So, it would appear I haven’t been able to get a newsletter together since….December 2023. Yikes. Well, let’s rectify that, shall we?
What’s New?
As usual, the delay on everything I’ve been working on is related to health issues. If you’re into the gritty details I’ve been blogging about it from time to time on my Tumblr. I had a flare up in my hands and wrists that was intensely painful for a while and has mostly subsided but it’s still easy to set off, so I’m still working more slowly than normal despite having about a thousand things I want to work on. It’s frustrating, emotionally and physically.
Thanks to folks contributing to my Ko-Fi, I was able to get my hands on a pair of compression gloves which should help me be better able to work through some of the painful days.
So, I’m still working on getting Follower going on a regular schedule again. It’s been really hard. To fill in some of the gap, Delade put together some new fiction for the website which I gave a little artistic rendering to.
In other news, I’ve been using some of my drawing-is-hard time to get Follower going on some additional mirror sites, including more updates on GlobalComix and (coming soon) NamiComi! GlobalComix has a really nice app, and I took the time to add interactive panel by panel clickthroughs, so I highly recommend it as a reading experience!
I’ve also been trying to work on other methods to help Follower and my comic projects become more self-supporting even when I have trouble drawing consistently due to health problems. There are several things you can do (for free!) that will help me be able to keep Follower going:
Subscribe to Follower on Tapas and Webtoon Canvas. If I can reach 100 subs on Tapas, I’ll be eligible for ad revenue sharing, which probably isn’t a lot, but every little bit helps out.
I’ve also been making more video content on both TikTok and Youtube. Following me in both of those places helps me become eligible for monetizing those platforms, too.
What’s Next?
The top of my agenda is getting Follower back to a reasonable amount of updates. It’s hard to get there struggling with my bad hands, but I’m making progress. We’ll get there, one bite at a time.
Community News
One of the new parts of the new Follower website I’m working on and considering opening to readers is the option to help transcribe pages for vision-impaired readers. For now, I’ve been doing the transcriptions myself, but there are hundreds of pages to go. I might open this up to the community as a volunteer project. If you’re at all interested in this sort of thing, please drop in on the Discord chat and let me know!
If there is community interest, I will open up a private channel just for transcribers, and probably create a special role for it.
Thanks for Reading!
Thanks for reading this incredibly late newsletter. Here’s hoping things can get a little easier from here on.
It’s #webcomicday, a day all about celebrating and promoting your favorite webcomics! As part of this year’s celebration, I’ve made a little image breaking down how I make a Follower page. I decided to use page 25 from chapter seven of Follower, because those are some of my favorite pages in the comic (at the moment.)
Let’s take a look at a little x-ray of the comic, shall we?
Breaking it down into steps, a page is made like this:
Step 1: Script and thumbnails
Delade and I spend a while working out ideas for the chapter. We discuss everything that’s happened so far, and everything that’s going to happen eventually, and where this chapter needs to fall in that timeline. Then we discuss the important bits about what’s going to happen: who’s the focus? Where is it taking place? What absolutely has to get in in order to support future parts of the story? It can get complicated! We hash it out and then Delade gets to work scripting. (Chio Club members can get access to full copies of some of our scripts, and I’m planning to release more in the future, if you want to see our process in more detail!) We plop the script into a program called Superscript, which is just for comic script writing. It makes everything into a nice format. Then I take this script and sketch little thumbnails alongside each page, to rough out what I think it’ll look like. The thumbnails are basically unreadable to anyone but me, but it gives me a better idea of what’s going to happen with the art. I also build in space in the design of each page for whatever text needs to fit. This is easy to forget, but can be a huge pain if you don’t do it. Delade and I discuss the thumbnails, and when we agree, it’s basically done. The last part of this process is coming up with a chapter title and cover image.
Step 2: Pencils and inks
In this step, I enlarge my thumbnails to fit the size of a page and then draw on top of them. Pencils are usually more detailed versions of the rough stuff in the thumbnails, but sometimes not much more detailed than that. I’m just refining what the actual characters are going to look like, capturing expressions and important details that have to be right. At this point I usually also drop in dialogue balloons, so no matter what there’ll be space for them. Then I move on to ink the outlines.
Step 3: Flat colors
In this step, I drop in the base colors for everything. Characters get their own layers, and backgrounds on another. I have a pallette built and saved for Follower that includes colors for just about everything that appears regularly so I can keep it all consistent. This part usually goes pretty quickly because I have everything set up to be efficient; without having my standardized color pallette at hand, and my CSP fill bucket set up the way I want, it would take forever and be really tedious.
Step 4: Final shading & details
The last step! I apply several layers of shading and lighting depending on the environment. I use a lot of textured brushes here because I feel like it adds a little more depth and tangibility to the backgrounds. I give the ink outlines some subtle color; they look black, but they’re usually actually a very dark purplish or bluish color, or similar, whatever fits the scene. I used to color all of the outlines individually, but this took forever, and I don’t necessarily think it looked better. At this point I also add in a layer on top of everything with a paper texture. I didn’t always do this, but after some experimentation a couple of chapters in, I decided I liked the feel it gave the pages. Everything in this world is a little bit gritty, and it accentuates that a bit.
You can also support Follower and get early access to work in progress, sample scripts with commentary and thumbnails, and more, when you join the Chio Club via Patreon or Ko-Fi for just $1 per month or more.
I’m a physically disabled artist with a lot of medical issues, and the Chio Club helps keep me properly cared for as well as helping keep the lights on around here, so we’re endlessly grateful for all our supporters.
You can find out about all the available reward tiers and more on the Chio Club website: http://chio.club
We’ve done it, everyone! After what’s been a real rollercoaster of a year, we made it to the end of 2023! This edition of the Chio Chronicles is going to be a big wrap up of everything we’ve done this year, so if you’re just joining us, or if you’ve been here all along, we can all look back on 2023 together!
The Big 2023 Roundup
In the beginning of this year, I started working on some video projects as a way to keep making stuff and being active as a creator online (so people wouldn’t forget I existed, I hoped…) and one of my early experiments was a video essay on joint hypermobility, one of the major health issues I’ve been dealing with over this year. I made it both as an explainer and a kind of journal piece about what I’ve gone through.
Throughout the year, I’ve worked on a few simple animations, in hopes of one day maybe being able to do some for Follower. The one pictured above is called Snack the Mouse, although I’ve done a couple of others based on Follower, as well as some kind of autobio animatic-style pieces. TikTok has been a real help in getting some of my art out there, especially in this way! But most of these are on my Youtube channel, too!
My ability to draw has been hit or miss this year thanks to untreated chronic pain, but I’ve found that I can (usually) at least write when I can’t physically draw, so one of the ways I’ve been trying to do that is create some useful resources for other artists and comic-makers. The first big one of these posts I did was a run down of some of my favorite books for comic artists!
Sort of spontaneously, I decided to attempt Nanowrimo this year, and actually managed to complete the requisite 50,000 words! I posted early drafts week by week in November for Chio Club members. Although I made the minimum amount of words to “win,” I still haven’t finished the story itself, so I’ll be working on this on and off into 2024.
My novel is tentatively called “Cat Person,” and it’s a take on zombie horror. Right now I’m working on finding the holes in the first 50k words, and then once I’m sure that’s all in order, the ending should click together nicely. If you’re interested in seeing what I put together in November, join the Chio Club at $5+!
One of the ways I’ve been coping with the frustration of my health and dealing with the health care system as a whole this year is making some simple sketchy comics about how I feel about things. Some are more positive than others, but that’s how it goes sometimes.
I’ve also been doing a series of off-the-cuff blog entries about my experiences on Tumblr, also under the healthposting tag (so it’s easy for people to either view or block them, because I know this stuff is not everyone’s cup of tea) and it’s been nice to kind of have a small group of folks with similar conditions where we can all nod at each other like, “yep, that’s how it goes.” You can check out my blog posts there under the healthposting tag!
One of the most life-changing things that happened this year (and there were a lot of those, it’s been a year) was losing our cat Milo in October. He was more a part of our creative process and daily life than we ever realized. In all the writing I’ve done this year, one of the things I’m proudest of is the little eulogy I wrote for him. He was my best little buddy and work supervisor and I’ll miss him forever. It meant a lot to be able to write about him and share my strange, wonderful little cat with the world.
Overall, 2023 was a difficult year, and in some ways we barely made it through. But your support as readers has meant the world to me and made some of the really rough stuff feel worth it, so thank you for being here and continuing to be interested in the stuff Delade and I make!
Bug Bits is (was?) a small series of autobiographical strips I made over the years. They were originally posted on Tapas and Webtoon before I took them down with the intention of doing…something…with them, which I clearly never did. Anyway, now seems as good a time as any to revive Bug Bits. Here is a… Read more: COMIC: a shell of a human being (bug bits)
Hi friends, long time no post? Sort of? I’m here to resolve this posting drought by….posting about not posting. Hmm. As you might have already read if you’re up to date with the goings-on on Follower, or via the Chio Club, I’m going through some kind of burnout and need to take a bit of… Read more: In the Wilderness
It’s a Turkey-Type Sale! If you’re in America, it’s that one week of the year again. *eyeroll* So I suppose I gotta do one of these. Anyway, all my comics, wallpapers, sketchbooks, and brushes are 50% off on itch.io. Everything in my Teepublic shop is on sale, too! That includes shirts, stickers, mugs, hoodies, and… Read more: Turkey-Type Sale
This is just a tiny update to say that I’m leaving Twitter for good. There are a lot of reasons why, but I think it’s finally time. I’ve long since arrived at the point where it’s more effort for me to make a post than what I get in return, where on sites like Bluesky… Read more: Abandoning the bird
Hey folks! There’s a Chio Club update with a preview of the next page and some information about the upcoming schedule for the comic. $1+ members can take a peek right now!
What’s New?
2023 has been a real rollercoaster of a year for us, between my personal health diagnoses, losing our cat, and struggling in general to stay afloat in a never-ending tide of…life… But somehow we did it, and still managed to make some stuff despite it all.
Shop Sales!
A lot of our merch is on sale through December 9! If you’ve wanted to grab something like a t-shirt or mug, this is the ideal time to do it! Digital products are on sale, too!
Coming up in 2024: hopefully some forward progress on Follower. I’ve been having to actively fight with my providers to get any kind of pain relief, but I may be able to take some measures into my own hands by pursuing a medical marijuana diagnosis. Unfortunately, due to the unusual state of legality with this, my health insurance does not cover it in any way, so I’m on my own. I’m working on getting together the money to get through a certification appointment and actually be able to acquire some medical-grade product, but it’s a process. Still: this is some of the most hope I’ve felt in months, because there’s an actual chance for pain relief here. Chronic pain is like being in an unbearably loud room that you can’t leave, every moment of your life, and this is the opportunity to turn the volume down just a little bit, so I’m going to fight to make it happen.
If you are interested in contributing to help me pay for healthcare that my insurance won’t (but please take care of yourself first, of course), I am not currently doing a gofundme because I don’t have solid numbers for a lot of things, but I am running sales on digital comics through Ko-Fi (with the code BLACKFRIDAY) and Itchio, so you’ll at least get something cool for helping me out.
Pursuing this treatment has very good odds of putting me back in a position to draw on a regular basis, so, fingers crossed, everybody.
Community News
One of the new parts of the new Follower website I’m working on and considering opening to readers is the option to help transcribe pages for vision-impaired readers. For now, I’ve been doing the transcriptions myself, but there are hundreds of pages to go. I might open this up to the community as a volunteer project. If you’re at all interested in this sort of thing, please drop in on the Discord chat and let me know!
If there is community interest, I will open up a private channel just for transcribers, and probably create a special role for it.
Thanks For Reading!
Thank you for reading this month’s news, and thanks for sticking with us through this wild year. I have hope that next year will be better, because you’ve got to hope for something. Here’s to more new stuff from us in 2024! May your new year be filled with good luck, delight, and excellent snacks. I hope ours is, too. ❤️
Apparently I’ve been a Twitch affiliate for an entire year now. Huh. Interesting. Anyway, this past weekend I did an anniversary stream for fun playing Colossal Cave 3D on my Switch. I played the original text version back when I was a kid, and it’s fun to see the game reinterpreted visually!
If you subscribe to my Youtube and/or Twitch channels it will really help me out! I’m aiming for 500 Youtube subs so I can monetize my channel to help keep making new content, and any live views or subscriptions on Twitch also help in the same way! I may have been a Twitch affiliate for a year, but I have yet to see a payout. Grumble grumble. 😑
Anyway, I hope you’ll check out some of my video content, or hang out during one of my streams live in the future!
I’ve been in love with @hicorook ’s song “if I were a fish” since I heard it a few weeks ago and I’ve been chipping away at this since then. Geedey and Dia are definitely each other’s fish, so it just seemed fitting to animate them this way. But I’m not going any further than this, it took forever to make this much. 😆
Also, please go listen to “if I were a fish” and sub to corook’s channel!! It’s such a heartwarming song and the rest of their music is awesome too!
You can also subscribe to my channel where I put up stuff like this on a regular basis. I’m trying to work my way up to 1000 subscribers, and I’m about to hit 150!
I’m streaming this week on Thursday, February 23 at 3 PM US EST! I’m trying something new and *hopefully* I’ll be streaming to both Twitch and Youtube simultaneously if all goes well.
I premiered my first ever storytime-type video to YouTube today and I’d love for folks to check it out! It’s pretty short, only around 5 minutes or so, because it was an experiment. But I had a lot of fun making it and would really like to do more of these in the future if there’s interest, since it can kind of give my drawing hand a much-needed break from time to time.
I hope you’ll give it a watch and let me know what you think in the comments! This is kind of a personal one that I meant to be more humorous at the start, but it got kind of serious and turned into a short essay, haha. I have that much more respect now for folks I watch who do make like hour-long video essays. That’s some commitment.
It’s the end of yet another year, so as usual, it’s a good time to look back on everything that happened in 2022! I want to sincerely thank all of our supporters – whether you’re a member of the Chio Club, or just a regular reader of our comics, it means a lot. Delade and I couldn’t do what we do without you all.
So… let’s get into it!
A challenger approaches (it’s 2022, that was the challenger)
2022 presented a lot of challenges and difficulties for us. I spent a lot of the year assisting a family member with an ongoing medical issue – running with them to appointments and so on – which sapped a lot of my time and energy. Still, I did my best to keep up with pages until I just couldn’t. In February I injured the thumb on my drawing hand, and it’s been a persistent issue ever since. This has taken quite some time to deal with properly, but recently I’ve been able to buy a splint that allows me to work carefully, without further injuring myself. I’ve got some specialist appointments lined up for the very end of the year, and I’m looking forward to hopefully getting some answers and squaring away this particular problem so I can get back to normal comic updates.
Life in general has been pretty challenging as well. We were illegally evicted from our apartment in 2021 (which is an entire terrifying story all on its own) and while we’re in a safe and relatively stable place now, it’s going to take time to get back to a true state of “normal.” That said, I want to express how much the Chio Club supporters really helped keep Follower and our other projects online this year, as well as helped keep us fed on a few occasions. I can’t truly convey how grateful we are for this. It’s been a rough year, and that’s something that has really helped.
On to more positive news!
Becoming a Brave Chio
This year, I wanted to try and do more to cultivate the reader community around Follower. I’ve been in an introverted shell for a while, and it seemed like a good time to try and break out of it a little bit. I put some work into improving the Radio Chio Discord, and have seen a little bit of success. This is obviously something that is going to be an ongoing process, but if you’re a reader of our comics and want a friendly place to hang out online, you should come join us! I’d like to try and come up with more community events for 2023, but I definitely appreciate any input from folks in the community. Anyone can join us on Discord, but there is an extra channel just for Chio Club members, too!
One of the other things I’ve been trying out this year is doing more streaming, both of comic and art work as well as games. It’s been an interesting experiment! I was able to make the requirements to be a Twitch Affiliate, which means I can actually get paid when folks drop in to watch streams, and is another means to help keep our comics going. I’ve had to slow down a little bit in the past couple of months due to my hand injury, but I’m trying to fit in what I can!
You can join me on Twitch to hang out while I draw or play a game, and if you follow me there, you can get notifications for when I go live. If you just hang out while I’m on, I do get paid via ads that are shown during the stream, so it’s also an easy way to help support my comics. You can also subscribe to my channel to get fancy badges and Chio emotes!
Along with streaming, I’ve been experimenting with creating more video content this year for various formats. I put some more effort into making short Follower-related videos for Tiktok, and was pleasantly surprised by the response! I somehow posted one of the most-viewed things I’ve ever made on the internet when Dia’s story went kind of micro-viral, so that was pretty exciting.
In addition, I’ve been adding more content to our YouTube page, including previous stream archives, comic art time lapses, and more. I have more ideas about making some more “how to” style videos and some story time type chatty videos, but those will likely be coming in the new year. These are things I can probably produce pretty quickly while I’m making other things, since that’s what they’re about, so I hope you’ll look forward to that! You can find us on YouTube here.
Social media has seemed pretty tumultuous in the past few months, so I’m doing a few things with our content to help smooth that out. First of all, most of our major content will originate here on Radiochio.com (or on its own comic site, like follower.messenger-comic.com) first, and will trickle down to other platforms afterward. So if you follow us on social sites for updates, you probably won’t notice a big difference, but it’ll be helpful if or when any particular social platform drops off the face of the planet. You know, apropos of nothing.
Additionally, I’m combining our monthly newsletter with the monthly update post I put out for Chio Club members on Patreon and Ko-Fi. It’ll be free to view here, there, or in your email. This is mostly because a lot of content got duplicated between these two, and it makes more sense to keep it together. Plus, this means that you can also follow us on Patreon or Ko-Fi for free to continue to get news and updates. Regular Chio Club content will remain a paid reward for subscribers, though.
Last thing on this topic: I made a handy links page that points to every place you can find us online. I’ve been experimenting more with alternative social platforms, and it’s been kind of refreshing. Check it out and see what you might have missed!
On to comic news!
Comic news (the good stuff)
The biggest comic news we have for 2022: Follower won DrunkDuck’s 2022 Best Anthropomorphic Comic! This was a total surprise, and we’re really honored to have been recognized! Thank you so much to folks who nominated or voted for us.
Follower became available on Globalcomix, a relatively new comics site that’s really great for both creators and readers. Currently, most of the comic is available to read for free there, just as it is on the main site, and 3 issues with bonus content are available for purchase. More content will be coming in 2023, and the existing issues will get updated art, since that’s an ongoing project.
Throughout the year, I’ve been working on retouching and resizing older Follower pages so I can do two things: publish Volume One of Follower, and release our newly redesigned website to the public. Chio Club members can currently check out an early version of the site, but it won’t be complete without the retouched pages. The edits for Volume One primarily depend on making art fixes to chapters one and two, and text updates to the rest of the comic for readability and consistency. This has been a slower progress than I hoped due to my hand injury, but I’m getting there!
Follower remains on a hiatus for now. I’m hoping to get a small buffer of about 5 pages (or more) ready to go before I start updating normally again. Chio Club members have been getting early looks at new pages as I’ve been working through them.
Messenger has been more neglected than I’ve hoped for this year. I have a stack of half-finished pages waiting to be finished. I am not sure where this will fit into the schedule, but I’m really, really hoping to get to them in 2023. I’m as frustrated as anyone by how long it’s taken to get these updates made, but life has been wild, as you’ve seen.
Thank you for reading
So that’s where things stand around here. Again, I want to express how thankful we are for all our readers and supporters. We really wouldn’t be able to keep up a lot of what we do without you all. You keep us going, sometimes literally, and it means the world to both of us.
Two new Follower page previews are up, plus an additional timelapse video!
Check out this content by joining the Chio Club through Patreon or Ko-fi for as little as $1 a month! You’ll get early looks at new content and you’ll help support the continued creation of the comic!
