Thanksgiving Missive and Past-Blast (Serializer).

I probably give a silent thanks to you, dear supporter on Patreon, every day of the week, if not multiple times throughout each day. I give thanks when I wake, and sit with my coffee in the morning silence, and notice that my base anxiety has palpably diminished with the ongoing success of this project. I give thanks when I go install a new water heater on my kid's trailer out on the farm where he works, and don't have to fret quite so deeply over the price of the unit (or the price of PEX tools). I give thanks when I drive over to Maison Extremely Fixer-Upper that Lauren and I are gutting and restoring, to pull nails and staples from a hundred-and-ten-year-old staircase for six hours, or melt ancient tar-backed linoleum off of once-beautiful hardwood floors with a 1200-degree heat gun and a 4-amp oscillating blade. (In that last example, I am grateful that at 7pm I will get to go write and draw for five hours; I am grateful that I can genuinely look forward to this coveted end-of-day ritual.) 

The above image is from a prehistoric and unrelated version of Patreon, called Serializer.net. (I think it was first called WebComicsNation.) The late webcomics champion Joey Manley started it about a year after I began Achewood. It worked; people subscribed. The problem was, generating a second set of subscriber material that I thought was "as good or better than" the stuff on Achewood itself was impossible; I think I got about 86 pieces into it, but the last half, perhaps, were just scans of sketchbook doodles. The Assetbar/Fanflow subscriber service, which ran maybe 2008-2010 (?), proved the same point: it is not just impossible, but deeply unpleasant and confusing, to try to pour your love equally into two rivers. 

One of the upsides of the failed Oni anthology project was that nearly all of these Serializer pieces were located and rescued off an old hard drive (it had been placed behind a vase), so I can share them here again. Above is a particularly germane (actually, I learned that word before I went to Talk Like A Dick School, thank you) example of the early posts I made there.

Happy Thanksgiving to those who sidle up to the board and load their plates thrice with monochromatic food and twice with pies we love so much we eat them once a year; and many heartfelt thanks all the very same to those who don't do that, or who do do that, but don't do it because of the American holiday. I am truly thankful for you. 

CTO