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- KC Newsletter! June 2026
KC Newsletter! June 2026
what's going on here
This issue: health update!
State of the artist
Hello! It’s been a minute, here is some news.
Obviously things around here have been pretty slow, which isn’t completely unprecedented. I’ve had plenty of lulls in my productivity over the years for one reason or another but I’ve never worried too much about them; slowing down to catch your breath is part of the job when you’re updating a webcomic continuously for over a decade. But I’m usually still able to do something with whatever time I can find for work. Even when things look slow from the outside I’m almost always still working steadily, even if the pace is slower.
Recently, I’ve been almost entirely unproductive. That is weird, I’ve never gone this long without bouncing back and it’s been freaking me out a little. A lot of this uncharacteristic downtime has been accompanied by slowly worsening health issues, but I have a number of chronic conditions and working alongside them in some capacity is normal for me. I wrote off my symptoms, assumed my horribly volatile mental state was due to stress, and tried to push through like always.
I shouldn’t have! The chain of events that got us here is complicated, but the point is after a spooky emergency room trip a neurologist ordered a brain scan, and it turns out the hormone issues that are making me fucking crazy this year have likely been caused by some stuff going on in my head. I thought I’d be able to check in with y’all about everything much earlier, but I didn’t want to get into it publicly until we had some sort of answer, and getting that has been a nightmare. We’ve spent most of June shuffling between various medical facilities trying to get anybody to take me seriously or see me at all. I’ve spent most of the time between those appointments dealing with symptoms that have made work extremely difficult. My office is also sweltering during this heat wave, which exacerbates everything whenever I’m able to sit upright at my desk for more than a few minutes. Most of my day lately is wandering between places I can sit down and doze off around my own house.
All of that is still making it hard to explain myself for several reasons, but I do have a few facts I can give you for now:
First, I’m nearly done with the July postcards. They will be going out much later than usual, but most of the actual art is finished. The things people are paying for will be in the mail before the end of next month one way or another. Page and prose work will resume once that’s finished, but being very honest it’s going to remain slow until I can get some treatment for this. Thank you very much for your patience, as always.
To the extent that current medical technology can be certain it’s definitely not a brain tumor. We checked, a lot.
The thing it appears to be is very treatable through minimally invasive means. The symptoms are scary and inconvenient, but I’m not in danger, and this seems like a problem we can fix!
Because we live in Colorado on a comic artist’s salary (lmao) we do actually have health insurance, and so far it’s covered all the tests and the emergency room and everything else we’ve been doing. Money’s still as tight as it normally is, but I don’t anticipate we’re going to need to do any gofundmes or anything about this.
I am being very well taken care of by the people close to me and, again, am not in any urgent danger. I am also still around and online for the most part, so if something needs taken care of please feel free to reach out. I’m running a bit slower than normal but I can probably still answer your email.
I’m sorry I’m being so vague about it for now but I really wanted to let everyone know what’s going on and why things have been like this. It’s a relief to think I’m not suddenly getting complacent about my work for no reason, but one day I’d like to figure out how to ascertain what the hell my problem is without being dismissed by a handful of medical professionals for several months before a terrifying emergency room trip forces the issue. It’s getting old.
I’ve got another appointment in a couple of days that, hopefully, will lead to another one, where I can maybe start getting some actual help. Once I have more information I’ll check in here again and let y’all know what to expect from me going forward. I can tell you now that I am finishing Green Thousand Sing even if I have to build some kind of bullshit comic drawing apparatus and work on it from flat on the floor.
I’m also going to fight the entire medical industry as soon as I can get off this couch,
-Aria
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