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UTC News: Whither Phase Four?
2 years ago
We’ve come to the end of UTC’s key storyline, and the comic is now going to enter another hiatus.
Now, the big question is whether UTC will continue with Phase Four. Unfortunately, I don’t know the answer yet. I’m definitely not ruling out the possibility, and a major reason why is because this was never intended to be the stopping point for the series.
While the major story of UTC was centered around Cass and Flint being stuck with their transformations, they weren’t supposed to truly be permanent transformations. I wanted to change Cass back one way or another, it was just a question of how and when. My original thinking was that, once she was cured, the comic would then open up to a new world of possibilities for transformation shenanigans. At the outset in 2007, though, I hadn’t imagined that it would take 16 years to get to that point.
Now, I’m 40 years old and very tired. I want to make different comics, and grow my art style in ways that drawing this comic on a regular basis wouldn’t allow.
Don’t get me wrong, I still love UTC. I still love these characters, and I still want to take you on new adventures with them. But I really need a break.
If UTC returns, it will be a long time from now. Most certainly several years. While I can’t guarantee that it will ever resume, I will say that if it does, it will be–appropriately–much different. The story can go almost anywhere from here, and there’s yet more potential in these characters and their world that’s just waiting to be tapped.
In fact, I already have a loose framework set up for Phase Four, and multiple scripts are in progress. But I’m going to take my sweet time with it. Everything could change radically between now and who-knows-when, and I will only resume the comic if I truly feel that further adventures of Cass, Flint and the gang are worth telling.
Thank you all SO much for reading UTC. Those of you who were there from the start and kept faith in me to keep it going, through all the fits and starts; and those of you who found the comic more recently and are binging it for the first time. UTC is my love letter to fans of transformation stories, and I am grateful and humbled that it’s been embraced by so many of you.
Stay tuned for news about future projects, whether they’re UTC-adjacent or something completely different. For now, you can keep following me here, and also on deviantArt, Twitter, and Pillowfort for updates on whatever’s coming next.
Take care of yourselves, and keep on changing for the better.
Cobalt
Now, the big question is whether UTC will continue with Phase Four. Unfortunately, I don’t know the answer yet. I’m definitely not ruling out the possibility, and a major reason why is because this was never intended to be the stopping point for the series.
While the major story of UTC was centered around Cass and Flint being stuck with their transformations, they weren’t supposed to truly be permanent transformations. I wanted to change Cass back one way or another, it was just a question of how and when. My original thinking was that, once she was cured, the comic would then open up to a new world of possibilities for transformation shenanigans. At the outset in 2007, though, I hadn’t imagined that it would take 16 years to get to that point.
Now, I’m 40 years old and very tired. I want to make different comics, and grow my art style in ways that drawing this comic on a regular basis wouldn’t allow.
Don’t get me wrong, I still love UTC. I still love these characters, and I still want to take you on new adventures with them. But I really need a break.
If UTC returns, it will be a long time from now. Most certainly several years. While I can’t guarantee that it will ever resume, I will say that if it does, it will be–appropriately–much different. The story can go almost anywhere from here, and there’s yet more potential in these characters and their world that’s just waiting to be tapped.
In fact, I already have a loose framework set up for Phase Four, and multiple scripts are in progress. But I’m going to take my sweet time with it. Everything could change radically between now and who-knows-when, and I will only resume the comic if I truly feel that further adventures of Cass, Flint and the gang are worth telling.
Thank you all SO much for reading UTC. Those of you who were there from the start and kept faith in me to keep it going, through all the fits and starts; and those of you who found the comic more recently and are binging it for the first time. UTC is my love letter to fans of transformation stories, and I am grateful and humbled that it’s been embraced by so many of you.
Stay tuned for news about future projects, whether they’re UTC-adjacent or something completely different. For now, you can keep following me here, and also on deviantArt, Twitter, and Pillowfort for updates on whatever’s coming next.
Take care of yourselves, and keep on changing for the better.
Cobalt
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It's worth continuing UTC in some capacity inasmuch as acts as a vehicle for you to develop your skills as an artist and storyteller. I didn't always appreciate how important the series was to you in that way, but watching your improvement over the years makes it clear you benefit from having a project that gets you thinking about the stories you want to tell and how to tell them visually.
However, I wouldn't continue UTC in the framework of a commercial product, or trying to demonstrate/market your skills in a professional capacity. There's a distinction to be made between art and media/"content" in this capacity. The things you draw for leisure or for the satisfaction of self-mastery are of a fundamentally different character than those things you feel obligated to put out as part of managing your brand, so to speak.
That people have stuck around to admire your work for some sixteen years between the start of Phase One and the end of Phase Three suggests most of them are more interested in the former than the latter. Of course, the nature of online "artist" communities is such that one often feels the pressure to evaluate oneself in commercial metrics: Views, likes, followers, patrons, commission prices, etc.. For my part, I believe continuing UTC, or any of your art, really, for the sake of such standards would be falling into a trap.
But that's me. I strongly believe that genuine art is a leisure, rather than commercial, activity. If you can conceive of a future of UTC as something done for fun, rather than as a series of deadlines and targets you dread missing, I would go for it when the time is right.
Take the break. You deserve it.
Here's to your new adventures in stories and settings, and looking forward to one day checking back in on this crew
Dominus tecum