And so this weird little troll-ish mini-story draws to a close. Not with a bang, but with a zorch. That’s a laser sound, I think? Anyway, I hope exactly None of your questions have been answered. That is sort of what I’m going for, here.

Still going to try and shoot for the relaunch sometime in early August! In any case I’ll try to keep posting new stuff here when I can. It may or may not be very interesting stuff, but I WILL PROVE MY CONTINUED EXISTENCE DAMMIT.

‘Til the future,
-CC

You all probably thought I was dead, huh? Well BEWARE, COWARDS – I LIVE! And I’m bringing you a brand new Badnix storyline. With zero warning. WHAT NOW, FOOLS.

Q. Where the heck have you been?
A: I’ve been keeping busy with pretty much exactly the stuff I said I was going to be working on after the last Badnix arc ended… finishing up the game I started 2 years ago, trying to improve my art, doing all kinds of planning for the next Badnix arc.

Q. How come you’ve been so quiet?
A: Ahhh, sorry about this! I know, I did promise you’d see occasional comics and blog posts and I haven’t delivered on that at all. It’s just, I’ve been doing a lot of soul-searching with regards to the future of the comic, and every time I’d come up with a one-off idea I’d ask myself, “is this in line with the direction I want Badnix to head? Is this just going to distract me away from the World 3 arc?” Not a lot has made it through the filter. UNTIL TODAY!

Q. Wait a sec, is this storyline “World 3”?
A: Not… really? The current story started off as kind of a throwaway filler idea, but it’s kind of evolved into its own thing that is VERY much a piece with some ideas that will drive the next arc. It’s gonna surprise you.

Q. So when does World 3 drop?
A: The plan (entirely subject to change!) is to kick things off in August, just in time for the comic’s 3rd birthday!

Q. AUGHHH WHY IS IT TAKING SO LONG
A: Like I said, lot of soul-searching going on over here! When Badnix makes its “official” return, I want it to be absolute best product I can deliver. I want every single page to be polished and awesome! I want the site to be a joy to spend time on, packed with cool little side features. But most importantly, I want to return to a place of creating the comic from a place of just having fun with it, rather than stressing over just getting it out there.

But yeah. Sorry about leaving you guys hanging for so long! I will try not to ever do that again.

Like I said in the last post, plans for the next Badnix arc are still in their infancy – but I do have enough of an idea, in broad strokes, of where the comic is headed to feel super excited about it! I thought I’d share a few choice spoilers with you guys to help tide you over ’til it rolls around.

• Less plot, more fun. This is the big one for me. Story-driven webcomics tend to disappear up their own posteriors after a while, and I worry Badnix has been a little guilty of this last season. I’m not going to ditch the continuity and start drawing Garfield or anything, but I’m hoping to refocus on the funny videogame pastiches and just having fun with the characters. Perhaps less so on the politics and world mechanics.
• World 3 will be a new jumping on point for readers, just like World 1 was. We’ll build on a lot of what came before, and answer a lot of open questions, but it’ll also be the start of an entirely new story.
• The role of the Badnix themselves is going to change – and in a way that brings us closer than ever to the core premise of the comic. (Ooh, cryptic!)
• King (?) Metafoblin’s role is going to change a bit, too. In a very fun way.
• Kelly will stop being such a dang narrative device and will actually show up in a storyline or two.
• You will meet some of Rog’s family! Perhaps one of Perry’s relatives, too.
• All of your questions about Hud will finally be answered. Yes, all of them. Sooner than you think.
• Dinosaurs. They will figure prominently. In the comic.
• Spaceships. You will see a few of these, too.
• Dinosaurs driving spaceships. This will not happen, ever. You will feel ashamed for even having thought of it. Ashamed!

Again, though, this is all still very much in the air. If you guys have thoughts or ideas of your own, feel free to let me know in the comments! (Keep in mind that the dinosaurs are non-negotiable.)

Ciao,
-CC

And with that annoying cliffhanger, the World 2 arc of Badnix comes to a close! (And as much as I hate contributing to the belief that character deaths in comics are always fake-outs – you had to know Kevin & Hud weren’t going that quietly, right?)

Rog set out to find his team of misfit enemies almost two years ago, and it’s taken them almost 250 comics to finally reach the end of their quest. That number is still crazy to me! It’s about 75% of the strips in the archive. I have to admit, I was getting a lil’ burned out following up on all these plot threads I’d planned out two years ago – back when the strip was a very different animal, mind – but overall I’m very pleased with how much the comic has grown and evolved, and even more than that I’m just overwhelmingly excited to start in on World 3.

And I could! I would like nothing more than to jump in and start the next storyline tomorrow. But! I’m not going to. In fact, regular Badnix updates are going on hiatus for a while. And the main reason is, if I look back at the problems I have with World 2, the majority of them can be chalked up to the fact that I only gave myself a week or two – during which time I was still drawing comics – to plan things out. (Example problem: the fact that it took 2 friggin’ years to get to the end of this thing!)

So I’m taking a little break. I’m going to give the plotting stage a little extra love, I’m going to really work on brushing up the weak points in my art, and yeah, I’m going to finally get around to some other projects that have been languishing for the past 2 years (which includes some non-comic Badnix stuff, I should mention). You’ll still see new comics and blog posts around these parts from time to time, but it won’t be on a schedule or part of a larger story.

With that out of the way, I just want to say: THANK YOU to everyone who had stuck by the strip, who gives me feedback or shares it with a friend or talks about it on a forum. I know y’all are out there and I appreciate all of you! If I deprive you of updates sometimes, know that it’s only ’cause I’m trying to make Badnix as good of a comic as I believe it can be.

See you soon!

-CC

P.S. Going to post a huge preview of World 3 a little later in the week – don’t go anywhere just yet!