comics, art, and thoughts by bug & delade
What’s that, a new Follower page? Yeah, really!
🧬 New page: http://follower.messenger-comic.com
👨🏼🔬 From the Start: https://follower.messenger-comic.com/follower-webcomic/follower/
🦘 RSS: http://follower.messenger-comic.com/feed/
💖 Early: http://chio.club
Hey Chio Crew! We’re nearly halfway through 2023 already! How?! I guess it goes faster when you’re struggling to be able to update your own webcomic, but that’s changing soon!
Follower starts again this week! It’s been a long hiatus with my ongoing health issues, but I’m going to do my best to keep on schedule! I can’t promise that I won’t occasionally have to take breaks now and again, but I’m at least hopeful I’ll be able to maintain a small buffer.
If you’ve ever wanted to be part of Follower, like, so much that you’re in the comic – now’s your chance! Our Create a Chio project is open once again for takers on both Patreon and via Ko-Fi commissions. For $50, I’ll work with you to design your very own Chio character. You’ll get a custom character sheet with color references and information. This character will appear on at least one page of the comic as a side character. I’ve also added an extra upgrade option that will put your custom character on 3 pages of the comic, with the potential for a line of dialogue, too. Since I’m working on pages right now that feature a bunch of background Chios, the sooner you commission me, the sooner your character will appear in the comic!
April had no takers for the Chio Club Sticker Tier, so I’ll be leaving it up with the same design for May. If it stays this way, I will probably end it and move on to other ideas. That said, if you’re interested, please check out our Patreon and Ko-Fi pages to join!
I’m still dealing with health issues and my schedule is pretty much a wreck week to week, so I haven’t been able to make a solid streaming schedule yet. I’d like to get back to streaming work on book pages, since I was making some decent progress there. As usual, follow me on Twitch to get updates on that.
Join us on Discord to get the latest comic updates and engage with other readers! The Discord is open to everyone, with special areas for Chio Club supporters.
Thank you (yet again) for sticking with us despite this long comic hiatus! Here’s to more new pages!
This video was meant to go up as a small celebration of getting to 100 subscribers on YouTube! 🎉 It took a little longer than I planned to record and edit it, but here it is.
So, this is a story about a weird thing that happened a long time ago at a job I have thankfully left far behind. I hope it makes you laugh, because it makes me laugh.
If you want to see more stuff like this, plus stream archives, art videos, and more, you should join the Chio Crew on YouTube! Subscribe here! 💖
I’ve been experimenting with simple animation for some future projects I have in mind. This is Snack the Mouse. He might have more adventures.
You can follow along for more of Snack (and other things I make) on my Youtube Channel!
The Sticker Club stickers have arrived! They’re nice sturdy matte vinyl, so you can stick ’em on basically anything. Get yours (along with extra rewards like early comic pages!) when you join the Chio Club Sticker tier!
The Chio Club Sticker Tier is $12/month (including shipping!) and you’ll get an exclusive unique sticker each month you’re subscribed! You’ll also get other rewards like behind the scenes stuff and early pages!
You can join via Patreon or Ko-Fi at http://chio.club!
This is an experiement still, so if nobody joins, the Sticker Club just won’t continue since it won’t be viable to keep going. The Chio Club directly keeps Follower (and my other comics) going by paying for webhosting, software updates & subscriptions, domain renewals, and more.
I’m really hoping at least a couple of folks join in so I can keep this going! If not, these are going into the proverbial vault until I figure out what else to do with them.
I’ve been playing Pokemon Crystal, which I grabbed just before the shop closed. I played Pokemon Silver when it originally released, but then I never picked up Crystal because I thought it would be too similar. Turns out, it’s been long enough, and the game is just slightly different enough, that it feels like a whole new, yet nostalgic, experience.
Rogelio is my Togepi, named as such because when I was looking up Togepi stats on my phone, autocorrect kept changing it to “Rogelio.” So, Rogelio it shall be. Rogelio is an agent of chaos, using metronome all the time, and is basically the Baby Yoda of my team.
Hey hey! It’s April! The weather here is trying so hard to start being nicer, and I personally can’t wait for it. I hope that it’s as nice wherever you are! With that, let’s get into the news!
March was surprisingly productive! I’ve been doing well with physical therapy for my hands, and I’m taking advantage of all the new strength I have at the moment. Will it last? I have no idea, but I’m going to work extra hard while the proverbial sun is shining.
There are 5 brand new Follower pages that you can check out right now if you’re a member of the Chio Club. That’s an entire month’s worth of updates! For $1 (or more) you can see these new pages as they’re completed, long before they’ll be released to the rest of the world! I am currently working on early phases of the next batch of pages. I’m planning (tentatively, but fairly confidently) to start regular Follower updates again in May. More on that below!
The Chio Club Sticker Tier has officially launched! You can join the tier via Patreon or Ko-Fi for $12/month. (This price includes shipping.) Right now the design is a secret to everyone except folks who’ve joined the tier, but I’m doing a reveal on Twitter if I can get enough likes on the post!
By joining the Sticker Tier, you’ll get all the benefits of tiers below $10 – book downloads, page previews, and behind the scenes info – as well as a physical vinyl sticker mailed directly to you! And you’ll get the warm fuzzy feeling of helping our comics keep going a little bit more: just this past month, I’ve had to renew domain names, update software, and make my first ever sticker order for the Sticker Tier.
All of that (and a little bit of general survival) is directly possible thanks to Chio Club supporters, so if that’s you, thank you so much! It means the world to us.
If you’ve ever wanted to be part of Follower, like, so much that you’re in the comic – now’s your chance! Our Create a Chio project is open once again for takers on both Patreon and via Ko-Fi commissions. For $50, I’ll work with you to design your very own Chio character. You’ll get a custom character sheet with color references and information. This character will appear on at least one page of the comic as a side character. I’ve also added an extra upgrade option that will put your custom character on 3 pages of the comic, with the potential for a line of dialogue, too. Since I’m working on pages right now that feature a bunch of background Chios, the sooner you commission me, the sooner your character will appear in the comic!
Check out this post for more details about Create a Chio!
Our Teepublic store will be up to 35% off
April 5-9 and April 26-30.*
*Sale dates are not final and therefore subject to change.
I’m planning a return to Follower updates starting in May! It’s taken me a long time for my hands to recover enough to get some substantial pages done, but I’m feeling good about the progress I’ve made. I can’t promise that I won’t have to take breaks again in the future due to these same health issues, but I’m going to do my best!
Messenger, my long-neglected first project, turns 19 years old this August, and I have turned to dust typing out that sentence. I am not currently working on new pages due to the issues with my hands. It’s difficult to work on this type of project when you have unsteady hands and no undo button, so I’m contemplating working on a few real-media pieces to practice technique with since I’ve had to change a few things about the way I draw and work, and I don’t want to find out how difficult or different something looks on what should be a final piece.
I’ve been trying to build a more reliable streaming schedule, but due to a lot of the things going on with me health-wise, it’s been pretty difficult to schedule time for it. Looking into the next month, I should be able to find at least a few hours a week to hop on and draw with anyone who wants to drop in. I’d love to have you along! Be sure to follow me on Twitch to get notifications for when I’m live.
I’m also planning on dual streaming to Twitch and Youtube whenever possible, since my YT audience has been growing a bit!
In other community news, I’ve been working on improving the Discord server. (I’m always trying to improve it!) I’ve added a few new bots and features like a Question of the Day channel for fun, and I’m working on plans for a trivia game night of some sort for server members. I’ve toyed around with the idea of adding an in-character RP channel for folks – is that something people would be interested in? There are interesting bots and plugins that could make that fun and interesting. In any case, if any of this sounds like fun to you, please come and join us! Everyone is welcome!
Thanks so much for checking out the latest news from us! Things are looking to get more exciting as this year winds on, and we’re so glad to have you along!
The all-new Chio Club Sticker Tier is open for new members!
For $12/month, you’ll get all the other exclusives of other lower membership tiers, including early access to a month’s worth of Follower pages, behind the scenes info, and more, plus a physical sticker each month. Stickers will be mailed out at the end of each month, after the billing cycle has completed successfully.
Join now via Patreon or Ko-Fi to get a sneak peek at this month’s exclusive sticker!
It’s that time again! I’ve been working on a batch of new Follower pages, and I need a whole cast of background Chios! If you’ve ever dreamed of having your very own custom Chio character drawn by me, with their own cameo in Follower, now’s your chance!
I’ll work with you to create a canon Chio character who will appear on at least one page of Follower! For a slightly higher price, your character can appear on at least 3 pages, with the possibility of a speaking part.
All levels will get a fully customized character sheet illustration of your Chio, and will appear with your name as credit on the Follower cast page.
If this sounds good to you, hop on over to my Ko-Fi commissions page and select the “Create a Chio with comic cameo” option! Please be sure to check out my terms and conditions, which can also be viewed below.
I. Timeline and scope of work
II. Payment
III. Revisions
IV. Copyright and Reproduction
The artist reserves the right to:
The commissioner and other parties may NOT:
The final version of Follower page 8.11 is up for Chio Club members! Join now for as little as $1/month on Patreon or Ko-Fi and get access to early pages and more!
You can now also join the Chio Tumbl Club on Tumblr for $5.99/month. You’ll get access to everything the $5+ tier on the other platforms gets. I’d add more options, but that’s all I can do there. But if Tumblr is your jam, you can support Follower there, too.
