FUTURE-ME INTRO.

Hello! Everything you’ll read after this paragraph, I wrote months and months ago, as I’ve been meaning to post a blog update here forever. But it’s been sitting in my drafts ever since, and it’s pretty outdated but it has a few little bits and pieces I think are worth preserving as a reflection of where I was at in my head at that point in time. Aren’t global pandemics a fascinating thing? – The situation’s just constantly shifting! If you’d like to see my most up-to-date news and thoughts, read the next post after this (which I’ll get to writing as soon as I click ‘Publish’ on this bad boy.) Thanks!

OLD POST.

Feels good to be back to a vaguely normal status quo. There was a time for a while there that I was militant about lockdown restrictions. But now I’m actually just sick of everything, and want to go back to how things were. I’m double-vaccinated, as are most people I know, and Covid is diminishing quickly where I’m from. I’ve been out in crowds recently, I’ve been in clubs and bars and around people from all over the place, and it’s been fine. It’s been great. It’s been like the good ol’ days. Even weeks later, cases are still decreasing. So, yeah, it’s time to get back to normal.

Masks are sticking around for a while because I guess my country has more common sense than its neighbours and would prefer to phase back in the normality rather than just cold-turkey it. And, despite masks not being particularly secure if not coupled with all the other safety measures, it still feels like we’re being sort of safe about it. I guess it always has been more about the image of preventative measures rather than actual prevention – if we’re not in full lockdown then Covid will get around.

I find it interesting hearing different people’s takes on the entire situation and the attitudes to vaccines, and to masks, and to distancing… There are a lot of people who believe hear-say and don’t research things for themselves; a lot of tinfoil hatted individuals just asking to be infected. What will be, will be, at the end of the day. As someone secure in my own decisions and my own knowledge, I’m happy just to sit back and see what happens next. I don’t mean that in any malicious way, it’s more that I feel we’re in a time where it’s on every individual to make their own decision going forward.

Working in hospitality, I’ve seen, first-hand, a vexing case of hypocrisy, specifically with our older generations. If you cast your mind back to the beginning of the lockdown (I’m talking U.K. but this may well apply to where you’re from too) we were told – begged – as young people, to stay inside for the sake of our elders. While we weren’t the group most at risk of truly suffering with symptoms of Covid, we could still carry and spread it to those who were. And so the place locked down hard – everything was closed, the streets were barren, you couldn’t buy toilet paper – it was chaos…

But, after the first wave of vaccinations rolled out, treating the older folks first, and a few places started opening back up, one could notice a surge of people over 50 coming out of the woodwork – many of them maskless, not adhering to safety measures, despite younger people still being unvaccinated and very much at risk of suffering with the virus. I had to return to work pretty early on, as the government’s shitty-ass furlough scheme was simply useless, and so I had to be exposed to these people, amidst a still-ongoing lockdown. I can say, first-hand, the older generations do not. give. a flying. fuck. about younger people. I’m generalising here, sure; I know not all of them are this careless…

But holy Hannah, what an absolute hypocritical, entitled, irritating, blood-boiling group of people. I’m seething just recounting my thoughts on it now.

It made me instantly regret all that time we’d spent inside “for the safety of the older generations”, when, the second they had that stamp of approval upon being vaccinated, out they went. I can’t talk about it any more, I’m too salty. Way too salty… Fuck.

That’s a big factor of why I’m so over this entire thing. There are many other factors, the other main one I detailed in a post here. Not gonna bring it up again in this one, it’s hard enough to think about, let alone gather my thoughts on it again.

Anyway, after that rollercoaster of emotion that was the intro to this month’s post, let’s dive straight in, shall we?

MERIDIAN SIX.

It’s been a spell since my last post, where I chatted a little about The Black Mist. Not a massive amount has happened since that’s truly noteworthy, just more of the same, but let’s split it up:

COLD RESET.

For now, Cabin Fever is still on pause. I have a few pages ready to go, but I’d like to get it done before I continue with it. That, or, I’d like to reach a point where I can devote time to getting a page done weekly to keep up with a posting schedule, and that just won’t be doable while I’m working on The Black Mist.

However, check this out:

THE HUB / MAIN SITE.

I spent a LOT of time working on this site, which still needs tweaking. It acts as sort of the Netflix of Meridian Six, and it totally was not necessary. It actually became more of a distraction than anything, but I enjoyed making it using Wix‘s Editor X tools. I’m shelving the idea for now, but it’s worth seeing just for how cool the flipbook comics are. Check out the first chapter’s one here.

With how few comics I have ready and available, The Hub isn’t something that’s needed. It’ll probably be something I’ll benefit from having later down the line, like, much later down the line.

So…

I turned my focus to the main site, something I’ve neglected in recent years. I have the domain, so why am I not using it to its fullest? I realised the reason for this – I couldn’t get it to look as clean and slick as I wanted it to, as other online comic sites do. There’s a LOT of good work out there, a LOT of great comics, and their home websites are absolutely gorgeous. I enlisted a friend of mine with some CSS knowledge and we smashed out a few sessions on the main site.

In the end, I had to do much of it myself, but I gave it the extensive TLC it truly needed, and, so far, it’s looking a lot better. Check it out.

So, that will once again be THE home of Meridian Six, where pages will release first. I’ve also integrated those cool flipbook things from The Hub, so it wasn’t a total waste of time after all!

I’m very happy with how it’s looking, and I’m near the end of fine-tuning it. Keep an eye…

In other news, I’ve rekindled my old dusty Twitter account, and will be posting updates there in the future.

THE BLACK MIST.

This is where the majority of my progress has been, as it’s the comic I’m currently working on. The first part of the first episode (I know, I make these comics so much more complex for myself than they need to be…) is making good progress, and it’s still on track to be ready to go by the end of the year. I missed the last date, which, looking back, was very unrealistic anyway, but I’m like 83% sure it’ll be done before 2022.* (5-months-later-me: No it won’t.)

I’ve drawn up some character bios – something common with comic sites, and that actually do a lot for immersion in a comic – and those are up on the main site, and at the Comic Fury site. But I’ll post some of them here to give you a cheeky taste.

They look better on the sites because of the black background and the cool ink splats. Trust me.

ANNOUNCEMENT.

Now here’s something new… If you’re a supporter over on Patreon, then you already know this, from like 2 months ago, but I wanna talk about it on here now because it’s taken a much clearer shape in recent weeks.

I’ve talked before about the power of showers, but let me reiterate – 90% of my ideas come to me when I’m showering. And almost all of them linger, either in my head or in notes I write up whilst moist and wrapped in a towel. By the time I’m done typing, my hair is almost fully dry and sticking out in all directions – first world problems, right?

And if it’s not new ideas, then it’s new takes on old ideas. And boy, let me tell you, the idea for this one has been sitting there for years. One shower, near the end of 2020, I thought a lot about a prequel to Cold Reset. This was an idea that stemmed from my work on the Wiki, and talking about George and Brandon having been involved in some horrific incident in the past, that was covered up officially and that everyone moved on from. But I never quite knew exactly what that incident was – I had a vague idea, but I hadn’t spent much time planning it out.

That all changed when the shower nation attacked. It planted a seed of an idea in my head that has grown quite a lot in the many months since. I now have a title for it, a plot outline, and it even has metaphors, themes and some symbolism worked into it. Let’s hope I get to actually finish a comic this time, eh?

Behold:

“The 14:15 to Devon” – make of it what you will. I spent a few days back in May building this scene in 3D using Maya. I spent most of that time working on the textures to keep it consistent with my art style. It took a lot of rendering and a lot of shifting things around by pixels at a time, but I’m very proud of this image it left me with for the cover.

It will be a three-part short story, and I’ll start working on it in 2022, once Cabin Fever is finished. I can’t wait to talk more about it, but it’s still evolving as we speak, and I’m midway through the script. But I’m very excited about it, and I hope you will be too!

GUEST ARTISTS.

It’s a bit early to talk fully about this but I’ll give you the rundown – each cover for the 3 issues of 14:15 is in the works of being drawn by a different artist. The image you see above will be the overall story’s cover, but the individual chapters will be drawn in unique styles by different artists whose styles I think really work with the vibes. It’s quite a big deal for Meridian Six to have involvement from anyone who isn’t me, so that’s something. Stay tuned!

LIFE.

God, it’s been non-stop. I’ve got a final project going on for my Master’s degree (which has been a totally pointless venture thanks to Covid *upside down smiley face*), I’m working a lot due to increased business and being short-staffed (*even more upside down smiley face*), and I’m moving houses soon – not far, just across the city. Social life is also back with a bang, now that Covid restrictions have been lifted – birthday party nights out are back on, all the family weddings that couldn’t happen in 2020 are now scheduled for this month, so weekends are a write-off, meaning having to make up the days off work by working all through the week… On top of this, I’m trying to throw in some time on the comics, and on the websites, and other related stuff. I’ve been meaning to sit down and write this post for almost 3 weeks and it’s only happening because I’m back at the family home for the evening and am unable to work on anything else… (*the upside-downiest smiley face*)