Eventuality Zero

For the first time in almost eight years, you and I are on an equal footing.

I began writing Cylinder and Miserable way back on the 9th of June 2006, and about a year ago I finished writing Series 3 (as noted in this other post); since then I've been publishing steadily without writing any new material, and as of today I have released all extant episodes (2126 of them!), up to and including the end of Series 3 - which means you know everything I do.  Well, you know everything apart from the [MASSIVE SPOILER] which I'm planning for the as-yet-unwritten Series 4... but that doesn't count, because it doesn't really exist until I get round to producing Episodes 2127 onwards.

The previous two times, there was a big lump of overlap: I started writing Series 2 before I'd finished publishing Series 1, and I started writing Series 3 before I'd finished publishing Series 2; not so this time.  In a way, it's apt that there should be a bit more separation between Series 3 and 4, as I'm planning a few changes next time round.  (You'll have to wait and see what those changes are, though.)

Thing is, though, it's not just Cylinder and Miserable.  It's very nearly everything.

Grace and Caffeine wrapped up back in 2010 (noted in my third-ever post on this blog), and despite me having notes for dozens of potential new episodes, I've never got round to producing any of them.  Knowing It's Called Aspergers seems to have reached its natural endpoint as of last summer.  Alien President was only ever a limited-time deal, and is long since completed.  Tim, meanwhile, has put Brothers in Shells on an indefinite hiatus, and long since finished his C&M spinoff Sidewards.  The only other significant comic strip (or project in a similar format) either of us have been involved with is Fort Paradox.

If you've been reading Fort Paradox, you'll have noticed that we ran out of episodes at the beginning of last month.  Again, completely ran out, with no overlap or buffer - Episode 180 was published, without Episode 181 having been written.  We scripted the next thirteen strips a few days later, though, and earlier this week Tim illustrated Episodes 184 and 193, which is the only thing that stopped us reaching "Eventuality Zero": the point where every single one of our comic-strip projects has completely run out of finished-but-unpublished episodes.

I expect the new Fort Paradox strips will take a while to see the light of day, as it's unlikely that we're going to finish the next two chapters in any sort of hurry, and hopefully C&M Series 4 will be in production before FP runs out again, so Eventuality Zero should still be at least a year or two away.  Beyond that... who knows?


In the meantime, though, I intend to enjoy being able to discuss C&M on an equal footing - at least with Tim and Sarah, even if nobody else is paying attention any more.


- The Colclough