On 5 Jun, 2009, Rik wrote:

Well, the economy's tanking, the government's collapsing, my personal life is a mess, the PS2 is acting up and in three months' time I'll be one more unemployed graduate. So, apparently, it's time to write a long blog post.

Well, actually, I'm not writing about any of that stuff (okay, I'll probably complain about the government at some point...). What I'm writing about is Volume 3 and the future of Prismatic Vodka.

When I started Prismatic Vodka in 2005, I didn't really have a clear idea of where I was going with it. A lot of the ideas I started with have fallen by the wayside, as well; originally, for example, Mike was to be the sidekick, and the gang were supposed to spend most of their time doing minor missions for the Council. By the time I sat down to do any serious planning of the future of the comic (which I did in the grip of a 24-hour flu/fever in late March 2006), however, things were starting to come together into something resembling the story told thus far. My plan from that day has the first appearance of a storyline involving \"Mike's discovery of Black Vodka, his time among the Asfalesh in a human body... his wilful drinking of PV...\"; there's also \"Brian's bonkers rage after gaining control of the Deus Ex Machina\", though in this plan, it's Mike, not the Council, who stop Brian.

Anyway, this is before Skin was introduced (that didn't happen until late Autumn of 2006), so he doesn't even feature. Nor did I have a very good concept of the Council, but slowly the ideas just mentioned coalesced into volume 3 of the story (to keep things in perspective, my current plan runs to 8 volumes). As they did so, I got more and more attached to 'the dark volume' as an opportunity to push myself and really experiment with the serious side of the comic; ever since I revealed in chapter 3 that MCG has committed genocide, I'd been looking for ways to make the story darker, and mining Mike's and Brian's angst-ridden personal situations was always going to be the best way to do that.

So, over the two and a half years (a period I'm not going to pretend was all plain sailing for the comic) between writing that initial plan and starting volume 3, it became the section of the comic I was most looking forward to. Sure, I look forward to completing the story, but in a distant, long-term sort of way. Until very recently, I hadn't planned in any great depth past volume 3, because I didn't want to straitjacket my creativity for volume 2 (which nevertheless still managed to fall flat on its face for a while), so volume 3 was also the last concrete objective I had to aim for.

To assuage any fears that my motivation might have now run out, let me just stress that this situation changed over Easter, when I made a systematic attempt to plan volumes 4 and 6 (for various reasons, I'm avoiding systematically planning volume 5) and came out with a whole new range of stuff I'm really looking forward to which will challenge me in new and different ways.

Volume 3, then, is really the first milestone for me on the way to finishing Prismatic Vodka. I think I'm now roughly a third of the way through the actual drawing that will be involved in the complete project (ie. with just over 400 pages complete, there's about 800 to go), but I might well be closer to halfway through in terms of time; those 800 pages could only take a bit over 5 years, if I can keep to three pages a week (no promises, depending on what I find myself doing from September onwards), and the fourth anniversary of the comic is coming up in only a little over three months. I can't quite claim to be on the home straight yet, but I'm definitely onto the back straight and making progress.

On the subject of milestones, a couple of weeks ago I failed to notice that I posted the 600th page of content to the website, which is a number that really gives me pause. On the one hand, that's actually a pretty impressive output for three and a whatever years, but on the other hand, so much of that other content has gone neglected for too long; I need to get back to Zobbo soon, or things will fall badly out of step.

Anyway, I've rambled a hell of a lot already this post. Let me get to the point; PV volume 3 marks out a paradigm shift for my attitude to the comic, and I now genuinely believe I'll finish the story, probably before the middle of the coming decade. I also care a lot more than I maybe have for the past few years. The important thing from your perspective as a reader (I assume you read the comic and not just my blog...) is that I won't ever be going so concentratedly dark for so long again. The story will remain dark, but from now on there will be much stronger comic dynamics to mix things up. I am glad and proud that I've been able to do this volume, but five chapters of loneliness and despair is quite enough for me, thanks.

Forward the future!

Oh, in other news, I'm working on a much-needed update to the front page. I don't know when I'll start testing, but I'll try to keep downtime to a minimum.

Once again, thank you all for reading and for sticking with me as I pushed the boundaries of what a reader should have to tolerate from an author ;)