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[AugustWest]

Also, I been watching the blogs and for the past week or so they haven't been updated either.  It's been like two months since we've heard from Pat (that asshole).

[V-Adore]

Also, I been watching the blogs and for the past week or so they haven't been updated either.  It's been like two months since we've heard from Pat (that asshole).

Yeah, the blogosphere lately has been a little boring. Maybe I just got too used to things like the Krazy-Pool incident, but things just aren't living up to my expectations. Maybe it'll get better once he gets less busy?

[Formica]

Also, I been watching the blogs and for the past week or so they haven't been updated either.  It's been like two months since we've heard from Pat (that asshole).

Yeah, the blogosphere lately has been a little boring. Maybe I just got too used to things like the Krazy-Pool incident, but things just aren't living up to my expectations. Maybe it'll get better once he gets less busy?

I've been waiting for the death of the blogs for a while now - it's not like Onstad to really keep up with a project of that kind of scope.

[Bozack]

Aww, man, it always gets all quiet on here when there isn't a new comic. Dag.

[CortJstr]

For a while I just that that blogspot was acting up again and not reporting that they'd updated to my RSS reader. So I checked them all manually and realized no, they're really just not new.

[jough]

Doesn't Onstad's wife have a pretty good job, enough to mostly support them both so that they don't starve between eBay auctions?

[V-Adore]

Doesn't Onstad's wife have a pretty good job, enough to mostly support them both so that they don't starve between eBay auctions?

So I presume, yes. I don't recall precisely, but I seem to recall mention of her working, so one presumes they aren't dependent on the webcomic-related income. (This does not prevent him from shilling as if income from his comic was the only thing standing between his family of eight and death in the snow -- but that appears to be de rigeur for any webcomic artist who can get away with it, and in Onstad it at least isn't as odious as some people.)

[St_Zartan]

I'm sure we've had this conversation about one thousand times (CortJstr, dim the house lights, if you please), but I think the dude is entitled to a break. Yeah, I'll bitch right along with the rest of you when a strip just sort of sadly piffles to the ground, like an unloved balloon forgotten after an inaugural PTA meeting, but how much of your Beloved Pop Culture has so thoroughly infected your speaking vocabulary? I am a white guy with a degree in fuck*ng Library Science and, thanks to this fuck*ng comic, I will occasionally and unintentionally use the word "dogg" like it was a fuck*ng comma.

I'd rather a sugar-momma / sell-out swag (1) funded hiatus than a slow decline into mediocrity (I'M LATE TO MY JOB SAFETY-TESTING SOUR CREAM, DEANSTER!!eleven)

(1) Anyone else caught themselves wondering who the fuck is buying all those books (e.g. "Swamped with shipping books. PM update tomorrow, maybe")?

[V-Adore]

I'm sure we've had this conversation about one thousand times (CortJstr, dim the house lights, if you please), but I think the dude is entitled to a break. Yeah, I'll bitch right along with the rest of you when a strip just sort of sadly piffles to the ground, like an unloved balloon forgotten after an inaugural PTA meeting, but how much of your Beloved Pop Culture has so thoroughly infected your speaking vocabulary? I am a white guy with a degree in fuck*ng Library Science and, thanks to this fuck*ng comic, I will occasionally and unintentionally use the word "dogg" like it was a fuck*ng comma.

I'd rather a sugar-momma / sell-out swag (1) funded hiatus than a slow decline into mediocrity (I'M LATE TO MY JOB SAFETY-TESTING SOUR CREAM, DEANSTER!!eleven)

(1) Anyone else caught themselves wondering who the fuck is buying all those books (e.g. "Swamped with shipping books. PM update tomorrow, maybe")?

Zartan, you speak the truth. Far be it from me to begrudge Onstad his breaks; with luck, he'll be able to get the book deal settled and return to strip and blogs with greater energy. As for swag-shilling, I totally don't mind; the webcomic artists who really frustrate me in this regard are the ones who combine desperate demand for payment with the slow decline into mediocrity (Hal Holbrook occurs immediately and also adds the extra level of odious that is "cartoonist with two legitimate syndicated strips begging for handouts with all the fierce intensity of a kid about to be evicted from college and starve to death on the street.")

I, too, wonder who the hell is buying all these books. (I've been tempted to pick up Volume 3, but this is ridiculous!)

[AugustWest]

Far be it from me to begrudge Onstad his breaks;

If you won't do it, I will.  

I haven't had a full week's vacation in three years -- much less several multiple week vacations in the same year.  I'm not whining or gloating, but Damn!  Onstad could be a little more conscientious when it comes to production consistency.

I'm not suggesting he has an easy job or that it's less stressful than other people's work.  I'd be willing to trade for a month or so and see how the other half lives, but that's beside the point.  It just that if O wants to be a professional cartoonist he's not acting very professionally.  He doesn't treat his audience with much respect.

If he's willing to cut us off for two weeks or so, why not use that time to create a backlog of strips.  Then the eccentricities of the artisitic process are irrelevant.  Then he doesn't have to look like a drunk or a lazy fuck by saying "I can't post a strip until 5pm today".  Yet he can still be as artistically erratic as he wants on a daily basis.  It was a system good enough for Sparky Schultz, Al Capp and Gary Larson.  It's not about creative timing, it's only about publication timing.  After three years a two week delay wouldn't hurt anything.

Come on, Chris.  Be a man.  Step up.  The mark of a true professional cartoonist is publication on a regular daily basis.  Cut the crap and give us what we want.  Every day.  Bil fuck*ng Keane can do it.

[wombat]

 Bil fuck*ng Keane can do it.

Oh man.  That is a low blow.

I don't know.  Maybe, say, Calvin and Hobbes would still be around, if it was OK for a cartoonist to take a week off now and again.  Doonesbury does it, and many people think that one is as good as it ever was.  Would we really want Achewood every single day if it meant it was more like Family Circus?  (And isn't that a fascinating concept to contemplate?)

[CortJstr]

Wasn't Calvin and Hobbes in reruns for 6 months one time because Waterson took a sabbatical? Comics in the Post like Foxtrot routinely go into reruns for a week at a time.

I don't know how many unique hits Achewood gets but it does seem to be pretty popular. And "last chance for personalized books" is probably enough incentive to get fence-sitters to finally pull out their Mastercards en masse.

[V-Adore]

Would we really want Achewood every single day if it meant it was more like Family Circus?  (And isn't that a fascinating concept to contemplate?)

Not to derail the discussion, but... This, maybe?

Anyway... I suppose I'm ambivalent. Right now I can grasp why Onstad is taking time off, and since it is comic-related, I can basically allow him slack here. (This assumes he is actually taking the time off to finish the Checkerboard book and not just, you know, drink.) It would be nice if he could be a consistently-producing cartoonist, but if that can't happen, that can't happen. I continue to hope it will, though.

[AugustWest]

I was in a mood last night, but I still stand by most of what I said.

Nobody said he couldn't take a vacation.  Acting like a professional and creating a backlog of strips before you publish them would allow him to take a break without interrupting his publishing schedule.  And there's a big difference between taking a couple of weeks a year off, or even a six month sabbatical every decade and the erratic way Onstad publishes.

Lord knows it is paramount that the quality of the strip be preserved.  I wouldn't want Onstad to do anything that would threaten the quality of the strip.  I just can't see how this could possibly do that.

[V-Adore]

Nobody said he couldn't take a vacation.  Acting like a professional and creating a backlog of strips before you publish them would allow him to take a break without interrupting his publishing schedule.

Just to play devil's advocate a bit -- it is entirely possible that the things that have kept him from production (the new book deal, signing and shipping a massive backlog of book orders) have been sudden enough to prevent his being able to draw a backlog of strips. It seems like it all came on very suddenly, so maybe he just didn't have time.

Note that in general I agree with you, though; a backlog is professional, and it's the best way to balance these things. Hopefully in future he'll have the time to do this.