Yes, the fateful time of year is upon us when another chapter of 6-Commando draws to a close, and as ever, is coinciding with a perception on my part of unreality as I go about my daily routine, podering at the back of my mind what to do next.  Add to that a bout of insomnia from which I briefly recovered, only to be plunged back into its depths almost at once; a very long commute on one of the most underdeveloped mass transit systems in a nation of underdeveloped mass transit; a large amount of work at… well, at work; and a generally delayed springtime in New England that is leaving me feeling a little depressed – put that all together and it’s hard to keep my brain in focus.

So, although I know it’s unlikely that you’ll see this, tucked away down here, unless you’re getting the RSS feed on this (which I recommend, by the way!) I thought I’d seek a little clarity from the readership to help me sort out what’s going to happen next with 6-Commando.

That is NOT as ominous as it sounds, by the way, I promise.  I’m not quitting or stopping or going on “the permanent vacation” so to speak, none of that.  I’m simply trying to decide what the most productive thing to do next would be, and since you guys are the beneficiaries of my madness, as it were, I thought a little reader input might help.  Yeah, that’s right, I’m opening up THAT can of worms.  So for starters let me preface this all by saying that though I’m soliciting comment, I make not guarantees that I’ll take any suggestions – think of me as the FSR, not the UNA.  Not a democracy.  But I do feel a little torn on a few things, and so I’ll lay out what’s circulating in my mind, to wit:

• I’ve received the form email from the New York Comic Con informing me that Artist Alley registration is open;
• I’ve recently made alterations to my process and style that have changed the general tone of the comic, art-wise (on my end, anyhow);
• Chapter 2, though at an end, is not, as it were, “finished,” due to the computer failure in the first third of the chapter that left several pages incomplete;
• Chapter 1, though satisfactorily completed in full color and with all lettering and line art, needs a serious overhaul before press;
• I’ve assessed the likely financial situation for this comic, vis-a-vis the likelihood of being able to self-publish my desired “deluxe edition” of 6-Commando, Part 1, and it does not at present seem feasible unless I go for Print-On-Demand;

And so, with all that, I’d like to see what the general thought is on these issues:

1. Is it worthwhile to try to print each chapter via POD as an individual unit?
2. Is it worthwhile to bother rectifying the art for Chapter 1 before doing so?
3. Should I bother to apply for space at NYCC this year?
4. And perhaps most importantly, do you want to see Chapter 3 start up right away, or would you rather see Chapter 1 and 2 “digitally remastered” for what would effectively be a relaunch of the series?

I know this is probably all obvious to you but for whatever reason it really isn’t to me, so I’d like to know what the thought is.  To say where I am at the moment, by way of comparison, my leanings are:

1. No
2. Yes
3. No
4. Maybe

So what do you think?

Well, after all that waiting and waiting and waiting, followed by more waiting, and summed up with additional waiting, 6-Commando has been denied space at New York Comic Con’s Artist’s Alley.  Ah, well.  I don’t take it personally – having worked in admissions and hiring, which is a similar kind of job, I know that sometimes you just end up getting cut, and that’s that.  And 6-Commando is a very unconventional kind of comic; with all the superheroics and vampires and Amerimanga, a cartoon-style Cold War nuclear drama in Central Africa is hardly what they expected to see, I bet!  However, I’m not one to be deterred easily.  I issued orders to my units in the field to retarget our missiles, which is to say, I’m looking into alternative exhibition space at NYCC.  And failing that, I’ll just try to go anyway and pass out cards or fliers or whatever, just to spite them!  So fear not!  The War Effort is continuing, no matter what!

And you can help!  Pass the website to friends, vote early and vote often, link 6-Commando in on your website!  And as to personal demands sent to the organizers of NYCC, I’ll simply say that you may very well think of doing that, but I couldn’t possibly comment!  (Just kidding on that last one – don’t bug anyone.  But you get where I’m coming from, at least.)  So keep up the support, because the more you do, the better the chances of 6-Commando making it in the “real world!”  I can’t do it without you – the readers!

I’m bound to thank everyone for their recent posts and emails of encouragement – I wasn’t fishing for them, I assure you.  Actually, my mother (who loyally reads my comic – thanks, Ma!) called me the other night and said “I don’t understand why you’d post such a downer statement on your blog.  Be more confident!”  Well, I will.  Frankly, I was really just tired at that point and my self-doubt got in the way.  Really, in the end, I am satisfied with the page.  Joost hit it on the nose (see his comment on Page 25) that the problem I had was probably that the page happened not to have a single “masterpiece element” like some others do, but he pointed out, quite correctly, that if EVERY page has some single super-drawing on it, it’ll lose its impact.  Some artists like Geof Darrow and their ilk can get away with that kind of thing, but I don’t really like to have every page at full volume.  it makes the story into a kind of sensory overload.  And in the end, this was a tension-building transition page, and suited its purpose quite well.  So I am happy.

By the way, I don’t know if it’s a sign of increased noticeability on the net, but the past two days have seen a titanic fusillade of spam on the site.  My lovely spam filter has caught it all so far, but don’t hesitate to contact me if you suspect you’re getting some bad mojo off this site (unsolicited email, browser redirects, and associated spam hijinks).  To combat the problem I’ll shortly be installing a Human Verification System for comments.  I know these things can be a hassle, but it’s best to nip spam in the bud and keep the site nice and clean.  So just, you know, fair warning.

And finally, I have to say that I love the localization function on my analytics screen.  It doesn’t give me personal information about anyone, of course, but it lets me narrow down visitors by city, ISP, and a lot of other criteria.  I mention it because I was scrolling idly through the lists this afternoon, and noticed  we had a visitor from the Baikonur Cosmodrome checking out the site on Monday.  I apologise if this puts you on the spot, whoever you are, but I find it just unbearably cool that someone at Baikonur took an interest in 6-Commando.  Keep ‘em flying, friend!

Alright, enough outta me.  Back to the drawing board – where I belong!

Just a little mini-update here.  Some people commented to me that this story’s premise (a monolithic superpower conflict on the Cold War model) was a little bit passé.  Interestingly, though, this article came to hand just today, pointing up the fact that New Imperialism isn’t just for Americans anymore.  As a North American of some certain Polish ancestry, the prospect of another war in Europe, centered on Poland, kind of makes me sick to my stomach.  It calls to mind, however, one of the underlying ideas in this comic, which is that I happen to have grown up in the final years of the Cold War, in which we were most terrified of the Soviet Union and what we believed it might be capable of doing to the West in its death throes.  Throughout the 1980’s, in fact, we really did think that the Russians might end up going batshit and just nuking the crap out of Europe and North America, if for no other reason than for the hell of it, to prove that they still could, even as the Soviet Empire collapsed around them.  And modern Russia seems to be coming perilously close to the same thing these days.  Or at least, it looks like that on this side of the world.

So an East-West conflict really isn’t so far off the mark as it might seem.

Fallout continued to mount this weekend from my ill-fated “vacation,” and so the update will be a little late, and not quite what I think you’ll expect.  This whole situation has thrown a real monkey wrench into just about every aspect of my life, and though I did pencil and ink this week’s page, I am simply out of time and can’t tackle the process of piecing the thing together from half-baked scans.  I will make photo reductions tomorrow and post the page, though it may be black and white for the time being.

And as if to add insult to injury, the Phillies are losing the World Series!  Good God, things just keep going from bad to worse.  For those unfamiliar with baseball as such (European readers, of whom there are a few – Joost et al!) this particular championship is between my home town, Philadelphia, and New York City, and my team who won the Series last year, is doing very poorly against the Yankees, among whose fans I now have to live, and who frankly are more than a little stuck up about it.  To get an idea of the importance of the sport, it’s something akin to what soccer (or “football”) is to Europe, at least to us living in the Eastern United States.

*Sigh*

I suppose sometimes you just can’t win for losing.  But I’ll get back on track soon enough.  My current plan is to forge ahead with the next page, then try to color them both over the weekend, which is definitely doable, assuming I set to it properly.  In any case, I will still post the black-and-whites tomorrow afternoon, so the story won’t totally slow down.  But this is what comes of trying to take vacations, I suppose!

Joost’s artwork, which will remain posted above until tomorrow, by the way, will take pride of place in the new “Guests” page I’m working up, as the first gallery piece.  Once again, I’m bound to thank him for filling in for me while I was away.  This second delay was not what I’d wanted, to be sure, nor was it what I expected.  But I’ll get things back on track as soon as I can.