Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Precocious is five years old!


Forget this New Year stuff! The most important thing about January 1st is that it's Precocious' birthday! Five years, and around 2000 comics between the archive, deleted scenes and the book bonus stories. Not too shabby! (Thanks to Isabel Marks of Namir Deiter for the gift art!)

(Want to celebrate the occasion too? Now's as good a time as any to check out all the goodies in the Precocious store!)

When I started, five years was my goal. From all my reading of dailies, I saw year five as when artist competence and character development come together to bring a comic into a golden age. Well, every year I've done this has been precocious to me. Year one of Precocious was fresh and new and exciting. Year two built upon a strong foundation and expanded the universe. Year three is when I took a major level up and committed to the goal of making Precocious my JOB and not just a hobby. Year four is when I pulled out all my tricks. Year five... this was the year I took for myself and drew what I wanted to draw. The stories from the past year were so much fun for me to write, and it was so gratifying to see so many people coming along for the ride. I told myself I'd reassess the comic at year five, and I can't imagine stopping now. I'm not done. I have so much left to tell and so much silliness to share.

2013 was a great year for the comic, but not so much for me. A toothache I thought would be a one-week inconvenience turned into a botched surgery and a year of medical hell. As the year comes to a close, I'm still in doctor limbo, dealing with chronic pain and fighting all the side-issues that come up when lengthy medical issues happen. I've been double sick for weeks thanks to a cold caught due to being in so many doctor waiting rooms, and my drawing hand is in a cast because I aggravated and old finger injury due to me playing too many video games while stuck in bed during pain downtime. (Yes, this means I'll have to be clever with next week's updates, as my buffer doesn't cover the full cast stretch.)  I am so glad to see 2013 go. It was brutal. BUT I DIDN'T MISS AN UPDATE! In you face, 2013!

Here's hoping 2014 brings me health, and chances to do all things that I wanted to do in 2013.  Book 3 is coming, and the preorder looks like it'll start in February right now. (It will be in color, and thus VERY expensive to print, so I'll really be needing your support!) The other plans? We shall see. I'm a one man operation, so I can't put in the extra work needed until I'm healthy enough. My convention schedule is likely to be scaled back, again due to health.  I'm confirmed for Fur The More, Furry Weekend AtlantaAnthrocon and Mechacon. I'll try for SPX. Not sure about any others.

Thank you all for reading Precocious. Keep coming back. Keep contributing. Keep spreading the word.

2 comments:

DRB_II said...

Good to hear the end is not yet in sight. This is the first webcomic I ever came across, and while others have come and gone from my reading list, Precocious remains, and for good reason. If my couple of talents can be of any use in the coming weeks, don't hesitate to ask.

Iron Ed said...

Happy New Year, Chrispy! And...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PRECOCIOUS!!!

Precocious is one of the first webcomics that I ever bookmarked and I have gone back and read the entire archive at least four times since then. (It takes a little longer each time thankyewverymuch! ;-))

In my -honest- opinion both the art and the writing have been wonderful and memorable from the very start. I still love Autumn's last line in the first strip, "Bud; if you don't start stocking the tea I like I'm going to be all about the violence!" :-) Then I think about the times Autumn has pounded Bud. :-) (I like those times. :-) :-) :-))

I am so glad you have many more stories yet to tell and I intend to be here for all of them! THANK YOU, CHRISPY!!!