Polterguys Pages 32-37 are up!

Click to read new pages.

Good News
The good news is this round of updates finishes up Chapter 1 of Polterguys and Bree finally gets to meet her new housemates! Well, sort of. It gets even more interesting from here so I do hope you stick around.

Added the guys’ to the Character Page. There isn’t anything spoilery about the blurbs so don’t worry about reading them.

You may have also noticed that I’ve separated out the History with Comics & Manga blog posts on their own instead of being lumped with Polterguys updates. I think that helps people find them more easily but I apologize to my RSS subscribers who may have been seeing them pop up again all over their feed.

Not so Good News
It absolutely kills me to tell you production has completely stopped on the book. As I typed this post up, my right ring and middle fingers are incredibly swollen, red and burning.  My index and pinky finger are similarly affected with what appear to be rashes on the base of my fingernails though they are not in such extreme states. These have been swelling up since Saturday and I was hoping they would go away again but they got worse. Even though my regular doctor previously prescribed rest, icing and anti-inflammatory medication, I finally decided to see a specialist because I was really terrified I was abusing my hand and somehow doing permanent nerve damage in there.

What he diagnosed actually took me by surprise.

The orthopedic suspects it could be contact dermatitis. In other words, I could be allergic to any one of my drawing tools, including my paper or inking pens!

It still feels unbelievably unfair how my own equipment could possibly be poisoning me like this. I’m not even 100% sure what material is hurting me but I am taking comfort in the fact that the doctor says my muscles and nerves are fine. I’m not in any real pain by the way – just some mild discomfort and very inconvenienced.

What does this mean for Polterguys?
I’m not sure myself.

I was scheduled to take a week-long break out-of-town by the end of March because I was hoping to finish Chapter 3 by this time. I’m only about halfway done right now and my schedule keeps getting pushed closer and closer to my deadlines. Realistically, when I return with my fingers back to normal (hopefully), I can pull some late nights to work on pages and try to get back on track.  It’s still a little early to assume I could be missing my Anime Expo deadline but I need to consider worst case scenarios in case this does end up happening.

I’m not planning a comic update next week since I’m not comfortable having the comic update when I’m not around to make sure the experience goes smoothly. The last thing I’d want is broken links or flipped pages left on their own for days. I’ll have some blog posts going up throughout the week so I hope you still check those out.

I really am so sorry for the inconvenience, guys. I wanted this webcomic/book launch to be as smooth and drama-free as possible. But who could’ve foreseen allergic reactions to my own art equipment?

EDIT: I wrote this blog post on Thursday and since then, my fingers have calmed down enough for me to finish some fan art and work on Legend of Korra doodles. They are still pretty swollen compared to my left fingers. (I suppose I’m being stubborn by continuing to type and draw.) But I’m still very hesitant to return to my drawing desk without gloves or protection from whatever it is that was poisoning me.