Today I had a little brainstorming session for Power Penguin Book 3 at the local library. I had been working on this particularly tough nut to crack for quite some time... and today I finally came up with the answer that I had been trying to figure out for so long! The title of the forthcoming book is "The Wrath of Dracatoo." This is the same title that I had come up with back around middle school, so long ago, and I've always intended to use it as the third and final part of the Power Penguin trilogy. However, I had encountered a slight problem during my previous brainstorming sessions: WHO is Dracatoo, and WHAT is his wrath?!

I already had an idea about WHAT Dracatoo was, but not WHO he was. I was trying to focus on how he'd fit into the story I am developing, but was running into all sorts of mental roadblocks. But today, I sat down and wrote out a blurb for his personality. Suddenly, he turned from a what into a who, and I began to be able to draw out some characterization for him! Once I started breaking down his personality, character traits, and how he relates to Power Penguin, the story suddenly unfolded before me. I felt like I had managed to "crack my own code" to the story ideas not yet realized inside my noggin. Then, when I had figured out WHO his character was, I could more easily picture HOW he'd fit into the story more directly. I could now see entirely new sequences playing out inside my head. I figured out how this title character would interact with Power Penguin, and things just started clicking into place.

And, best of all, thanks to figuring out some character motivation, I was able to justify the TITLE of the book! I now know who Dracatoo is and what his wrath is! It suddenly clicked and made total sense. I felt like I had gotten a BINGO today.

May was "supposed" to be Mental Health Awareness Month. Well, guess what? Just a few days ago, I had to quit my job of six years due to accumulated mental health stresses which resulted in bottoming out to the closest I've ever come to suicide. Now, I normally don't like to talk about these sorts of things in public. I tend to keep my private struggles private, for good reason.

The problem when it comes to "mental health," is that most people simply don't get it. Worse, others simply don't give a flippity-floppity fuck. To keep the story short, my work environment was toxic, and it had simply built up over the past six years until we finally had the straw that broke the camel's back. After getting read the riot act by my supervisors over an incident the day before, I went home holding back tears. I then sat down on my futon, wept bitterly over every failure in my life, chugged from a bottle of vodka, imagined every scenario where I could either cut myself or stab myself to death with a knife, possibly even the next day at work.

I called my local mental health therapy office and asked for immediate crisis counseling. I cried as I slurred my words talking to her. I cried myself to sleep. I woke up a few hours later and started Googling "my job makes my suicidal." Deciding that my mental health was more important than staying at this toxic work environment. I called my supervisor's number and told him that I quit. I then informed my pastor and my parents. That second call went horribly, as Dad made me feel worse than I already did. "What were you thinking? What are you going to do about paying your rent and insurance?" Dad shouted angrily. "Don't you think I hadn't already thought about that, God damn it?!" I tearfully replied. Simply put, my dad is one of those people who "don't get it" when it comes to mental health.

So now I'm without a job at the present. I'm seeing what resources the local therapy office has in store. I've set up appointments. I've gone to support groups. I'm trying to get hooked up with a case worker to help me navigate these challenges. Right now, I don't know how the hell to get out of this deep, black pit I'm in. I need to find a new job immediately, one that won't simply resume to put those hellish mental stresses on me. As I've stated here, no job give a fucking shit about your mental health, no matter how many advertisements they place about the workplace. If you go off and kill yourself, no worries, you're always replaceable.

I simply don't know how to get out of this situation. I'm depressed, anxious, and lonely. The only friend in the world I have is Dobby, my cat. If it wasn't for him, I honestly might have killed myself already by this point. I'm sorry to drop this kind of heavy shit on you people. Like I said, this is why I keep my dark thoughts to myself...

Well, I've been very quiet insofar as art goes for a while, but I have been pretty busy with my life here in the real world. Long story short, I was finally able to move out and find myself a nice apartment. Now it's just Dobby the cat and myself. I've cut a thirty-five minute commute to work down to five minutes. It's very good to finally be living on my own, like I was an actual adult or something...

Today marks the six year anniversary of when The Humanthro Condition first premiered in May 2018. It's been a very fun ride these past few years. I enjoyed creating this comic, coming up with jokes and scenarios, going along with these characters as they experienced life, and I grew to know and love them very much. It's still bittersweet that it had to come to an end like it did. There are always more stories left to tell. Time, however, does not permit that in life.

Looking back at the 458 comic strips, I have no regrets. While my previous webcomic, Stubble Trouble (2008 - 2018), was very much of a learning experience, The Humanthro Condition seemed to work just right. I had used Stubble Trouble like a stepping stone. I learned what sorts of things worked and what didn't work. I used those lessons in order to craft the sequel comic into a much more focused and streamlined affair. I had learned from trying to fit way too many characters and storylines into the previous comic. The sequel was able to remain more character-focused, and I could develop them as people more properly. I can stand here today and be proud of what I was able to accomplish in The Humanthro Condition.

I do not know that the future holds for me. While this particular chapter in my life has come to a close, the characters I've created will live on. The next step will be working on compiling the comic strips from the fifth and sixth years into the third printed volume. "Live and Let Rye" will collect the last run of the comics and it will be nice to be able to have all six years collected into the three printed volumes. Since there were far fewer comics in the last two years, I'll have to find some other goodies to fill the rest of the pages with.

To those of you who have stuck around with me these past six years, I thank you. To those who have been watching me since the early Stubble Trouble days, an extra special thank you. It's an honor to have people looking at my artwork and finding a few laughs as I try to provide a weird sort of social commentary through my particular brand of silly, Autistic insanity. Thank you so much.

After seven long years, I can finally conclude this particular chapter of my life. The second novel in the Power Penguin Saga, The Battle for Quotherox, has now officially been published. There is a weird sense of relief at this point, but it hasn't fully sunk in yet.

Available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D2VSDBJ.....arch_sidesheet

Well, the manuscript for the second Power Penguin novel, "The Battle for Quotherox," has been checked over with a fine-toothed comb. I upgraded my old copy of Microsoft Word, and was able to use a feature that spoke the words out loud. I found and fixed a crap-ton more grammatical errors that I never would have found otherwise. The manuscript is, as of now, 99.9% complete and ready to go.

I was able to find an artist to commission an illustration for the book's cover art. Hopefully they will be done in a couple of weeks or so. As soon as I get the completed cover art I will add the title and everything to it. Once I review the final book proof copy, I will set it for release through Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing. Hopefully, hopefully it should all be done in a few weeks.

Also, since my novel is virtually completed, I shall then return to The Humanthro Condition with gusto. I will begin writing and drawing comics again within the coming days. I might start a bit slow so as to get a buffer of strips ready and on deck, that way I won't be playing 'beat the clock' in order to post on the assigned days again. Rosie, Jeremy, Stephanie, and Rasputin will return soon.

My second Power Penguin novel is fully written. The manuscript has been proofread and is 99.9% complete. The only thing left to do is to try and find an artist to commission for the cover art here. It's... overwhelming. It seems like there are way too many people to choose from, yet there are actually so few choices available from that particular pool! Gah!

At long last, after seven years of meandering about with very little to show for it, the manuscript for Power Penguin book 2, "The Battle for Quotherox," has finally been completed. The story has been written in full and all of the necessary scenes have been placed and typed out. The manuscript is now 99% completed. The next step will be endless rounds of proofreading and editing. I've surprised myself. I set out around New Year's to try and complete my long overdue sequel novel. In almost two months I've gone from around 50,000 words and many incomplete sequences to the fully-fleshed out story at over 90,000 words. It has been a marathon of sorts trying to get this beast finished. Now I'm closer to the finish line than any time in the past seven years.

To any furry art connoisseurs out there, I will now be looking toward one of the next steps: finding an artist to commission the cover artwork. If any of you have any suggestions, that would be appreciated. I'd prefer someone who has a realistic style and has a strong aptitude for science fiction or military details.

I'm pretty sure by now you've noticed that The Humanthro Condition has not been updated in a while. Well, the fact is it is currently undergoing a prolonged, apathy-induced hiatus. It is not cancelled, just on pause for the time being. However, in the meantime, I have, inexplicably, been recently galvanized into trying to finish my long awaited Power Penguin sequel novel, "The Battle for Quotherox." For whatever diddly-dang reason, I have finally been able to write again! So, for the time being, I'll be working like a Muppet on Pervitin trying to finish up the manuscript with what little available time I can scrounge. This is my current obsession. My apologies to my loyal comic followers. The Humanthro Condition will return someday, but for now my focus has been turned to getting this gosh darn book finished so I can move on with my life! Wish me luck!

For the past few weeks I've been experiencing a new form of depression that resembles nothing less than severe apathy. The "I don't give a damn" attitude about life in general. In many ways it borders on nihilism and it is shocking to me. This is why I haven't posted any comics or other artwork in the past few weeks. I've both been lacking in inspiration to draw and desire to come up with new storylines for my comics. I simply don't know how to get out of this hole. I can't make any promises. I want to get better, but it's not as simple as flicking off the depression switch. I'll be a hard road ahead, and I don't know when the going will get any easier...

I've taken a bit of an unscheduled hiatus from comics and artwork recently. Life has been busy for me, especially since I'm going to the gym now frequently. Time there means that I have less time back at home in order to work on art. Add a regular job to that as well as driving time, and my available amount of free time shrinks dramatically. I shall return to making artwork hopefully sometime soon.

However, I have not been entirely idle. One very good piece of creative news is that I've gotten back into writing the sequel to The Origin of Power Penguin. Currently I am just over 200 pages and 54,000 words. For whatever reason, that dim creative spark has flared up again and I've made more progress in the last few weeks than in months prior. Fourteen chapters are pretty much complete, and the rest of the story is being mapped out and brainstormed. I'm filling up pages with notes in a special notebook that is invaluably helpful to me.

I cannot put a concrete date on a possible release for the sequel novel, but I'll try the best that I possibly can. I am a slow author, as this is not my regular forte. Making comics and short-form stories is a far easier endeavor.

Wish me luck.

Hello there. Lately I've been thinking a lot more about Autism. I'm Autistic, and my fursona, Rennon, is, too. However, I'm wondering which of my characters in The Humanthro Condition might be Autistic as well. The thing is, I've never written any of them as "the Autistic character," but each of them in some way is a reflection of myself. Power Penguin, on the other hand, was written as Autistic and sort of a metaphor of my own experiences. So I'm wondering which of them might be displaying certain traits of neurodiversity without having been written as such...

Hey, all. As you might have noticed there hasn't been a Humanthro Condition comic in a couple of weeks. Yeah, I'm taking an unofficial break from that for a bit. I need to refresh and recharge my creative batteries in order to come up with some more stuff there.

However, I have not been idle. In addition to toy photography, I have been making some recent strides with another project. I am continuing the painfully slow work on Power Penguin 2, believe it or not. As of this journal I have just passed 40,000 words. That means I'm approximately halfway done writing the story. I will still need to finalize the narrative and do some editing when I'm finished and whatnot, but I'm almost halfway there to that 80,000 word mark for a novel. Wish me luck.

Hello, people. I'm just throwing this out there, trying to gauge reader thoughts and opinions regarding The Humanthro Condition. What are some things that you'd like to see explored within this comic? Are there ideas, certain character interactions, or themes that you'd like to see more of in the future? Consider this an informal poll or merely fishing for ideas for future comics. If there's something you'd like to see, let me know.

Mellow greetings, all. I'm going to have to take a wee bit of an art break here again. Part of it is the usual reason: running out of comic ideas at the moment. Another part of it boils down to the fact that I've begun working on trying to write the second Power Penguin novel again. I've been making a little bit of slow progress with the sequel story, and I want to try to keep that going. It's been five years now, and I really want the next chapter to be completed sometime this century. The problem is that there are so few hours in a day to work on this, that, and everything else. A third thing is that I want to work on compiling my comics for the second printed volume of The Humanthro Condition, since I completed the fourth year not too long ago. So, yeah, hopefully it won't be too long of an art hiatus, but rest assured that I'm working on this stuff behind the scenes.

For a few reasons here, I'm going to take a bit of an art break. Firstly, I'm running out of comic ideas at the moment. I have idea nuggets, but few in the way of developed ideas or full scripts. Secondly, I've just upgraded my computer setup. I'm trying to get all of my ducks in a row here, which is difficult since the new computer is quite different. Thirdly, the monitor screen is... messed up. The colors are off, the contrast is different, and there's a weird after-image for moving things. It's hard to explain. It just doesn't look right at all. Finally, I just need a bit of a general art break in order to refresh. I know people don't read journals here anymore, but I just thought I'd put this out there. Peace.

I talk and stuff: https://rennon-the-shaved-podcast.l.....-retrospective

https://rennon-the-shaved-podcast.l.....thro-condition

Come check out the newest episode of The Rennon the Shaved Podcast where I sit down and talk about my furry webcomic, The Humanthro Condition. It's neat!

The Humanthro Condition Volume 1: Licence to Kilt is available now at Amazon.com!
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09HG55KL.....348&sr=8-2

For those of you who read the previous journal here, I was feeling pretty down about The Humanthro Condition being rejected by that furry publishing house. But, I have decided to move forward in another way. I will now attempt to self-publish Year 1 of the Humanthro Condition through CreateSpace, like I did with The Origin of Power Penguin. This way I can be sure that it will be published, rather than playing the old game, waiting for the next rejection letter. Stay tuned!

I tried submitting The Humanthro Condition to a furry-focused publishing house, and it was rejected outright. There was no further comment as to why. It simply said that they'd were not interested at this time. But to add insult to injury, they gave me the old "good luck in the future" routine. That hurt. I'm feeling as if I'll never get published no matter what I do. I'm feeling pretty down about it, along with the other problems going on an my life right now.

Make memes of The Humanthro Condition. Do it now.

Don't bother trying to look up my old YouTube channel or my second, secret YouTube channel. They've both been nuked and wiped clean. And nothing of value was lost. I'll only use my regular name channel to watch other people's videos. It's like ripping off an old, diseased Band-Aid.

Hey, people, you should listen to my podcast!

Oh, wait, I don't have a podcast...

Maybe I should do a podcast.

Probably not. My voice is irritating.

LOL.

I'm just curious. If I were to have merchandise, like The Humanthro Condition T-shirts or comic trade paperbacks, would anyone be interested?