Warning: the following contains a teensy bit of soul-baring. If that’s not your cup of tea, no problem and I’ll see you next week. For the rest of you, here we go…

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Okay, full-on honesty time here, folks. As I’m sure some of you have noticed, I have been fighting creative burn-out for the past six months or so. Not writer’s block per se; it’s just that the past 5 years of drawing MeatShield have caught up with me, making it harder and harder lately to work up the drive to draw the strip. No, I’m not quitting (just putting that out there first off). Now, some of that creative malaise can be blamed on my ADHD  – but not all of it.

Three months ago, I started a Patreon crowdfunding campaign and ultimately ended up with 2 patrons before I closed it. I’m not complaining about that, but after I decided to halt the campaign (mostly because I didn’t feel it was fair to my patrons or myself to keep coming up with additional content that only 2 people ever saw), I received a comment from one of them that really struck a nerve. The comment referenced my erratic update schedule and how that reader had to overlook my erratic posting when considering whether or not to support me on Patreon. Now, before the reader in question is offended or hurt, let me say this: I needed to hear that. The first couple of years of drawing MeatShield, I prided myself on meeting my self-imposed deadline of 3:30PM (Pacific Time) three days a week. Over time, I let myself slide too much (part of the problem is being my own boss – I would suck as anyone else’s boss) and that deadline kept getting modified and extended. Then I went down to twice a week. Lately, it’s been 1 every two weeks or so.

The point of all this is twofold: to thank you all for sticking with me as long as you have and let you all know that until further notice, MeatShield is going to a weekly schedule. If I get more than one comic done on any particular week I’ll certainly post it and it’ll be a nice little bonus. I want to get back up to speed on this, but it’s going to take a little while. Thank you for your patience and support.

Take care,

~Rob