September 17, 2014 - Friday concludes Volume One of With Fetus, and from there I'm taking a bit of a hiatus to figure out Volume Two as well as deal with a slew of side projects and other aspects of my life. The hope is to have all of Volume Two outlined and have begun building a buffer by the time I return, but I don't want to get too ahead of myself and instead just focus on a rundown of things I hope to accomplish in the interim before With Fetus returns.
First and foremost I want to start applying to grad school, which is something I should have done last year, but this year I really want to look at in earnest and is what I want to invest most of my time into this month and next. Assuming I get in to grad school, this will also present a whole new bunch of challenges in terms of maintaining the comic in addition to my school work that I'm simply not going to have answers for how to address for quite some time but depending on how I feel after completing the application process may affect how I proceed with presenting the comic when it returns.
I also want to make a much more concerted effort at monetizing the comic. I honestly have no idea how to build facebook, tumblr, and twitter followings and I think my attempts to gain readers through advertising have plateaued. This means venturing into other venues I'm even less familiar with like the world of conventions and merchandising, but it's something I want to take a look at. All indicators suggest the t-shirt market is oversaturated, but I was contacted by someone at Backer about doing a poster through them which if I had the time to draw and hadn't flaked on them seems like something looking into more. The big thing I'd really like to do is books. Breaking Volume One into three sections (first, second, and third trimesters) and then being able to have them available for sale online or to have them as merchandise at conventions, potentially with additional content not found on the website. Though as I said, I really don't understand this world at all.
There are probably some other ideas I haven't thought of or forgot to mention (if anyone knows how I can order decent quality plush dolls at a reasonable rate without needing a huge inventory, I'd love to have a plush of a pregnant Jennifer but I don't think there's a way to do that that's even remotely reasonable -- yes, I've looked into it, cuz I don't care that no one else may want one, I want one for myself). But generally talking about this stuff isn't all that interesting and may frustrate people as by doing so, I'm making this less likely to actually happen. But I like these characters too much to completely abandon them, and since I've updated regularly so far, hopefully you'll trust me when I say I intend to post something January 5th. What it will be, I can't tell you though, so no guarantees it's the start of Volume Two.
What I can tell you about Volume Two at this point though is that I want to experiment more with the art, in particular panel layouts and backgrounds. If the regular cast of Volume One was Jennifer, Dr. Gregory, Star, Mary, Philip, Aaron, and Ellie, all of them are returning, but Ellie is being demoted to recurring and Barbie is likely getting bumped up from guest to regular. I also may add a new accountant character though I haven't decided if he or she (not being coy, haven't determined whether a male or female character would be more interesting) would be a regular character or just recurring. Sopie, Jen's parents, Pete, Maggie, the adoptive parents, and Dr. Bryce are all probably returning as well in similar capacity in addtion to maybe some other recurring characters I may have neglected to mention (like Margot, Ken, Briana, Steve, and Wanda in the above comic?), though I very specifically don't want to say anything about Patience just yet. The plan still is to do six volumes total, and I have a very specific ending in mind that I think will remain pertinent (though if it sucks by then, hopefully I'll be smart enough to realize this and change it unlike How I Met Your Mother). I also want to look into softening Jen's selfishness somewhat, for though I like her selfishness, she doesn't have to be mean-spirited with it (I already have Star for that).
As to the side projects I want to work on while on hiatus, they tie in to With Fetus to various degrees. One takes place in the same universe, yet isn't canon, and I hoped to have up while on hiatus. Unfortunately of the 163 pages it comprises of, less than a third are written and it really should be posted all at once. I also have a screenplay I want to finish that deals with similar subject matter, and a radio play that's completely unrelated but might have broader appeal than With Fetus has and seems like a fun challenge to write. Then there's also some other stuff probably, but accomplishing everything I've already said in three months seems pretty tough, but that gives you a sense what I'm doing. I don't know how I'll update on progress to any of this, but I guess at the latest it's stuff to revisit come January Fifth.
-D
First and foremost I want to start applying to grad school, which is something I should have done last year, but this year I really want to look at in earnest and is what I want to invest most of my time into this month and next. Assuming I get in to grad school, this will also present a whole new bunch of challenges in terms of maintaining the comic in addition to my school work that I'm simply not going to have answers for how to address for quite some time but depending on how I feel after completing the application process may affect how I proceed with presenting the comic when it returns.
I also want to make a much more concerted effort at monetizing the comic. I honestly have no idea how to build facebook, tumblr, and twitter followings and I think my attempts to gain readers through advertising have plateaued. This means venturing into other venues I'm even less familiar with like the world of conventions and merchandising, but it's something I want to take a look at. All indicators suggest the t-shirt market is oversaturated, but I was contacted by someone at Backer about doing a poster through them which if I had the time to draw and hadn't flaked on them seems like something looking into more. The big thing I'd really like to do is books. Breaking Volume One into three sections (first, second, and third trimesters) and then being able to have them available for sale online or to have them as merchandise at conventions, potentially with additional content not found on the website. Though as I said, I really don't understand this world at all.
There are probably some other ideas I haven't thought of or forgot to mention (if anyone knows how I can order decent quality plush dolls at a reasonable rate without needing a huge inventory, I'd love to have a plush of a pregnant Jennifer but I don't think there's a way to do that that's even remotely reasonable -- yes, I've looked into it, cuz I don't care that no one else may want one, I want one for myself). But generally talking about this stuff isn't all that interesting and may frustrate people as by doing so, I'm making this less likely to actually happen. But I like these characters too much to completely abandon them, and since I've updated regularly so far, hopefully you'll trust me when I say I intend to post something January 5th. What it will be, I can't tell you though, so no guarantees it's the start of Volume Two.
What I can tell you about Volume Two at this point though is that I want to experiment more with the art, in particular panel layouts and backgrounds. If the regular cast of Volume One was Jennifer, Dr. Gregory, Star, Mary, Philip, Aaron, and Ellie, all of them are returning, but Ellie is being demoted to recurring and Barbie is likely getting bumped up from guest to regular. I also may add a new accountant character though I haven't decided if he or she (not being coy, haven't determined whether a male or female character would be more interesting) would be a regular character or just recurring. Sopie, Jen's parents, Pete, Maggie, the adoptive parents, and Dr. Bryce are all probably returning as well in similar capacity in addtion to maybe some other recurring characters I may have neglected to mention (like Margot, Ken, Briana, Steve, and Wanda in the above comic?), though I very specifically don't want to say anything about Patience just yet. The plan still is to do six volumes total, and I have a very specific ending in mind that I think will remain pertinent (though if it sucks by then, hopefully I'll be smart enough to realize this and change it unlike How I Met Your Mother). I also want to look into softening Jen's selfishness somewhat, for though I like her selfishness, she doesn't have to be mean-spirited with it (I already have Star for that).
As to the side projects I want to work on while on hiatus, they tie in to With Fetus to various degrees. One takes place in the same universe, yet isn't canon, and I hoped to have up while on hiatus. Unfortunately of the 163 pages it comprises of, less than a third are written and it really should be posted all at once. I also have a screenplay I want to finish that deals with similar subject matter, and a radio play that's completely unrelated but might have broader appeal than With Fetus has and seems like a fun challenge to write. Then there's also some other stuff probably, but accomplishing everything I've already said in three months seems pretty tough, but that gives you a sense what I'm doing. I don't know how I'll update on progress to any of this, but I guess at the latest it's stuff to revisit come January Fifth.
-D
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