GPF News Archive

Howdy, folks. I'd like to start off by thanking everyone who came back to check in on the site today, as well as all those who have sent me tons of supportive e-mails, forum posts, and blog comments over the past month. Everyone has been extremely supportive, and I'm extremely grateful for that support. There's no way I'll be able to respond to each of you individually, but I do promise that I've read every message that has arrived in my inboxes.

As promised in my last News post, I'm here today to let you know the status of the comic. I said that GPF would either be back to the reduced Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule today or I'd tell you to come back in another month. Unfortunately, I have to report that it's the later. The hiatus has been officially extended to November 6th, the first Monday in November. This is especially annoying to me as November 2nd is GPF's eighth anniversary and we're going to completely miss it, but some things simply can't be avoided.

I will say that I did manage to get some comicking in this past month, but not nearly enough for me to be comfortable updating again. I've gotten a lot farther in my scripting than anything else (including having scripted the fates of Emperor Nick and "Nega" Ki), putting me right in line to begin scripting the grand finale of To Thine Own Self.... Unfortunately, working on the finished strips has been a bit more difficult, as I've had very little time to get near the art desk to draw the line art, and my time on the computer has been eaten up by more pressing things than the digital comic work. I've also had to contend with my month-old son having emergency surgery (details of which can be found in the blog), which has kept me far more occupied than anything else. (For those who may be concerned, don't worry; he's doing much better now and is eating like nobody's business, so he's made a full recovery.)

Of course, I don't want to begin publishing strips again until (a) I know I can maintain a decent schedule and (b) I have a sufficiently large enough buffer to accommodate future disruptions. This means that although I have some strips ready to go, I don't want to release them until these two conditions are met. (I know that's probably driving some of you crazy, but bear with me here.) I'm trying to find the best way to tackle these, which may include releasing the rough scripts instead of finished strips because the scripts are much quicker and easier for me to produce. However, I don't really want to go that route unless I have no other options (and I know a number of you have specifically asked me not to do that). We'll see how things go. If nothing else, come back on November 6th like you did today and I promise there'll at least be another informational update, if not new comics.

On a side note, I will say I've managed to squeeze in a few other back-burner things that have taken a back seat for the past several months. Among those is finally getting caught up on approving Oh No Robot transcriptions. I hadn't touched these for months while you guys have been steadily entering them, and I had a backlog of well over a thousand approvals in the queue. That number has been significantly decreased, making as much as 97% of the archive searchable. I will reiterate that those entering transcriptions should follow the rules set forth in the January 9th News post and the related Oh No Robot forum thread; there have been a number of transcriptions that have been "approved, but needs improvement" because they didn't follow the rules closely enough. This is something that's relatively easy for me to squeeze in at times when working on comics is impractical (or inappropriate), so if you guys can keep the transcriptions coming that's one thing I can do to improve the site.

For a back-story of the current hiatus, refer to the previous news post. Other previous notes worth repeating: Don't forget that if you find yourself scratching your head over the current events in the comic itself, make sure to check out the News post from November 6th, which includes a bunch of notes and back references that should help clear up some of the confusion. Also, additional notes for the Official Unofficial GPF Wiki can be fond in this forum thread.