4/18/2010 -Ending PD

Over four years ago I started Parallel Dementia on a whim as a means of self-improvement and, being in my final years of high school and painfully bored, keeping myself occupied. During those years I made significant advancements in my art and writing, as anyone can see by looking back in the archives. I also learned a lot that I never expected – management of a large project and time, for example.

More than anything, I learned from repetition and a self-imposed deadline, but I also learned from my mistakes, and oh, they were many. Parallel Dementia is meant to be a huge sprawling epic, but when I started out even I had no answers to most of the questions I raised, simply throwing out threads for my future self to tie up later. The story meandered in places because of this, or returned to status quo, as sometimes I simply had no idea what to do next. It's like a big plot hole I can pave over but never actually fix.

In addition, I look back at old pages and see something I don't like anymore. I can be proud of PD as something that helped me improve and realize my goals as an artist, but I can't be proud of it as something to represent my work.

I used this hiatus wrestling with what to do, considering writing a hasty but complete finish and getting PD done as fast as I could – but with such a massive cast with such integrated histories, and with all the threads I've put out there, I see such an undertaking consuming a few more years that I, frankly, don't want to spend. I'd rather cease to update than write something that technically ends it but doesn't answer things (“and then Fall blows up the Earth!”). Such an ending would be a slap in the face to readers more than a consolation.

So yes. Parallel Dementia is over.

This is incredibly hard for me, as it's seriously been a huge part of my life for four years. I had fears that if I could not finish this project I'd not trust myself to finish the next, and that readers would be hesitant to transfer to whatever followed thinking I'd eventually abandon it, too. More than anything I felt, strangely, that I had betrayed the fictional characters that make up PD's cast. Likely I just feel I let down the aspects of myself I put into them. However, what pain I feel for ending this comic is overshadowed by optimism for projects in the future, and a comforting realization that I don't need to be shackled to a webcomic as I finish my schooling. Most of all, armed with what I have learned to do and NOT to do through PD, I look forward to the webcomic that will follow and I plan to do it right. I'm sure not all PD readers will like it, I'm sure not all PD readers will forgive me, but I think I'll make something that will grow to be far better.

There will be no more updates. I will probably take down the last few pages so that the story ends with the conclusion to the train story rather than mid-side arch.

I expect a lot of you saw this coming or won't really mind, but I also expect there to be those that won't understand. If writing me hatemail or emails trying to change my mind make you feel better, go ahead, but my foot is down and I won't lift it so don't expect a response.

Otherwise, thanks to the friends that helped me write and improve, the folks at Comic Genesis who got me started, and all the readers who made producing this comic enjoyable.