I really like these cutaway scenes – they’re fun to draw.  Take a long time, but still – they’ve kind of become a bit of a trademark.  The big reveal, here – this goes all the way back to Page 4.  That’s 204 pages back, for anyone keeping count.  That… that’s something.  I have to admit I never thought this comic would go on for five years and over two hundred pages.  This is actually the second-to-last page of the chapter.  But not to make you wait for the finale for a whole week, I’ll post the chapter closer on Wednesday.  It’s meant to be read as a pair with this one but I don’t have any way to post it as such.  Or do I?  Hmm… maybe as a tease, I’ll see if people will vote to see the whole thing at once?  I hope it won’t be a disappointment.  But then, you stuck with me when I did the infamous “white page,” so maybe you won’t mind.  Sneaky?  Maybe.  But who wants to wait until Wednesday, anyway?

TWCgenCh3_voteOn the point of how long this comic has gotten, though, I have to say that I hadn’t realized it until I was talking this week to the person who actually first advised me to do a webcomic.  His advice, as I recall, was that I needed to stop toying around with all my different ideas, pick one, and follow it through.  Well, I owe him one for that, because this has become a real accomplishment for me so far, and there’s still more to come.  And I realized, also, that doing this comic exclusively online has afforded me a lot of freedom I would never have had otherwise.  For one thing, I can end on an odd-numbered page.  I can make chapters any length.  I can actually produce the kind of comic I like to draw and find an audience, without compromising for someone else’s sales numbers.  And none of that is to say that I don’t still want to print this someday, but I’m happy with what I’m doing now, and that alone has made this comic worthwhile for me.

And now, in all the full glamor of the modern cartoonist, I’m taking out the garbage, making my bed and then going to it.  See you on Wednesday for the chapter finale, and some final thoughts on Chapter 5, and on the upcoming Chapter 6!  All the best, folks!