And with this, the 2014-2015 Christmas arc ends.

This arc means a lot to me. It was personal with Sam’s part. It was equally personal with Brett’s progression as the Mantlebearer for less-than-obvious reasons. These characters mean more to me now than they ever have.  I removed Brett from the cast for nearly a year as a personal exercise. Could I do it? Could d20Monkey still be interesting without him? I like to think I proved that Brett isn’t the easy cheap laughs of the strip but I missed him. I am glad he is back. He will be commuting to the Pole via the Mantle. His job is being Santa but he is back at the table.

I’ll be honest, I caught a lot of flack from some folks. Mean flack. Hurtful flack. The kind of flack that makes you push back away from the desk and allow a tiny, dark voice at the bottom of the well to say “is it worth it?” It is worth it. It will always be worth it. I get that d20Monkey has had a shortage of d20s for a while. I am not oblivious to it. Don’t worry, the group is returning to the table. I’ll still be working through Sam’s recovery and a few other out-of-game cast subplots but there will be gaming, lots of gaming and more one-off strips. I think I have an idea now of the balance I would like to maintain between story arcs and gags. I love to create both styles.

For the folks who hung in here through the Christmas arc and had nice things to say, thank you. For the folks who do not care for Christmas/story arcs but respect my need to push my boundaries and get these stories out of my head, thank you.

As for Monday, I may take the day off to catch up on some commitments and resume business of Wednesday.

Have a nice weekend, everyone.