I have decided to restart BT within the next couple of months. I'm still not certain if: I am going to just reboot it from scratch. OR If I will continue the comic from where it left off. OR I will start redrawing the old pages while updating the comic as it stands.

Im sort of leaning reboot with some minor changes in the story, but I imagine that would be boring for the people that already know the story. So I might just slowly redraw some of the earlier issues and maybe clean it up. I don't know, I'd like for BT to look more dynamic. In addition, I would also be drawing it for print (It would need a total redraw in that case as the old PSD files were not made for printing).

I am still looking for "stagehands" on Second Life to help me build some of the backgrounds (Such as tavern settings,random houses, Castle Creedmoor rooms, Issac's Manorhouse, etc). If you're willing to help out with this, send me a notecard to Jakkal Dingo on SL or email me at jakkal at gmail dot com

-Jakkal

Mental State: discontent

At some point I will have to make a decision on BT, but now's not the time. I just don't know how to continue without my husband's help, and I don't want to write out his characters or his input. I'm at an odd fork in the road, but with wounds too fresh to really pick any direction and hope it turns out alright.

Alternatively, I think I will be putting my effort into Kaerwyn. I know it's not as well liked as BT but it allows me a little more freedom, and it involves a character that I'm more interested in right now than Lorelei. I can focus on him for a little while until I'm ready to pick this up again.

I'm not sure when it'll restart. But since Foobar was my husband's character, I might have to reboot it for a second time. I just wouldn't want to dishonor him by attempting to play Foobar. And he wasn't really interested in the K-comic much anyway.

But this is something I want to do to keep my mind off things. I'm not sure how regular the updates will be. I've had to pick up my husband's business and this will keep me extremely busy. But at the same time, it'll give me time to think about the comic and what I want to do with it. (There's a lot of mindless driving involved.)

Thanks for the support all, I appreciate it.

I know you're going to get angry. And really, right now, that's not even phasing me.

My mate of 15 years past away last weekend. I have no idea what's going to happen now. I can't afford where we lived by myself, I don't even know if I'll have the opportunity to stay here. I don't know if I'll be able to keep the vehicles I paid for. I don't know if I'll be able to maintain his business as well as he did. I just don't know anything right now.

BT may or may not start back on time. This all depends on what happens in the next few weeks. I might work on BT just to take my mind off things.

But my mate was a huge influence on my writing. He even helped write a lot of BT. He wrote the dialogue of the black wolf in the original comic. He was always the one I could throw ideas at, and tell me honestly what he thought of them.

And now all that is gone.

I'm sorry all, I know many of you were looking forward to it, and I know I promised to make it happen. I just don't know if I'll be able to now.

Working in Second Life these past few years has given me a lot of respect for the resources it provides as reference material. It also gives me the chance to make 3d objects, when I really suck at drawing 3d objects (Especially when I need to do them so frequently and quickly in BT).

I thought I'd go ahead and ask to see if anyone is interested in helping out. I could use various sets from Creedmoor Castle, Issac's Manorhouse, Dane's Tavern, various townscapes stuff like that. The stages need to fit the overall theme of BT, and I'd like for the textures to actually match the drawing style of the comic.

Hit me up on SL (Jakkal Dingo) or email jakkal @ gmail dot com if you're interested.

Okay well, back in January my dog had an accident, I begged, he got his surgery, and now he's walking on his leg again almost without a limp!

And some other good news is, god help me, you guys reached the goal. I know I said I promised I'd start it in full force by June. But I should have said July, without really thinking about it, I just gave myself a few months of buffer but, I'd like to start BT again on the day it started in 2002, July 11th.

So that being said, I do plan to start BT again on July 11th, 2011. I'm still thinking about rebooting for the most part. I have some ideas for how I want it to look at least, and I've already started sketching some stuff out. I don't know if I'll be able to bang out the comics at the same pace from 9 years ago (Good lord, has it been that long?) But I'll do my best to keep the updates regular.

I want to put a lot more emphasis on the Art, the mechanics behind it, and some other junk. I just need to organize all this stuff. In the meantime, feel free to check out Kaerwyn's RP. I use that to really flesh out a lot of BT's history and backstory there.

Anyway, just want to keep people in the loop.

One of my dogs, Trakker, has a complete tear of his cruciate ligament in his left leg. If he doesn't get the surgery immediately, they said the other leg will take too much stress and it will snap too. The vet visit today, which was almost $1000 cleaned me out. The surgery by itself is supposed to cost another $1200.

So, being in a rather desperate situation, I need money fast. So, I'm going to do something I haven't done in years. I'm going to offer commissions: Digital paintings and SL custom avatars only. In addition to this, I'll make a solemn promise. You hit the $1200 in either: Commissions, Donations, or buying my avatars on SL within a week or two, and I will restart BT in full force by June.

I don't want to overburden myself with too many commissions at once, so I'm only going to make slots for five. If you're interested in something, send me an email at jakkal at gmail dot com. Donations can be sent to that address as well.

My commissions work as follows: Consultation and agreement of fees. Sketches. Second Consultation for major changes. Second set of sketches. Final Consultation of minor changes. Work on Final product. Once the work on the final begins, no more changes will be accepted without another consultation. If for some reason the commission is cancelled, commissioner only pays for work completed. Requires half payment down based on prices of initial consultation. Product will not be given until payment is completed in full.

Thanks all.

Mental State: distressed

Sorry about being unable to work on the site. My free time has been mostly split between running Kaerwyn and Vanguard: Saga of Heroes where I am a guild officer. Other than that, one of my dogs are diagnosed with diabetes which has cost us a lot of time and expenses getting him set up for taking insulin and all the other baggage that goes with it. (Don't worry, he's fine, it was caught really early.) It was just a setback, as weekly trips to the vet and the medicine were pretty expensive, which required I work more to pay for it. And thus, even less time to work on BT.

So, now I'm probably about to make the announcement that you've all been dreading. ... No, I do plan to continue working on BT. But... I plan to reboot it. Yes, the dreaded 'r' word. So some of you might have questions like:

1. What does this mean for BT?

It means that I'll be starting it over. The base storylines will probably remain about the same, but the awful artwork, storyboarding and dialogue will be scrapped and streamlined and made anew. I did a lot of experimenting and just going crazy with some stuff that I kind of regret now (Like story emphasis over artwork, and too much dialogue issues.) So I want to clear that shit up.

2. Lorelei will still be a werefox right?

... Yes.

3. Issac will still be in it, right?

... Yes.

4. WHY IN GOD'S NAME ARE YOU DOING THIS??? <- for the freak-out types.

I have two main options really, restart it, or try to pick up where I Left off. I have no idea where I was going with the last issue, other than I wanted to show the 'other race' that I hadn't had the chance to show before. That is to say that Raekarta has demons. But I really don't want to try to piecemeal a plot together. My goal would be to make BT seamless, and even if I cannot reach that goal, I want to make the attempt.

Plus really, my stomach curls everytime I see the awful art at the start of the comic. I want it to look good and consistant. I want to lay out more information about the world, the society, the history, and the Art of Thaumaturgy.

But if you want BT style stories *now*, then come check out Kaerwyn's RP where you can participate in them.

All for now.

Just remember that it *is* a work in progress, and some of the comic images will be out of order, storyline info will be messed up. I'm just doing a lot of testing with the first images I click on and stuff like that.

The new site will be at http://www.blacktapestries.com

If anyone has happened upon the new site, you'll see it's a bit of a mess. I'm still playing around with Comicpress's functionality. I'll be uploading random comics just to test the uploading features and other stuff. I mean it's packed with stuff. I need to familiarize myself with this system. So things will be wonky for a while. The biggest hurdle is the file names. It uses a different setup than comicgen/keenspace. So that's what... 850 pages or something like that? Geh. Well, slow and sure wins the race neh?

All for now.

I'm sure there's some kind of ironic justice here, that I'm having to wait for someone else to do something. ... Well anyway, I'm tired of waiting, so I'm going to get a web account somewhere else and try to work on a new BT site.

Of course this delays things even MORE, but hey, I'm working on it.

Mental State: annoyed