First off, issue 51 is out and here's a link to it: Issue 51
For Year-End thoughts, it was an interesting year for the comic. I had been going strong and being almost monthly for a while, but then with the injury to my arm I couldn't put out any new issues for close to 2 years. That definitely destroyed the momentum I had built up in the series. It was frustrating at the time as I suspected that would be the case, but there was nothing I could do about it. Even now, being monthly again since March, the readership is way down and I'm hardly getting any interaction on any platforms. I know it will take time, but I miss where it had been. Hopefully it will get back there some day.
This year was interesting, I introduced my comic to TikTok and I've enjoyed that to an extent. I also played with doing 1 AI image of each of my characters and that is what I've shared on TikTok. While I've gotten some good feedback, it has also been very frustrating, there are a lot of negative voices on there and most of the people on there just see one image on their page of a single character, but they don't look beyond that and they don't see the 'whole' picture of what my universe is about. Those that do have been wonderful to talk to though; I've had some good and interesting chats with some other creators on there.
As for the future of the comic, it is still going strong and will for the foreseeable future, but it's going to be a little less than monthly. I work a full-time job and the comic takes up most of my weekends with writing, drawing, coloring and lettering as well as prepping the promotional posts - and while I do enjoy that, it has not left me any time to do any other creative things that I want to pursue - some are even related to the comic and I haven't been able to do them as I've been stretched too thin time-wise.
I've decided to stress less about being monthly and make some time for myself to do other things. The comic will still come out, but sometimes it might be bi-monthly for much of 2026 as I work toward getting other things accomplished. I'll announce more when the time comes.
Spoilers Ahead: Ok, this won't really give away what happens in issue 51, but it will hint at some things and reveal a bit. When I was writing this book, I had originally planned a longer conversation between Titan and Magno II, but decided to shorten it as I felt it would have dragged out too much in the comic.
The scene that I really changed from the original concept was the scene with Phantom. When I wrote the issue, I had it where he returned to the headquarters with Water Wonder and then they talked about the spell, which I really wanted to include in this issue. However, there is an underlying story with where Master Mind was buried that is part of a bigger story arc that ties in with Phantom and I decided to alter the scene to still include the spell, but not have him return to the Headquarters yet.
There are also two cut scenes and the reason I cut them is because they were humorous and I wanted this issue to have a more serious tone with the funeral for Master Mind. The first scene deals with David, Crossbow's brother, who learned that he gained powers. I was going to have him testing them out. I won't reveal much as I plan to use that scene in a future issue. The second scene cut deals with Phantom. With what happens at the end of the issue with Titan and Crossbow, I was going to have Phantom overhear them and comment on it in a funny way, but it didn't really fit the tone.
Well, that's it for the director's cut! More coming soon!
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