Today is April 4th 2025. It's time for another Monthly Update ...
Bits&Bobs
So first things first, Bits&Bobs is still in development, and progress has been made on what I'm calling the "Bits&Bobs Prequels". These are all the stories and events that occur before "The Princess & The Pirate". This isn't one stand alone story, but rather multiple inter-related stories that would detail (1) The Arrival of The Bits to The Valley (2) Kyaw's childhood being raised in a family of all females and slowly developing his own sense of identity (3) The origin of Kyaw's interest in ballet and his first attempts to take lessons (4) Kyaw meeting Sven for the first time and the beginnings of Kyaw's crush and eventual friendship with Sven and (5) a possible spin off story of Sven's life before meeting Kyaw. As you can see there is a lot of ground to cover, and everything is kind of tied together, so it's not easy to write each of these in isolation. The solution? To develop them simultaneously and tweak and adjust things as necessary. This is a major project and will likely be an ongoing development throughout the rest of the year. Ultimately the goal is to write the Valentine's story in which Kyaw finally finds the courage to speak to Sven for the first time in friendship, their origin story if you will. It's uncertain though what part of the story might end up being published first.
Last month I said I hadn't begun anything but was planning on. I can now report that the new material has begun to be written. There is about 6000 words written for the prequels, and that is likely to expand significantly over the month of April. I'm trying to implement a habit of working on it a little at a time consistently so that eventually it gets done even while I work on other projects.
This will likely be a major expansion of the Bits&Bobs lore and will radically transform it into something even bigger than it's already become. The new material is likely to eclipse even the considerable material that has already been written. If you've been a fan so far then you can look forward to a lot more material. In fact I'm even starting to make plans for how Bits&Bobs might be turned into a complete Saga.
Mistletoe is naturally on hold as I develop the prequels, partly because I feel I need some more grounding in the world to continue.
Binxed!
Binxed is still kind of on hiatus for the moment, but I'm leaning towards continuing the Binx Saga sooner rather than later, meaning, I am not planning on waiting til October to get back to Binx. I was even thinking of writing a new chapter of Binxed as a possibility. Nothing new has been written, but I may get into doing some prewriting, similar to what I'm doing with Bits&Bobs right now, experimenting and seeing what works and doesn't work.
I did say I wanted to get a handle on Bits&Bobs before anything else, but now I can at least say I've begun work towards a whole new wave of Bits&Bobs content. As such, I am seriously considering to start serious development on the Binx comic that never got off the ground. Not sure how many pages it will be, but it will probably be relatively short. If it gets past 6 pages though, it would be the longest comic I've published on this site.
, who has a lot of experience with drawing comics. Binx and Victor are also ideal models, since thekzx was the original designer/artist (I adopted them in an auction). It is however looking like I'm going to be the one mostly developing the storyline, humor, and dialogue, possibly with some input from thekzx. So story by me, art by them, basically. Perhaps we can aim for a summer release.
BTBF
BTBF has been on hiatus for a while, but I recently had an idea of how to complete a scene I've been stuck on for a while. I'd like to start writing BTBF again sometime this month. Hopefully by May I will have something new to report about the series. Most likely we would see a Chapter 8 soon once I finish filling in the gaps, since the most crucial scenes and the ending are already complete. Things are gonna get way darker before they get better, so just be aware of that. There is a reason why Jonah clung onto to Jonathan so strongly, and likewise for Jonathan. Let's just say, it's what they needed at the time.
Miscellaneous
Mila keeps living rent free in my imagination, so don't be too surprised if we get a new piece of Mila art sometime soon. No definite plans but I've literally only drawn her twice, and I'd like to give her the "Binx treatment". If you don't know what I mean, look at how many Binx pieces there are now, and see how the character design has been mutating and evolving. It takes me a while to really settle on a proper design. Something similar could happen for Mila if I started drawing her more regularly.
I'd like to upload more Shaw Matrix art, even though, I wouldn't say it's gotten much traction as of yet, save for that short 4 page pilot comic I drew when I was a teen for some reason.
I've been thinking about Chase The Cat, and the possibility of finally writing something about him. There is only one piece of art of him to date! He was created in a very brief window between Petroshka and Bits&Bobs. Obviously Bits&Bobs took over in a big way.
Other than Petroshka maybe getting a stand alone story, I don't have any other plans to revive or revitalize any of my other creations for the moment.
In Closing
Welp, that's all I got for today. Progress is being made, even though it's been a bit slow. I hope to pick up the pace this month and have even more to report at the start of may. Might create some more art if I don't manage to upload any new stories for the month of April, even though I have one April submission already.
Well, what do you think so far? What would you like to see more of?
