Well, that's some serendipity.
I finally finished worked on Doc Stalwart #259, and it is posted to the comics archive on the Doc Stalwart blog.
This ended being a Halloween-themed issue of sorts, so it's appropriate that it is released on Halloween. However, it is also one of the earliest Doc stories I wrote; I had about half of this done for the past two years, but never could figure out how to work it in to the larger narrative I was working on, or how to work all of the various pieces in that I wanted. I think this one has had more drafts and revisions than any Doc story I've written; I spent the last several days changing just a few words at a time until I got it right where I wanted it.
SPOILER ALERT: Read it first before continuing below. Unless you don't really care, then keep reading, I guess :)
This issue is the culmination of several stories; Jynx and Zirah were never going to be permanent residents in the comic, and I always expected them to fade into the background at some point. This issue ends one part of the larger narrative I've been working on, and the next issue is (in my head) more of an epilogue to the larger story here. I see 261 as starting a 'new' storyline, where Doc will go in search of his daughter and he and Mikah will be traversing the Null Zone. I don't know what is going to happen there yet, like I only have the broadest of strokes done, but I have a few beats I need to hit. Next issue (260) I hope will be a payoff of a few other threads I have lingering, and I hope that it feels like a complete arc when it's done. I don't know that it will be long enough to release as a 'graphic novel without all the pictures' (or whatever I'm thinking of it as), but I do want to find some way to gather the whole thing together in some meaningful way.
