6/8/2018: Epilogue, Page 23

In case you missed the memo (and my memos are easily missed), this is NOT the final page.  The final page will appear on Monday (June 11th).  I thought that I could wrap things up sooner, but Zebra Girl, she squeezed me for just a few more days of life.

Not that the comic is “dying,” necessarily, any more than a story dies  when you finish the last chapter and close a book.  I would like to  think that many of you will return here over the years (and millennia)  to come, seeing it a little differently each time, or introducing fresh  eyes here and there.  After all, any new reader can simply start from the beginning or order the books  (soon to include Volume 5), and not have to even worry about a late  update to stall their momentum!  Not like you poor suckers who saw the  whole thing unfold in real time, waiting through every hour of a racing  deadline.

Real time.  Eighteen years… ah, I’ve rolled that number over in my head  so many times I’m sick of it.  Art can’t be measured in years.  It’s  measured by what you put in, and what you take out!

I feel fortunate to have become a web cartoonist.  I’ve had the  opportunity to progress while receiving prompt feedback from my audience  thanks to this miraculous technology that fortunately came into its own  just as I was doing the same.  And that close connection, that ability  to hear you, has had an undeniable influence (especially lately).  I’ve  tried to stay true to my own vision, but nothing can be observed without  being changed by observation, to say nothing of communication!  As  such, we can truly say that you’ve had a hand in steering this ship!   Some have even helped keep it afloat!  But every one of you has made this comic greater for being a part of it, even if all you did was lay your gaze across a page!

I’m thankful to the medium, to my audience, and to every opportunity and  advantage I’ve had which has allowed me to do what I love for the past  eighteen years (however grueling it’s been).  And now, I’m thankful that  we’ll have seen it through to the end.

For all my ego, this isn’t about me.  This is about the work!  It’s  about you!  Because without you, the work scarcely exists!  And now, I  think I can safely say that it’s a work that’s noteworthy.

The next page will be the last.  So let’s… God, is it that late?  I  gotta get to work!  Man, this last push has been brutal.  Updating twice  a week is crazy.  I don’t know how some cartoonists DO it!  I swear,  this has been madness from day one.
 

-Joe