Back On Rickety Tracks?

I know I’ve been neglecting my work on this comic. One of the biggest reasons why is because, get this, I’ve been neglecting my work on this comic. See, I’d planned on doing quite a bit of potentially detailed stuff in rather rapid succession, which sounded all well and good as I worked my way up to it.

Then I found myself in the middle of it and had no idea what any of the actual details I was planning on doing were.

Today’s comic begins the section I was dragging my feet on the most. It represents a chunk of backstory that I’ve had rattling around in my head for a long time. One would think that this means I know everything that needs to be known. In reality, the fact that I simply knew about it meant that I could move forward on other things without coloring in the numbers. Or even bothering to make sure I had the appropriate colored crayons for each of those numbers. Today I realized that the world-devastaing, campaign-world defining event I was about to describe didn’t actually have a proper name, and that thre were a number of things I was about to draw that I had never gotten around to attemting sketches of.

I’ve managed to resolve both issues pretty well, I think, but that’s not the point.

I know I’ve said before that I consider Once Upon A Table something like a first draft; not because I plan on re-doing it, but because I’m basically just slapping it together to see if it explodes when I plug it in. While this process is what essentially got me through High School Honors classes, it’s fairly frustrating when I find myself having to settle for something I consider sub-par. Drawing is one thing; there’s a lot I don’t do well, but I know I’m improving. But when I feel like I’m not pulling off jokes or plot points well, it irks me. And an irked Mark is worth two in the bush. Or something.

Anyhoo, I don’t see me being able to set aside any real time for the type of work that this story deserves¹, so I’m just going to go ahead with givng it the type of work I can get away with. All of which has no bearing on anything Wednesday-related. For the short-term future, I’m going to have to continue filing Wednesday in the “If I’m not dead tired” bucket. (Last Tuesday I went to bed at 6pm, and slept clear though to 6am. Imagine what sort of comic I might have produced while in that state, and you’ll probably begin to appreciate my neglect a bit.)

¹Which is lucky, since it likely deserves less than it gets.