency lately.

And to top it off I actually *do* have the next comic ready. I just can't access it because the computer my brother and I *finally* got working (mostly) decided to stop recognizing the Wacom tablet and keyboard *after* I'd finished the comic but before I saved it as a jpeg on my flash drive. The computer turns on, but without any way to see the desktop I can't do anything with it.

AAAAA!!!

Chapter 14, Page 9 Scary spider

Sorry for the delay. Again. Life happened a lot. And then there was the heat wave that made drawing rather difficult. (The tablet gets very warm very quickly and my hands tend to stick to paper.) I think I'm starting to catch up on a lifetime of inadequate sleep, so maybe I'll be able to update more frequently.

No promises.

Chapter 13, Page 8 Captain Hook-Less

I feel like I've been apologizing every time I manage to upload something. ~.~ Life has been happening with distressing frequency lately. Added to that my own (perhaps vain) attempts at sorting my stuff. I wonder at what point I'll just give up and donate everything to Goodwill. Ah, but then I'd worry that I might have accidentally gotten rid of something irreplaceable.

Kinda like Hook's hand. I wonder what he was called before Peter cut off his hand. Or if that's his name and Peter thought it'd be funny if Hook had a hook.

Chapter 13, Page 2 Stand out

Sorry this is late! I have a very good excuse.

I'm employed!! YAY! Don't expect me to jump up and down, though, because my feet are killing me. I need new shoes soooooo bad.

By the way, I really did do that. I think my little sister just about died.

I do have something to post, but Blogger was down for a while. And blog posts have gone missing from several of my Dad's blogs. Possibly mine, too, but I haven't checked thoroughly. The problem is being worked on, but posts are still appearing and disappearing. I'm a little leery of posting the next episode until the situation settles down.

Sorry about that. ^^;

Chapter 12, Page 7 Dual shoutout

I'm so sorry I've been flaking so much on this comic! Please don't kill me!

Weird thing, it's a lot easier to work on something like this when there's something else that should legitimately be taking up my time. Now, the only excuse I have is a severe case of the blahs. I shall make a concerted effort to rise above my own lack of motivation and bring this comic back into a somewhat reasonable update schedule.

In the meantime, here's a little tribute to two comics that inspired me when I was young.

Chapter 12, Page 6 Guarding territory

Sorry about the long delay! T.T I don't have a good excuse except a complete and total lack of motivation to do anything. You know your motivation has hit the sub-basement when going to sleep seems like too much effort.

Anyway, that's hopefully behind me now and I'll be able to finished up this chapter before summer. At which point I'll have to figure out what to do next.

In case anyone's wondering, this really happened. Don't know when, I think it actually happened before I was born, but it was too funny a story not to relate.

Chapter 11, Page 23 On the upside

Yeah, that really helps lighten the mood, Dad. But at least he's trying, right?

You know, when this arc is over I'm going to have to figure out what to do next. I have a bunch of idea files, but I'm starting to realize how few of them include material from my teen years. They couldn't have been that uneventful, could they?

Chapter 11, Page 22 Panic rises

Sorry about the delay. I really have no good excuse. Well, I guess house sitting for my little sister for most of the month kinda counts, but it's still bad.

Anyway... Uh, yeah. I actually did lock myself in the back of a cop car. Not my best day.

A delay

I'm having a really hard time figuring out how to show the level of panic Mary feels behind the wheel. There are also a couple events coming up in story and in real life that are going to make things interesting for me. Uff da.

Anyway, I'm hoping the delay won't be long, but I wanted to give some warning, anyway.

Heat related intermission

It's way too hot. And I don't have A/C. Because of that, the next episode is going to be delayed a bit. My brain is melting, my skin is becoming one with whatever surface it comes in contact with, and you do not want to know about my digestion.

By the end of the weekend I should (I hope) have A/C and will be able to complete the last couple of steps necessary for the strip without having to dive into the freezer every 30 seconds. Thank you for your patience.

Chapter 9, Page 16 Reminder

Yeah. Peter's bigger than the others were at that age. It makes a difference.

Sorry for the lack of updates lately. It might continue to be erratic until finals are over. I had hoped to get some of this dealt with over the Thanksgiving Break, but I ended up getting homework done instead. And not enough homework, at that. ~.~ Sigh.

Chapter 8, Cover

Sorry for the long delay. Hopefully you'll enjoy these sketches of how Mary spent her summer.

More appologies

I am still attempting to get my schedule in some semblance of order so that I can not only find time to work on MQC, but also move back into my apartment so I actually *can* work on MQC.

At the moment, I'm sitting at my parents' kitchen table, surrounded by forms, invitation forms, pieces of food, and sewing supplies.

(And, just to make things more interesting, my little sister is getting married in 3 months. I have a feeling the summer may be a wash as far as regular updates are concerned.)

I do hope you will forgive this hiatus. Please check back regularly, in case I manage to get an actual comic up.

More delays. So sorry.

First Monday's strip ends up posted on Tuesday and now there's no Wednesday post? Sorry.

There's a bit of drama on my end involving my rabbit and an apartment management that doesn't like him being there smelling the place up. Never mind that everyone who actually lives here loves the little ball of fur.

I'm going to try to keep my rabbit and the roof that's currently over my head. Hopefully without falling too far behind on my other obligations.

I'd explain the delay, but...

Between finals, an annual apartment inspection, and some health concerns you really don't want details on, I just don't see me getting today's strip up today. In fact, I was working on it and things started to smudge. Not a good sign.

So I'll shoot for Wednesday.