Meanwhile, I am coloring and prepping the next month (or so) worth of pages I’ve had sitting around inked, so all that will be set to go. Looks like I should be updating weekly (barring crazy circumstances?) through 2010. I am winner. \*w*/

Going back to coloring and mourning the music that got me through high school and college. D:

So I haven’t updated in quite some time. Unfortunately, life has gotten far busier than I planned on (when does it not?) and I’ve been caught up in all the wedding stuff, and graduating stuff, and job-hunting stuff, and so here I am, comic-less. I keep working with good intentions of updating, but I just never get a chance to with so much other stuff going on. It’s frustrating, but the end really is in sight.

Having thought about it, I’m just going to call it what it is and take a break. The story isn’t caught in mid-chapter, I have the next ten or so pages sketched up, and some of them even inked and colored, so I’m in a good place to be ready to go when I get there. But for the next month, I’m going to be up to my eyeballs in crazy. I’m getting married in two weeks (holy crap when did that happen) and then I’m going on a roadtrip for the next three weeks after that, so while all I’d really like to do is get a comic done, I know it ain’t getting done in that span of time. :/

My plans for doing the book are still on, but like everything else, that takes time and I want to do it well, so in reality it takes even more time. But it will be worth it when I get there.

My plan is to be back and ready to go on the 27th, which is right around the time I first started posting the comic back in 2004. It makes sense, and it falls in a nice spot, time-wise. So that shall be that.

In the meantime, this is probably a nice chance to go back and catch up on the story if you’ve missed anything. And if you were ever thinking of clicking the “Donate” button in the sidebar, this would be a good time since my hosting bill comes up while I’m gone and my budget is looking kind of rough at the moment. D:

In any case, I apologize for all the delays and if all goes well they won’t last much longer. Thank you for sticking by me, and I hope you’ll stop by on the 27th! <3

All of the graphics on the site were broken when I uploaded the backups to the new server and after a lot of digging and tweaking URLs, they’re all back up again. The gallery requires a lot of fixing in order to work with the new file structure on the new server, so that will come back up in time. There might be a few other bugs around the site, but they’ll be worked out in time. If you spot anything weird, please don’t hesistate to post a comment to this journal and I’ll take care of it as soon as I can.

The forums will be down indefinitely because they were barely used and it was hard to keep a step ahead of the spammers. If there’s enough interest I’ll bring them back.

Another big change that comes with the new server is the fact that I can actually use the messenger-comic.com domain the way I’ve wanted to since I bought it as a birthday-present-to-myself a few years back. :D messenger-comic.com is now the official URL for the comic instead of the old megan-koss.net/messenger address. This way I can keep my portfolio and school projects separate from the comic, since it could get kind of confusing. (And I guess I’d like to keep my professional interests separate from something that’s kind of a hobby. D: ) The old address will still have a link/redirect on it from now till the end of time, but update your bookmarks! :D

Lastly, the important part, comic updates! I have a stack of pages in various stages of completion and plan to get them finished up and scanned as soon as possible. I’ve decided to give up on the weekly schedule since that’s a bit rigid for my rigorous design-student lifestyle. Not to worry, though. I am still going to continue to update, but I’m not going to try to keep a schedule that I know is going to get away from me. What I may end up doing is release pages in larger batches as they’re completed, since I often find it easier to work on them in a big group rather than one at a time anyway. It gives me something to do while I’m waiting for the backgrounds to dry on one, and so forth.

Thank you again for all your support and continuing to keep up with the comic despite all the issues I’ve been having with hosting and delays in updates. As a side note, on Monday, August 25th the comic will be exactly four years old! If you’d like to contribute fan art, comics, fiction, or anything else, I’d love to display it! Send it along to fancreated [at] messenger-comic.com! :D

With all that out of the way, I finally got around to actually working on the comic again. I had a bunch of free time this week, so I got most of the rest of this chapter sketched out, and some of it partially inked. It’s enough of a head start that I’m hopeful about keeping it updated more regularly from here out.

Anyway, some news:

- The forums got clogged with spam (again) even after my upgrades to try and keep the spammers out. And then the version of phpbb I was running got to be waaay out of date, and potentially insecure. After the recent hack-tastic disaster I had, I didn’t want to take any chances, so I basically just obliterated the whole thing and started new. Again. While I’m annoyed at having to delete the accounts of actual users, along with actual posts, since the database couldn’t be imported into the new phpbb, having a secure forum is a plus, as are the changes it brings. Go check it out!

- [messenger] will be moving servers before the summer is out. I’m running out of space, and just becoming generally frustrated with things as they are. This really shouldn’t be news, but I think it’s a good idea to mention it early on so people don’t assume I either died or gave up when some disaster inevitably hits when I do start transferring things. Hopefully I can afford to move. Anyway.

- LJ: I’ve opened up the restrictions on Ye Olde [messenger] LJ Community so that everyone can join, post, and comment as they please. I started it up just for news posts originally, but since I’m making my news posts here now, there’s no point in keeping it locked up. Seriously, go join.

And that’s about it for now. I’m slowly adding more to the site that never made it through the original rebuild after the hack, so that will be upcoming in the next few days as well. Enjoy!