An Announcement.....

An Important Post for Once…

I thought I’d take this moment to announce publically my intentions now reguarding my creative property, Pleasant Life.

Since 1995 with the comic, “AMAZING BUD,” I’ve lived with the idea of a book featuring two main roommates going to college. One, a long haired artist/musican, the other an overweight Star Trek loving, porn obsessed geek named Mortin. Both created from halves of my personality. This book sold so well that in 2002 I revamped the concept to create my comic called “Pleasant Hymns.” I released 7 black and white floppy versions of this comic. Each new one being better than the last. I cut my teeth on each one as it came out. Rather than continue with the floppies, I collected 1-7 and what would have been 8-9 and released a Tradebook called, “PLEASANT LIFE: THE DIRECTORS CUT.” I liked the tradebook format so much that I released two more tradebooks featuring these characters and continuing the story: “GEEKS GONE WILD,” and “THE MIRROR UNIVERSE SAGA.” Then in 2007, I released a newly re-titled continuation in floppy format known as “PLEASANT LIFE #1.” The book got high marks at newsarama.com and the Comic Buyer’s Guide. My fans told me that it was my best work they’ve seen, finally hitting that “professional” level that I so dearly strived to attain.

This book and these characters have been in my head for the past 13 years. What started out mainly as a book dealing with the loss of my mother, has actually became a sort of love letter to the days of my college career back in 1999-2004. I’ve put all my friends in the background, based characters on my friends and loved ones, expressed my love for my wife in the book, reflected my love of my then job at a movie theater with the best group of co-workers one could ask for. All in all, it’s a reflection of who I was then and what I would become. Mortin and Lucas’ journey, is essentially my story.

Today, I make an announcement that that journey will come to an end.

I am currently completing the last 12 parts of PLEASANT LIFE and I will collect everything and release it into a tradebook format, showcasing every story, sketch, written word and detail about this book, these characters and this creative property… thus completely ending the story. One big bound volume with the complete works of Pleasant Life. (and all its various incarnations over the years.)

This decision didn’t come lightly. I’ve had it in the back of my head for a long time. Here are some of my main reasons:

--I was going to release Pleasant Life in 16 page comic floppy format. But the sales of indie floppies and the difficulty of getting them into the stores makes it a very futile effort in reguards to a proper business model. Tradebooks sales far exeed what I would be doing with the floppies.

--Since I was going to collect everything anyway, I would be “double dipping” the fans and bilking them out of their money twice. This way, they buy it all once and never have to pony up more dough to get the complete versions.

--This tradebook will feature new content, new extras and reprint long sold out chapters to this story. Thus making it one big cohesive work.

--I think when you look at Pleasant Life as a whole, its easier to understand the story. In monthly floppies, I think some of the callbacks and overall feel of the story is lost. Doing it all as one big story in one book will solve that.

But the main reason I am doing this:

I am ready to move on. I have new properties I want to pursue. New characters to show the world. And believe me, I’ve been shelving awesome stuff due to the fact that I love these Pleasant Life characters and I want to tell their full story. If I were to release it all in floppy and then a super trade, I wouldn’t be done till 2011. That’s a long time. If I release the book now, I can move on to other projects and thus free myself up to pursue work for hire and other projects at will, while not sluffing off my own creative properties. I want to give Pleasant Life the proper respect and send them off in such a way that ties up everything that I wanted to say about them and close it for good.

A book that is essentially a love letter to my college life and who I was back then. Being almost 30 years old now and a few years have gone by, I’m finding it increasingly difficult to remain in that headspace of talking about college life in general. I want to move beyond and go forward. That’s not to say I hate Pleasant Life and the characters. Far from it. I love them! It pained me so hard to admit that the adventures of Ted, Lucas and Mortin may be ending soon, but all things must come to pass. I've wrestled with this decision for months. And I've come to the conclusion that after what I've got planned for them in the last 12 installments, its finally time to put them out to pasture. Even now as I type that sentence, a feeling of dread hits me. I will miss these characters. They are essentially me. My children. I will miss them dearly.

But we’ve still got many adventures to get through together. Right now, I am 1/4 through the new content that will be featured in this tradebook. I am still working out the other details as well. For example:

1-what all is being reprinted and how?
2-should I remaster the older stuff more?
3-what order should all the old stuff go in?
4-hardcover or not?
5-whats the whole thing gonna be size-wise and color?

So there’s plenty to still do. I got over 100 pages of art left to do for the book. I will say that the last 12 chapters are already written and everything will be tied up to its eventual conclusion that I wrote a long time ago.

As I move forward in the creation of this final chapter, I will post blogs, pics and even video blogs about its creation. I am planning this to be a huge event. If not for you, especially for me. A baby of mine is leaving the nest and I am doing my best to get it done for people to read it and enjoy it in a completed form for all time. Once its done, its done. And I’m going on to new things.

I love the boys and girls of Pleasant Life. And its not over yet. I don’t expect this thing to be printed and available till next summer. So I have that long with them yet. But after that, its onward and upward.

Let me take this last moment to thank each and every one of you for continually checking my blogs, myspace page, seeing me at cons, chatting with me online, those who have contributed to my work in some form or another. I’ve got you all with me as I finish birthing this thing. Pleasant Life is ending with a bang. Parden the pun, but its truely been a “pleasant” experience doing this book. And it will be awesome to finish it for you finally.

Stay tuned….

ADAM T.