I have made some significant decisions. They probably won't effect the timing of the release of new issues, but they might. I guess I want to talk to you about how I first write two issues, then draw two issues. I always have between 4-6 scripts "In The Can". For The Terran Wars, I was going to transition to writing one issue, and then drawing one issue, because the fully colored and inked art would be so time-consuming. I planned to switch to a 2-3 issue lead-time once the final arc started.
I don't think I'm doing that.
Over the last two nights, I completed my latest script. I'll tell you a little bit about it in a mo', but after I complete the NEXT script, I think my writing and drawing schedule will be a LOT less tight for the next six issues I draw (until The Terran Wars). To be blunt, I might draw some nights and write some others. And I won't need to finish either a script or a completed issue to go back and forth. I was formerly very OCD about that, but those restrictions will be relaxed entirely for the next 6-7 issues.
The idea is that I want to script out all 19 issues of The Terran Wars before I draw the first one. Just to make ABSOLUTELY sure everything flows right and perfectly.
These next six issues will probably not take much longer than normal to produce. But if I have not finished scripting The Terran Wars by then, the saga is on indefinite hiatus until I do.
I would not worry too much if I were you. One I finish the next issue, I expect MOST of the Terran Wars scripts to be a piece of cake (many of the outlines are almost entirely filled, and simply waiting to be put in the correct order) so I assume by the time those six issues (seven if you count another Special Edition I'm doing) are drawn, The Terran Wars will have been entirely scripted anyways. And if it HAS been, you'll be getting The Terran Wars issues MUCH faster than you would have under the old method. Win / win for the reader.
Other tentative Un-Iverse plans to watch out for and be aware of.
1. A Special Edition of Gilda And Meek #8 "Enter Tork" (Un-Iverse #8) is coming. I will draw it between the issues UnComix Tales: The Humans (One-Shot): The Epic Series Finale "All Loose Ends..." (Un-Iverse #68) and UnComix Tales: The Dark Child Saga: The Fall Of F.I.S.H. #1 "Part One: The Age Of Fear" (Un-Iverse #69). The reason for redoing this otherwise harmless issue is that the Piranha's return to the group is anticlimactic (and shitty) as hell. I am not going to spice it up so much that it is as exciting and action-packed as the end of Gilda And Meek. But I want to give you a LITTLE dramatic tension there. Just a little.
2. I have come to the (frankly exhausting) unhappy decision to redo a significant portion of the canon. It's a good thing I have all my original drawings for every issue. At some point before The Terran Wars begins, I am going through every last issue and changing Unkie Matty's name to Unkie Natty. For obvious reasons. That portion of the canon got SO far outside of my control (as the saga often does) but I can probably live with it, ALL of it, if that fucking sociopath stops sharing my Goddam name. It'll be a huge project and if you notice I missed one or two instances holler at me and let me know.
3. The latest issue I finished is
UnComix Tales: The Dark Child Saga: The Fall Of F.I.S.H.: #2 Part Two: "The Beginning Of The End" (Un-Iverse #70) The Coming Soon Blurb for it is currently at my site, but it's only three sentences long, and tells you almost nothing.
https://gildaandmeekandtheuniverse.blogspot.com/2023/01/coming-soon-to-un-iverse-potential.htmlI will give the true skinny to the Dreamwidth Gilda And Meek Faithful.
This is one of my longest scripts ever and will probably reach a hundred pages. I'd say it has the potential to be the longest issue in Un-Iverse history, but I actually think the very next issue will be slightly longer. We are looking at between 95-115 pages at the minimum.
A LOT of the outline was already filled in. Nevertheless I'd estimate 2/3rds of the massive thing was written "from scratch" i.e. when I wrote the actual script. That almost never happens, and rarely to this extent. And frankly whenever I DO write a script "flying blind", I am usually disappointed in the results, and think it doesn't measure up to my personal standards and satisfaction.
This one is quite good. Depending on the art, it could be great. But I have not been this happy with a "from scratch" script since the Stella Stickyfingers story "Pickpockets Convention" way back in the One-Shots. The Stella story was admittedly a bigger lift because while I DID have a LOT in THIS outline, I had nothing in that one. Nevertheless, me being happy in a mostly original, unplanned story is unusual and worth noting.
How unplanned? I will say this. I do something I didn't expect to. I never expected to in fact. I reveal pretty much all of Lance Lockjaw's major backstory in F.I.S.H. and Piranhala. We don't SEE it, but he relates it to the other characters for the first time.
That was not planned. While what you will learn has ALWAYS been the backstory, it was my intention that the reader themself never learned it and it was kept as a deliberate mystery to increase appeal of both the saga in general, and F.I.S.H in particular. But as I was writing the script, Lance took me aside and pointed out if he's gonna go through this crucible, and if we are gonna even TRY to redeem this cad, he needs to tell this story, and his friends need to be the witnesses to the telling.
I said to him, "No, that's revealing Leland, and killing the Golden Goose. That destroyed Twin Peaks." But Lance insisted to me I needed to focus on what was best for HIM and his friends, instead of the long-term appeal of everything else. I don't like or trust Lance Lockjaw. Whenever he gives me notes, I usually feel comfortable ignoring them.
This time? I did what the character told me. I always do that for Gilda and Bernadette, and they NEVER steer me wrong. Lance's insistence to me about this (if only in my imagination) was so clear-cut and out-of-character earnest I HAD to do things his way and tell the story the way IT wanted to be told, not the way
I wanted it to be told. The story writes itself, and when it's on, I need to let it. So you are going to get facts about Lance and his history you were never supposed to get. I think you will be pleased by these answers, but I hope you are even more pleased with the character development this grows.
That's where things stand currently. I will put up a new Talkback (with a new article) in a couple of days.
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