Poppy O'Possum

Quick apologies, I will be out of town for this next week and was only able to reach 80% completion of the next page, so the next update will be going to be up late in the day on the 13th.

A textless, spoiler-free WIP version of page 37 will be up on the Patreon on Friday for those who want it.

The next update will be up on Friday, I’m taking my time finishing it up after being burnt out by a long flight and a lot of consideration regarding future life choices.

A very real issue that must be confronted is my declining motivation regarding working on Poppy as a comic and, in general, doing art as a career. Drawing comics was, frankly, never really my passion. I had never once, before Poppy, drawn more than a page or two of a comic for myself before giving up out of disinterest. I do enjoy storytelling. I enjoy writing. But I don’t actually care for art all that much outside of the character designing process. Over the past few years, Poppy has gone from a fun project I started to push myself to improve, to an obligation that I sort of resent but keep doing because it covers my bills. You know. A job. Except jobs don’t usually entail people on the internet sending you death threats or making up rumors about you because your work ethic’s bad or they don’t like which one of your characters is kissing another. The last time I felt really passionate about working on Poppy was when I was writing the Snow Thanks story last December, because I didn’t have to draw most of it. I’d like to do more of that.

What I’m getting at is that I’m going to continue doing Poppy as a comic for now. I’m most certainly going to see this story to the end, if only for myself. But don’t be too surprised if at some point, I switch to an illustrated writing format, releasing short chapters at a time with art to introduce characters and show pivotal moments. And yeah, I know that’s going to kill a lot of people’s interest in the series. I’ve considered the possibility in the past, and each time, people have essentially told me to “shut up and just keep doing the comic”. But Poppy is time-consuming, and I have other things I want to do. Other stories I want to tell. Other careers I want to go into schooling for. So, I’m gonna finish up this chapter, and then decide where I want to go from there.

There’s two more chapters in Part 1 of Poppy after this one. Long ones. At the current rate, it’ll be 2019 by the time I finish it, and then we’re still only 25% through the story. Writing with illustrations, though, I could wrap this part up by the end of the year. Just something to consider.