Well.

After promising to post more frequently, I gave you an even longer radio silence than before. Fine blogger I've turned out to be.

Well, it's all been for good reason. There were holidays and dogs and lots of comic work, along with a bunch of other stuff I can't really talk about in fear of being dooced, but other than that, things are relatively okay.

For reasons I can't get into (see "dooced", above) I'll be changing jobs in the not-too-distant future. Some of y'all know the score already, and for those of you who don't, and want to know, well, I'll be holed up in the studio pretty frequently, so just give a call (John B. -- I got your message and it's taped to my desk; I'll be calling one of these crazy, crazy nights).

I'm treating this change as a crossroads rather than misfortune (Again, some of you have heard this already, so just kinda skim it if you're sick of it by now) and am trying to get as much of my life rearranged as possible before I actually make the transition. This could mean many things:

1) If I intend to stay in the tech sector, I'll probably have to either go back to school, or start over again at a position much lower-paying than my current salary and learn new skills on the job. The skills I have, while marketable, have become rather commonplace and are not typiclally the sole focus of a position any more (i.e., in addition to HTML/XML and Photoshop experience, you must also have SQL and/or Java and/or ASP and/or .NET and/or UNIX, none of which I have.) At this point, the question becomes: "Do I like the tech sector enough to either go back to school or start over in a relatively menial position?" The answer to this is probably yes, however, this leads us to choice #2:

2) If I'm going back to school anyway, do I want to go back for Tech, or something else? Currently, I've no "ideal" career in mind, at least not something I enjoy enough that I'd want to complete a master's degree in order to persue it. The obvious choice #1 is a Master's of Library Science -- I think I'd make a good librarian -- but there are only two accredited schools for an MLS in the state, and attendance at either would require a move cross-state. That's not an option, and there really are no lucrative positions in Library Sciences / Information Management without an MLS. So that's out.

Obvious choice #2 is teaching at a community college, but I need to make a certain level of income, and judging from the input of friends currently teaching at KVCC, that job won't swing it. Actually, that's not entirely true; let me rephrase: to achieve an acceptable monthly income, the amount of time and number of classes I'd have to teach at a community college level would be such that I'd have no time left over to do artwork, and I'd be so completely fried that I wouldn't want to create anyway, which is totally counterproductive to my lifestyle.

I'll probably see a career counselor at some point; I can get discounted tuition at WMU through Paul's job, and I'd ideally just take a couple classes to boost my skills rather than go pick up another degree. We shall see. This point segues nicely to #3:

3) Why can't I just make comics? This is an enormous point of frustration for me. The career I'm best at, that gives me most joy and in which I've got a de facto doctorate is the career that can't support me. While freelancing is technically an option, and having two freelancers in the same house is technically possible, it's not really financially feasible, at least not at this point in our lives. So, heigh ho, back to the workplace I go -- unless Pixar drives up a dumptruck full of money to secure the movie rights to Vögelein. There's always the possibility that I'll get approached by someone who wants to do a GN with me, someone trustworthy that can pay a rate that'd keep me afloat till I could find something new -- but again, that'd leave me with very little creative energy left to make my own work. It's a tradeoff I think I'd take, at least for a while -- I bet I could write the next Vögelein scripts while I was doing art for someone else, and that'd be a blessing -- but it'd have to be the right setup.

So there you go. Chances are good I won't find anything right away, and will need to spend a couple months either taking classes or doing intensive job hunting. While that's happening, I'll have a couple choices as to how I'm going to support myself: I could either go with my old fallback, the Kelly Temps (they've always, always come through in a pinch, and sometimes led to really great things) or try to round up enough commissions / freelance work to equal what I could make as a receptionist. We'll have to see.

Yeah. Lots of stuff to think about. I'm very, very glad I have Paul and Zoë right now, as well as wonderful friends like Cooper and Nora and Tish and Jen and JimO and Kat and Virus, all of whom have let me bend their ears. Good folks are good therapy. Thanks, everybody -- and thanks readers for your patience. I'm hoping I'll feel more talkative now that the initial shock has worn off.