First off, happy 2014, everyone! This is the year that Messenger turns 10 and that’s pretty weird to me.

I wanted to make a post as a follow-up to my last news bit about taking a short break from comics for a few weeks. There’s been a lot going on in my life recently, like a death in the family, a new job, ten million winter holidays, and then getting sick. I’ve not been feeling well on and off since November, and finally went to a doctor last week and found out I have pneumonia. Oops. I’ve been dealing with that and am starting to feel much better, but just incredibly drained all the time. I had been planning to start posting both Messenger and Follower again this week, but the most I’ve been able to accomplish is sleeping and looking at my DS occasionally and doing other exciting sick activities. It’s really, really frustrating to want to get all these things done and just not have the energy to do them.

So all of that aside, if there is anyone who would like to contribute any kind of guest art/fiction/etc to the site, I would certainly love to share it up on the front page as filler for another week or two while I kick this bug out of my lungs. I will provide credit and links to your own comic/DA/whatever, of course, and will also put your art up on the Fan Stuff page for everyone to see for the rest of forever after. You can e-mail anything you’d like to share to me at bug [at] messenger-comic.com, submit it to DA and note me a link, or post it on the forums.

If not, hey, at least here’s an update about what’s going on with the comic! Here’s to a (hopefully) much better and healthier 2014. Thank you for all these years of continued support; just knowing there are readers out there enjoying what I do makes it worthwhile.