When you blow someone’s arm off in a superhero comic, it’s really only going to go one of two ways. Since Vehemence is an Arch-Villain, it had to go this way. Maxima just needed to face someone who wasn’t going to be out-powered. It’s a rare situation for her to be sure. I’m sure some people will be disgruntled by this and others will be… uh, gruntled I guess, but don’t worry about the fight resetting or anything though, we’re entering the home stretch.

I needed Vehemence to be so tough that if he ever shows up in the comic again, everyone knows that the proper response is “Oh shit, run!” He was always my guy who could go toe to toe with the Hulk or  Juggernaut, Superman or even Darkseid, assuming Darkseid didn’t open with the ol’ Omega Beams. Vehemence is smart enough to know not to face off against a threat like that without warming up a little, which is a large part of what makes him Arch tier. Ooh, I just had a thought, I know I said him vs. Vegeta in the little byline, or whatever it’s called, but imagine Vehemence vs. DC’s Parasite. I’m actually not sure how that fight would go down but it would definitely be bad for the city it takes place in.

Drawing armored limbs that don’t look like Colossus’s is challenging. I tries doing vertical strips of armor, but he wound up looking like a metal eel or something. Which… is kind of cool, just not the look I had in mind for him.

---

So the Patreon campaign recently exceeded $3000 which is amazing! Within a few weeks of a year after I lost my job actually, or as I prefer to think of it, was promoted to full time comic dude. I want to thank everyone for their support as it’s been a great year. It turns out I really don’t miss the commute to the office to grind away in a cube like I had done for the last 20 years. The milestone goal for $3000 was “really making a living for realsies” so when I my wife had the chance she signed me up with her health insurance. Being without for a year was a little harrowing, but spending 10-12 hours a day drawing is inherently less risky than commuting and being around other germ bags. Still, yesterday I got a gentle reminder that living lean is really only a short term solution. I woke up and some nerve or tendon in my shoulder had decided to twist around the wrong way so I was in a fair amount of pain and had a super limited range of motion. Fortunately sleeping on it the next night fixed it (hooray for the human body I guess?) I was hoping it would since I didn’t want to live out the rest of the month like that until the health insurance kicked in.

Speaking of the health insurance though, I picked $3000 because it’s a round number and that’s how our brains work, not because it was the number I came up with after sitting down and doing a budget. Since American healthcare is enormously expensive, riding on my wife’s plan is more than a car payment. At least it includes dental and vision, which the cheaper Obamacare options don’t, and I could definitely use some new specs and a good tooth scraping. Unfortunately I will probably have to add at least one more ad banner to the site to make up the difference. I don’t want to, and I know it’s a first world problem, but the good thing is that I should be cash positive after that which is nice since I don’t want to be one of those webcomicers that has to run a kickstarter to afford to attend an out of state con. It also makes the next Patreon milestone easy to pick, which is to ditch some of the ads.

So I’m looking forward to next year! The first story arc will be wrapped up, and I’m excited for the next one. I promise more than one day will pass during it. :)  I can put together a book (honestly it may wind up being two or even three volumes just cause a 300(-ish) page color book might be hella expensive), run a kickstarter for that, and even start looking at some of those out of state cons.

---

Here’s the link to the new comments highlighter for chrome which I can’t live without anymore, and the GitHub link which you can use to install on FireFox via Greasemonkey.