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You have no idea how
hard I wished that I wouldn't have to say these words.
Neobaka is over.
I think that now I owe everyone an apology and an explanation. I'm sorry
I can't keep it going, I'm sorry I gave everyone hope that it would keep
going when I came back with the new style and everything, I'm just sorry.
Please forgive me.
I started Neobaka with two goals in mind. One, to improve my manga art
skills, in the webcomic style of pumping out three shots of art into public
view each week. I suppose that this, in a way, has been achieved, even
with my schedule problems. Looking at the first few weeks of comics compared
to the last few weeks, I am quite pleased. There were times when I got
into the routine too much, and started just following the same lines over
and over again without really drawing. When I realized that is
when I decided I needed to actively try to improve. I may be pleased with
the improvements, but I know I still have a long way to go. I know that
there are some people reading this who don't see any reason why I'd want
to improve the art of a comic strip such as this. Comic strips aren't
my thing, I suppose you could say. I just love drawing, plain and simple.
Lots of webcomic authors take artwork from previous strips and reuse it.
That's fine if what you really love is comic strips, but personally I'd
rather be reading manga than the sunday comics in the newspaper. But I
digress.
The other goal was, from a certain point of view, a selfish one. I wanted
my name on something I could be proud of, and use the little bit of notoriety
from it so I might be seen as something a little better than just another
amateur manga style artist. Just something so I wouldn't be brushed off
as someone with ideas but no experience to back them up. This goal I'm
not so sure of. I mean, I know that there are a lot of people who really
enjoyed this comic, and it's earned me a certain amount of respect as
an artist. But at the same time, my problems in actually getting it done,
whether in school or not, served as an embarassment to me. And whether
or not that caused the comic to ever become the joke of the webcomic community
that I thought it was, I felt bad about it.
The reasons for my schedule problems were varied, and never easily solvable.
There were times that I just couldn't afford the time. There were times
that I felt I was stuck in a rut. There were a lot of times that I knew
I could do it, that I knew people would really like it, but I knew that
I wouldn't like it, I knew that I wanted better. And since
I had always claimed that I was doing the comic to make myself happy,
not for the purpose of pleasing anyone else as if it was a job, I wouldn't
do it unless I could be happy with the result. In the last couple of months,
however, something really did change. I started to have the same problem
that, if I'm not mistaken, caused Josh Lesnick to end Wendycomic. That
is, I became overly concerned with all the stuff surrounding the comic
while finding the creation of the comic itself becoming more and more
unfun.
Actually, I think I can point out the exact time that everything started
going downhill. It was just after Katsucon, when I did a few comics of
a more serious and dramatic nature. People responded extremely
well to those, and I think it got to my head a bit. I started thinking
about the comic as more of a dramatic thing than just something that was
supposed to be lighthearted and fun. I don't regret doing those few dramatic
comics then, I just regret how I myself reacted to them. So basically,
I screwed up and caused the whole thing to become a continued point of
stress, pain, and embarassment for myself.
So what about everyone else involved in Neobaka? Well, this has been 99%
my project from the start. My art, my story. I made Glenn a part of it
from the beginning just because I cast him as one of the main characters.
I thought of him as someone I could get help from for doing the grunt
work of maintaining the site. As it turned out, I did most of that stuff
anyway. Will came up with many of the comic's best jokes just in conversation
with us, so I tried to get him to do more writing for it. However, communication
and planning problems between the two of us screwed a lot of it up. And,
much like me, he thinks too much, and is funniest when he's making stuff
up randomly in conversation instead of planning jokes. Very recently,
I got creative assistance from Stu and Gabe, as well.
I'm really going to miss drawing Yuki. I hate so much to abandon this
character, but I must. There were a lot of things I had planned for future
events in this storyline, and I wish I could have done them. But, unfortunately,
I had not planned the whole thing well enough to keep it from falling
apart in my hands. And in the time I've been drawing Neobaka, since January,
my personal life has been an absolute rollercoaster. I feel as though
I gained everything and lost everything during the life of this comic.
I figure that this is one reason why I didn't do well in school this semester.
Suffice to say that this is one time in my life that I will not
forget.
So what now? Indeed, what now. The future is an uncertain thing. God,
I hate that. I want to know where I'm headed. So, I've chosen my next
step already. I'm going to take what I've learned from this experience
and start again, and this time do it right. This next step, this
next project, will not be online. Not immediately, anyway. This so that
I cannot be distracted the way that I was. For people who are really truly
interested in what I'm planning next, I'd keep an eye on my personal art
site, which I'll be updating soon. I'd like to do another online comic
someday, but I will not until I feel that I'm mature enough to handle
it properly. Will there be a resolution to the storyline? Probably not.
Will we ever see more of Yuki? I wouldn't rule it out. Will things ever
continue on as they were? Yeah right.
There is one thing, however, that I can guarantee for you. You have not
heard the last from me.
--Dan, 06.13.2001
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