As we come to the conclusion of Danica’s epic space adventures, we all find ourselves facing that all important question: “So, now what?” Goodness knows, I’ve been asking myself that for a while now. What do I want to do after Star Power? Michael has revitalized his beloved Dominic Deegan comic with an intriguing mystery of a sequel. So, what am I to do? Thankfully, I’ve got some ideas.

Because I have bills to pay, I’m going to be focusing on paid work for the near future. Whether personal commissions or larger contract work, I’m always game. Which, of course, means if you’d like me to draw something for you, you should absolutely contact me. You can find my commission information here.

I also have ideas for new comic projects that I’m looking forward to being able to dedicate time to. If you want to help ensure I can afford to spend time dedicated to those projects, you can support me on Patreon. The more Patreon support I receive, the more I can focus on my own personal work, and spend less time chasing down contracts drawing other people’s stuff. So what kind of comics might you be supporting, you ask? Well, if you’re still reading this instead of having clicked through to my Patreon page, let me tell you a bit about my next big comic project: Witch & Wane.

Witch & Wane is a high fantasy comic about a world-weary witch hunter who unexpectedly finds herself the guardian of a troubled young witch whose budding powers threaten to consume him and everyone around him.

Sounds pretty baller, right? You bet it does. I’m really stoked about it, and I’ve been slowly developing it for most of 2020 now. There is still a lot of development work that needs doing, and I want to have the whole thing, which I envision as a graphic novel, written before I start drawing pages. I have the first act written and the rest of it soon to follow. Development sketches and rough drafts are going to remain largely Patreon exclusives. Pages will also be Patreon exclusives until I have enough of them to put together appropriately digestible chunks. Will it be a webcomic? Will it be picked up by a traditional publisher? I’m honestly not sure. A lot of that will depend on you guys and your support. The webcomic model requires a robust crowd-funding support to keep it going. Pitching to a publisher is far easier when there’s an obvious audience waiting for it. So, as in all things, how far my future endeavors go depends extensively on the support from readers like you.

If you’re interested and want to keep in the loop on future projects, at least until there’s a more permanent home for my work, you can:

• Support me directly through Patreon.
• Follow me on Twitter.
• Follow me on Instagram.
• Do that social media thing: tell your friends.

I’ve had a wonderful time here at Star Power, and seriously thank you all for all your support throughout the years. I hope you all will choose to follow along to future projects.

I was hoping to announce that I got engaged over the weekend here today. But with the current goings on in the world it feels like such a small an inconsequential thing to talk about.

Once again, the appalling way people of color are all too often treated in this country has erupted onto the public scene. Police brutality isn’t new. Racism isn’t new. There’s a long sordid history of both in the US, often with the blessing of the government at all levels, and neither issue seems to get appreciably better. I suspect too many people feel that both problems are problems ELSEWHERE. “I’m not racist,” they say. “My town isn’t racist. My sheriff is a good person, I voted for them. It’s those other cops that are violent thugs. Those other cities, those other people that are racists.” Too many think this way without ever really taking the time to look closer to home for the budding source of these problems. But I’m a white guy. I can’t really talk to you about racism with any kind of authority, nor should you be turning to me about such a subject, but I can talk to you about police brutality and government overreach.

The police continue to prove that too many of them care more about being obeyed than serving or protecting. Clearly demonstrating through countless needless escalations that their objective is less about keeping order and more about exerting control. When the people object to the way they are treated, Mayors of all parties call out the national guard. The President encourages this. Has now authorized active duty military to back up the national guard and the standing army that is many cities’ police departments. And it’s not an isolated or unprecedented use of force against the American people. H.W. Bush deployed the military at the LA mayor’s request back in ’92 to help quell the Rodney King Riots. The National Guard shot students at Kent State. The FBI and ATF debacle at Waco. The Ferguson Police. The NYPD on any given Tuesday. Across the country, across the decades, government agents at every level have demonstrated a propensity to use excessive force and repeatedly face little if any consequence for their actions.

If my feeds are anything to believed, people are growing more and more convinced that the government is declaring war on their fellow Americans and there is nothing to be done. But that is untrue. There is much that can be done before we resort to open war with our government.

If anything has been made clear to me in the last handful of months of quarantine, it’s the importance of local and state governments. We put a lot of emphasis on who is President and what they’re doing but, even with the ever-expanding power of executive orders and privilege, the bulk of government power lies outside of the Oval Office. It is the State governors who have largely laid down the law with the Covid Pandemic, and it is the Mayors and the Police Chiefs they appoint who have taken point responding to the Floyd Protests.

Even with the separation and grossly unfair protections police enjoy, the departments are still beholden to the government. Mayors can dictate who runs their police department and what policies they should pursue. Local and state governments set police department budgets and authorize purchase of equipment (using taxpayer funds) and those local and state politicians are, allegedly, beholden to us voters. Local governments are the front line policy makers and they are the ones most easily held accountable.

There are policies that can improve the lives of the people, let us live free and safe and without fear, and we can make those policies happen if we focus our attention where it needs to be. While the goings on in DC are important, being involved in local politics is even more so. Your mayor, your governor, your representatives at the local and state level can all be reached via telephone and email and it is in their direct interest to listen to you, lest they be replaced at the next election. Contact them directly. Give them a piece of your mind. Vote. Be involved. A people should not be ruled by their government. The government is supposed to be by, of, and for a people.

A people most surely should not fear their government.

But yeah, I got engaged this weekend. Long time readers of mine will be pleased to know that it’s Karen (yes, from Comedity) that I’m now engaged to. It’s really nice. I’m looking forward to more nice moments like that somewhere in the future.

Sometimes, there’s just no good way to put it, so I’ll just say it. Chapter 29 will be the last issue of Star Power.

For the last seven years, Michael and I have been pouring ourselves into this comic, and now I’m feeling it’s time for something new and different. Seven years is a long time to hang on a project. It’s probably the longest project I’ve ever been a part of. We’ve done a lot of amazing things and produced a ton of work that I’m really proud of. By the end of this, we’ll have six books in print, totaling over 700 pages of content. That’s wild to me.

I’ve grown so very much as an artist. Go back and look at those first couple pages of Star Power. Pretty good, right? Now set them next to the last handful? Ho-lee-shit. I don’t think I’m being egotistical when I say this, but I have become so damn good at this whole comic thing. And I wouldn’t have seen that growth without the years and the pressure to produce content at the rate that I have for Star Power. Considering the quality, the update schedule we’ve maintained has been truly insane. However, Star Power has never managed to capture a large enough audience to make it a sustainable endeavor.

Comics are exceptionally labor intensive. We’re no strangers to the staggering amount of upfront work necessary to get a comic to the point that it’s making money. We saw some really promising growth in the first three years of this project, but that growth plateaued and never reached truly sustainable levels. This is, of course, no one’s fault. We launched Star Power as Marvel’s MCU was concluding its first phase. Since then, the market for superhero stories has flooded and there are so many movies and shows staring everyone’s favorite superheroes that even the Big Two publishers are having a hard time competing with their own content in other media. Superheroes have long been a hard genre to break into, to the point that most publishers won’t even bother accepting submissions for them. That we’ve come this far and produced so much for so long is a testament to our amazing fans and our own stubbornness, but sometimes our best just isn’t enough.

Michael has started a new chapter to the world of his famous Dominic Deegan saga, in order to bolster his income and provide for his family. We’ve had to reduce our update schedule from 3 days a week to 2 so that I have time to take on extra commission work to keep things in the black. Much to my delight, my skills as an artist are proving to be in high demand. I have more clients asking for work than I can comfortably take on while maintaining anything like an update schedule with Star Power. Much like with my days of Finder’s Keepers I am forced to choose between telling a story I love and focusing on the work that pays the bills. It would be a hard call if I weren’t hungry for something new.

Before Star Power, I wrote stories too and I’ve got several of them bubbling up inside, waiting to be told. They’re stories that just can’t be told with Star Power. Star Power is big and loud and fast and frankly a little ridiculous, the way all superhero stories are. I’m yearning for stories that are more intimate, slower paced, more serious and adult. I have characters that I want to see on the page, stories that I need to tell, and I’m really excited about it. I’ll be talking more about my upcoming projects over the coming weeks, and I really hope you’ll come along with me to see them.

Michael and I have been good friends for years, and Star Power ending cannot change that. This collaboration may be ending, but that won’t preclude new ones beginning. What we started here is amazing, and only better things are to come.