Untitled's state of affairs
So Chapter 4 will be the final chapter of Untitled.
I've kind of been mulling over this on and off for some time, and I haven't come to this decision lightly.
Lemme explain.
When I started working on Untitled, it was a little after I transferred colleges in 2019. I had decided to bench my previous comic, Decampment Delusion, and work on it in the background. I'd been working on that story since I was 15, so as you can imagine, the story was heavily messy. In the meantime, I wanted to have a live project, so I picked Untitled, which was an older, more contemporary story I made when I was 13. I worked on that story for roughly 8 months once I made my decision, and launched March of 2020. At the time, I think I was in between wanting to be a freelance artist or a Webtoon artist. I really don't remember— and honestly, I don't even think I knew what I wanted to do. I battled with working on the comic in large bursts while dragging myself through college and then taking large breaks because I wanted to work as efficiently as Webtoon artists do, as commercial creators do, etc etc etc. This resulted in several burnouts, one that go so bad in 2022, I stopped drawing for a few months.
Fast forward to now, I took a 2 and a half year hiatus from working on the comic, almost losing all of my digital art/files at some point, came back for a few months, and am now on another hiatus to finish chapter 3 in one big chunk.
Truth is, I think I'm tired of this project.
While I love the characters, I think the fact that the writing is rather old, it becomes increasingly difficult to enjoy the rest of what's in store for the kids. I've been working on this one for six years (and the story is from 2013!), longer than any project outside of the miscellaneous Author and Artist chapters. Not to mention, I had plans to print, and the page formats are so all over the place in the beginning that I'd have to redraw the pages from scratch— which, the longer it's been, the less I'm interested in doing that.
I found myself pushing to try to make something out of obligation, not for fun, especially considering I've gone through several stages of my early 20s figuring out what I wanted alongside working on this.
I wanted to finish it, I wanted to make it satisfying for readers, I wanted to give Robin and Ethan the story they deserved (as I do with all my characters), I wanted to make so many projects with them... But recently, I've been doing some downsizing. Really sitting down and asking myself how much of my time was worth agonizing over something that wasn't as fun as it used to be. Forcing myself to get excited when I could tell emotionally, I'd already moved on. Going over the countless unfinished stories I had planned, which ones I kept out of obligation for my younger self, and which ones I'd actually like to see in fruition.
And? It was a lot of them. A lot of them were kept around just because I felt like I owed the characters I made rather than actually being invested their stories anymore.
I learned a lot while working on this story. It's been very humbling growing in my art and the way I experiment and the way I connect with the characters I write. It's been fun learning how to structure comics and be more looser and try out different methods. It's been eye opening to see what I do and don't like working with in the medium. I definitely don't think I could have gotten here without working on it, but it's definitely getting time for me to lay it to rest. It's served it's purpose for me. And for the better, I think— I never did figure out how to end the dang thing! Just a vague time skip where everything's settled after they graduate! No idea how cartoonists make their webcomics for 10+ years, the plan 6 years ago was to finish Untitled BY 2025 🤣. Y'all are powerhouses.
This doesn't mean I'm done making comics, though. As the Bluesky and Tumblr folks know, I've been working with Bonnie and Dante recently. I don't wanna gush about them too much here out of respect for Robin and Ethan, but, I've been doing a lot of practice and learning to work on their story, and it makes me happy. So, that'll likely be the next series I work on. But, I've learned my lesson well enough that I will be patient with myself and not fall into the same traps that I did before (especially when it came to Untitled, I treated it like a franchise with how much I had planned!🤣).
We still have a chapter and a half left with them! I'm content enough to finish the rest of the volume and stop there. The thumbnails are done already anyway! Have been for a few years now, lol.
All that's said in done, I'm extremely lucky that people love these kids as much as I do, and were patient with this kid who was trying to figure out what they wanted out of life. Still do, I think, but I'm trying NOT to stress about it all the time like I used to. I hope you'll stick around to see whatever else I come up with in the future!
I hope you all have/had a happy holiday, and I hope next year can be better.