First things first...

Les McClaine has restarted one of my favorite of his old ideas, Johnny Crossbones, as a daily comic! With plans to turn it into a fairly lengthy book over the course of the next year or so. This makes me happy.

This is a week old already, but It's still fantastic. And we are assured shirts are coming...

Now then...

Sometimes you get things right the first time, sometimes it takes a few experiments.

Consider the first 48 strips an experiment.

When I restarted this strip last October I had a rough idea what I wanted to do with it. I had a number of strips in my head, and a very specific type of humor I wanted to express. I knew the characters fairly well, and I knew the type of situations they'd get themselves into. What I didn't have down was the setting. I had ideas of course. I wanted it to be a lab set up in the back of a theater, thus setting things up for a bunch of theater themed gags. Mostly because I've spent half my employment history working in theaters. Better artists than me are already mining that field, So that's changing.

I wanted a chinese restaurant next door, on account of the strips title, and because Grannie Chang was such a strong character to me already. This is staying, but you won't see it or Grannie for a while, she needs a break.

Oh, and I wanted to have a vast underground complex of creatures and monstrosities crammed underneath it all. That is very much still going strong.

Problem is I never stoppedin the beginning to really sort all these things out, and so I've spent the last fourty-eight rambling strips very badly introducing the strip. And in the meantime I've found time to rethink the setting, and clear up a few of the vague concepts rattling around my skull.

And now I'm ready to actually do this fucker proper.

Rather than spend more time on slow spiraling storylines, and long winded introductions to every damn thing I think of, I'm just going to be doing this strip the way I should have done from the beginning. You can still think of the past strips as part of the same story for the most part, the changes I'll be making don't so much contradict what you've seen as much as they ignore it.

If you're really hardcore about continuity just assume a few years have passed, and things have changed. And barring that, a wizard did it.

In the end, it's all going in a book early next year, the good and the "eh". I'll make up for the stuff I'm not thrilled with, don't you worry. I was originally hoping to collect these past strips and the old old strips together as a small book, but instead I'm going to wait untill I can get at least another fourty or so strips done in this style to bring the total to around 120 before we start printing.

What's that you say? Fourty new strips means we have to wait nearly another year for the book!

Not so. Part of the reason for the change in style was, as some of you I'm quite certain have already noticed, getting rid of the super detailed backgrounds. Not completely. I'll still be drawing them when they're actually neccesary. But by moving to a cleaner style I can concentrate more on the characters, and when a background is visible I can give it some extra love.

Today's strip is still a bit experimental, as the next few will be as well. For the record, I'm not thrilled with how blank the first panel is, but I was very happy with the last 2. Those are more the direction I'm headed, for those who give a damn.

Oh yeah, 40 strips by the end of the year... I'm drawing the strips larger than before, using a better paper format, and simplifying the backgrounds. All of which means I will very shortly be moving to the long promised 2 strips a week. Don't believe me? Well I can't blame you, it wouldn't be the first time I thought I could do it. But in this case there's a few extra reasons for it to happen, not the least of which is the fact that reader growth has been stalled for a good 6 months now. It hasn't gone down, thank you, I love you all for sticking around, but it also hasn't grown in ages.

If I want more readers, I gotta step up and draw.

Also, to aid in this endeavour, for the first couple months the second weekly strip will usually be a guest strip for someone else.

This means I've got a laundry list of fellow webcomics who have helped me out in one form or another, all of which are on my "draw shit for 'em" agenda. So as not to get myself into trouble, for the most part I ain't gonna name names ahead of time.

But keep an eye on Brainwrap Comics later this week...

Ten to one odds when I get home tomorrow there'll be a dozen emails in my inbox cursing me out for all this.

But I do what I gotta do, and if you trust me just a little bit I think you'll like what's coming...

Rock on.

Eric J.