That's how the TMNT comic strip ended back in December of 1996 - it was canceled after that due to ever-dwindling support. At its peak, the strip was in over 250 newspapers worldwide (nowhere near as impressive as the 2,000 plus papers that major strips are in, but not too shabby), but by the end of '96 I think we had like 20 or something. I couldn't take the stress of doing a daily anymore (especially considering that I would have had to take a 50%-60% pay cut to keep it going, which would never cover my monthly bills), so everyone decided that it was best to put it to bed. My blood pressure has dropped significantly since I stopped doing the comic strip (no joke - it's really true - I was on the verge of needing medication to keep it down), but I must admit that even though I was stressed to the Nth degree while doing it, I still miss the daily grind from time to time. I'm not a gag writer, so it was very challenging, but when I did a strip that worked, it was also very rewarding. All in all, it was one stressful yet exhilarating trip. Sometimes I think I might like to try it again... I am a glutton for punishment, perhaps. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the strips on this site for the foreseeable future. I've run through the ones that I have two or three times over the past eight years, and frankly, I'm kinda tired of recycling them (and it's painful to go back to the '92 strips after posting the '96 strips, as I didn't really hit my stride until '95 or so). I'm going to try to find archives of the strips that were done before I took over, as those have never been posted on our site. I doubt we have them, but I'm going to give it a shot. For the next few weeks, the strip will definitely be on hiatus. I sincerely thank those of you who have written in to tell me that you enjoy the TMNT comic strip. While I worked on it, the only feedback that I got was fan art and hate mail. Apparently people only write to newspapers to complain about comic strips - at least the ones I worked on. It's very nice to know that all my brow-beating didn't go to waste and some of you got a few laughs out of my work. :) - Dan |
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