KC Newsletter! February 2025

This issue: Youtube stuff, shop stuff, lots of new prose!

This month’s finances and what all got done!

February was a good month! I got eight pages of comic posted, 22.9k words of prose written and, if we’re keeping up with it, five youtube videos posted! My paycheck is hovering around 850 this month, we eked up a little bit from last time so I’m feeling pretty okay going into March.

Shop stuff!

I still don’t have the funds to afford to print the regular editions of Volume 4 (or the specials, but they’re real far down on the priority list), but I have exactly two copies of the special editions with the different endpapers in if you wanna pick up one of those. The outer covers are exactly the same as the regular editions will be, so your collection won’t look disrupted either way. I’m also down to my last three copies of Volume 3 just for the record. I’m gonna get a restock going again as soon as I can, it’s just been a bit lean lately with losing supporters, muddling through the off-season for conventions, aaand wasting money trekking back and forth between Tennessee over the last few months. I’m working on it!

I’ve been doing a lot of watercolors lately! I’ve had to come up with something different for my con table since amazon bootlegs at every other table is quite effectively running me out of the sticker business, which historically has been where my profits come from because folks at cons really, really don’t like to buy my comics. For some reason, people in Colorado are a lot more impressed with traditional art than digital just as a rule, so I’ve started trying to figure out how to make my traditional work pull more weight.

All that to say: I’ve started making prints of the traditional pokemon print cards I’ve been doing lmao. This has absolutely nothing to do with the type of work I normally do, but folks really liked them so you can find them in the shop if you want!

I also got that Agatha poster I did listed; posters don’t sell but I like havin’ em.

Youtube stuff!

I posted a lot of videos this month! There’s an amount of other stuff there, but the Kidd Commander Relevant things are the new Agatha poster and the Chapter 29 cover process vids. They’re both on the channel’s front page right now, check ‘em out!

Novel update!

dude i have been getting so much writing done lately lmao

The novel draft has officially shot past 80k, with the first six chapters Technically Readable! That wordcount isn’t ALL those chapters fortunately, about 20k of it is in scattered scenes across the back half. I don’t know if I ever mentioned that I write comics and novels the same way, with a big outline divided into scenes that I write in whatever order the spirit moves me to. It does make it kinda hard to consider any particular thing Finished, since everything is subject to change right up to the end, but I try not to question what gets the work done.

I got a temperature check from the KC discord, and when I asked about what y’all wanted to see folks REALLY seemed to want more of the shack, so I posted a chunk of the current draft to AO3 if you wanna read it! Subject to change, etc.

I did twig that I maybe haven’t mentioned enough that this is an adaptation, NOT a 1:1 panel-for-panel transcript of the comic to prose, because I don’t think that’s a good way to do things! Or possible actually! There are new things and missing things and things that have changed pretty dramatically, both because that’s going to happen with any adaptation and because it’s been over a decade since I wrote Mile High Engage. I’m doing my very best to keep in the spirit of the original though, especially since it’s looking like Kidd Commander is going to have to turn into a series of novels out of financial/physical necessity at some point before the story is over. My priorities here are the same as they are when I’m telling the story through comics, and I am still Aria Writing Kidd Commander, so I hope you’ll all trust me to do it right and that you’ll still enjoy it even if some of the details are a bit different.

Also: Honest Work updated again lmao. Listen. This goofy thing is getting me through it okay. It is load bearing.

State of the Artist

I’m feeling energetic lately, but to be very candid I’m not sure how much of it is some latent Rapture Programming that kicked back in for me over the last month here in America. I feel like I’m working like I’m running out of time, again, which IS producing results but it’s also maybe not sustainable. My physical stamina is good right now, and it does feel good to get things done at a good pace so like. Idk, I’m gonna just ride this out as long as I can and try to be cognizant a crash might be looming.

That said: I’ve spent more of my life feeling this way than not, I know how to do this. I got a lot of good tools in my toolbox compared to The Before Times too, and I’m very well supported; I’m trying hard to take care of myself. But if something weird happens that might slow things down I’ll be up front with y’all, as always.

Please take care, it IS a marathon, not a race.
-Aria

Upcoming Appearances!

Commerce City Minicon
March 25th, Commerce City, CO

Wicked West Comic Expo
April 12-13, Fort Collins, CO

Anime 307
Sept. 13-14, Cheyenne, WY

_{I love going to conventions! And other comic-flavored things now I guess! If there’s an event in or around Colorado you’d like to see me at, contact the coordinators and have them get in touch with me.}