1546 Writing In The Dark.

by

It took a while to decide if I wanted Thomas to be typing this. When I typed those words the first time there wasn’t a beautiful woman waiting for me in the dark. Maybe Thomas will write an even better version of the story he lived. What I wrote between he and Carol has been an echo of what I remember about being in love and being loved back. It’s also a bit of what I expect finding someone you could love your whole life would be like.

As I was finishing this page I had a moment where I felt like this would be a good place to end the whole comic. Mainly because it’s cyclical, I expect. I still have stories I want to tell with these characters, but this page would give a person a sense that Thomas had learned enough to make a good life for himself, and Carol would keep him steadily improving in a way he couldn’t on his own. It’s how movies like to stop. A vague happy moment, or one of discovery. A little victory between failures.

I hope you guys are still interested in seeing what’s going to happen. I’m still interested in telling that story and still can’t imagine a time when I won’t be.

Edit:
I should have thought of this last night, but my mind isn’t wired that way, I guess. Anyway, if you want to ensure I can keep going with the comic please consider dropping by my Patreon. It has saved the comic twice now. A dollar gets you access to everything I do there right now. Just give it some thought, okay?

I spent almost the entire day sketching my anthology entry for Muffintop 4. I’m feeling a little less worried about it now. It shouldn’t take too long to get it to a finished state. I’ll still need to get an extension probably, but it won’t be as terrible as I imagined it before. I’ll have to spent the next three days on regular pages though, which I’d rather not have to do. I liked having that week of buffer I used to have so I felt like I could take a risk from time to time. If I keep at it I’ll get back there eventually though.

84 Comments

I recognized the throwback at the first set of lines. I was thinking “Wow, I guess things are really looking up for Thomas. Wonder what’ll happen after this.” Coincidentally I decided to reread the comic from the start. I got to a bit after the part where Carol and Thomas kiss (which was and always will be the best transition to color in history) and coming back to the current pages and comparing where they are now to the start shows how much the whole cast has grown. I wasn’t thinking of this being the ending (just a mark of some big changes for the better) until I saw the comments and read your little journal thing. If you did end it here it would be awesome to see how everyone else is doing before you wrap it up.

That being said, looks like you aren’t quite ready for that, so keep on telling the story until you feel it’s finished. Until then, we’ll all be here waiting for more, enjoying the whole journey just like we have from the start to now.

Keep it up, and we’ll be with you until you’re ready to end it. Hopefully that doesn’t come for a little while (:

Yeah, I suppose it would be a good place to end the comic, but thankfully you’ve still got more! Always a little sad when a webcomic comes to a finale… as opposed to when a webcomic just kinda STOPS. I have quite a number of old bookmarks for comics that went into eternal hiatus, and just kinda died.

But hey, this could make a good place to end a printed volume of the comic?

Thomas is wrong about something. Completely doornail-dead-wrong.

Whatever his *current* ability at art or writing, that’s not the Final Judgement on his ability.

The podcast Writing Excuses has discussed this any number of times. Anyone can learn to write and/or draw well, but not everyone was their conclusion, summed up by Howard Taylor, writer/artist of Schlock Mercenary. Taylor wanted to partenr with a friend to make a webcomic at one point but the friend was unreliable. Taylor’s message to his past self is “don’t wait for him. Hone your own ability to draw”.

Another Podcast, Freakonomics Radia examined practice vs. talent during its “self-improvement month” and came to more or less the same answer. One very Carol-related example was a scientist, intent on checking the idea that you can learn how to do anything well. She decided to dust off her childhood desire to sing as a testcase. It took her a year and a half of practice, at times grudgingly endured by her family, before she suddenly discovered the throaty, room-filing Whitney Huston voice she always wanted.

For everyone in the world of real people: Keep at it. Whatever “it” is. Practice your art or craft mindfully. Look at what you do and how to make it better. Don’t be afraid to tear to tear something down and rewrite/rebuild from the ground up. You will improve.

All Thomas or Carol–any of us–have to do is this: Day-in and day-out, write, draw, whatever you wants to work on. Work at getting better. The longer you put to it, the faster you improve.

If you were to stop here, a page of two of epilogue is what I would finish with. Nothing fancy just a still image of what everyone went off to do and then end it.

If you do plan to continue, I would continue reading. But regardless of your decision I have really enjoyed your comic so far.

If this is the end, so be it I’ve been faithfully following this comic since it was only 30 pages long(back when ads worked to give you more similar content not random products etx.) And this has been my favorite comic during that whole time, the only constant thing that i never stopped following and checking in on. I’d love for more, but I’d settle for a good few pages of epilogue.

Is it possible to do Patreon and just pay a year in advance? I like the idea of supporting artists but I hate the idea of monthly automatic deductions from my account.

I guess you could just do $12 once. I leave accounts active after they leave for as long as the one dollar thing would’ve gone for.

I got a suggestion that might me disliked into oblivion. ^_^;;

But…why not end Between Failures here and start a spin off focusing more on Edward’s story considering it weaves into and through so many characters already. Also there can be a separate one focusing on John and Reggie’s story. Just a thought. I am ready for my flaming.

He’s already put in effort to advertise the “Between Failures” brand, and grow the readership of the comic. A spin-off would need to start a whole new campaign.

I don’t think this should be a decisive factor: from what I’ve seen, fans tend to be quite “loyal”, and readily follow any new adventures their favourite creators embark on. From a pragmatic point of view, it would probably be better to start something new *before* reaching a point where it becomes too evident that the original has run out of steam, and people loose interest… I sometimes wish more webcomic authors would realise this.

But that’s somewhat irrelevant here, as after 1546 pages, Between Failures still doesn’t feel like it has run out of steam at all :-)

Though I must say that this here would make for an awesome ending page — I can totally understand the temptation ;-)

I understand if you want to end it here… but I really want to read more of these characters. I’ve loved them for years and I enjoy your story.

As a writer though I understand the urge to want to stop while the moment’s right.

p.s. is it my imagination or is the art style progressing in each panel from how it was at the start to how it is now?

That gave me a little trill of fear that this was the end of the comic. It would make an amazing end (at least with the Thomas and Carol story), but I definitely want to see more. Maybe if you ever publish, it could be the end of a volume?

I’ve been reading this comic for 2 years now,ever since I was 16 and before I ever wanted to really date.now,upon returning to it,18 with no job who is still in love with my own ex,I find this comic still feels like real writing that I can appreciate.thank you.

Mmm … It would be a pretty good ending. Nothing really to resolve, but everybody seems pretty mellow at this point. It would be fine.

Here’s another: add two panels,

1: Crumples paper and throws it in wastebasket
2: Says to self, “Lol, what am I thinking?”

Cuz now he’s learned better, you see. THEN roll credits. Ending with shocker final page: Carol + Thomas + kids, ten years later. Dawww.

I’d want to see what happens with Nina and Ed more than Carol and Thomas. Though almost a month after this page, and it doesn’t seem to have updated. Did it die or is it something to do with the Patreon plug? (which i could unfortunately never help with as i barely have a couple bucks at the end of a week.)

OOORRRR my ad blocker got turned on again for this comic and it was screwing with the links to the newest page . . . don’t know how it got turned on for this comic, nor why it was doing such a weird thing.

I just wanted to chime in here. I came to the comic….I dunno when. But I started from the beginning. Thrice. The second time, this was the most current and all I could think was “Shit, this is the end, isn’t it? There are no more ‘between failures’ parts!”

Then I waited a few days, and it continued! If ever you are to print the comics, for reals, as a set, I will buy them. Both to support you and your health, and the characters in this comic that feel like such real persons to me that I feel I’ve known them for quite some time.

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