TLDR: Personal circumstances regarding mental health and financial situations require me to temporary pause the Super Sad Squad project. I will be manually pausing pledges each month until further notice.

Hello you wonderful people. Thank you SO much for supporting Super Sad Squad for the past few years. I could have never been able to do what I've done without your support and encouragement. On Patreon your contributions have allowed me to fund some great things for the project from getting into 3D asset creation for Blank Verse scene setting, merchandise and a whole studio for printing and binding comics at home. This has been such a blessing and you've allowed me to follow my dream of making comics, which I never thought I would be able to do.

There's a lot of stuff I have wanted to say to help make sense of why there's been so little artwork and virtually no updates on Blank Verse over the past year, but it would all be excuses. Instead I'll lay down some personal facts to help paint a picture of what's going on with me and why Super Sad Squad has sort of stalled.

This might come as a surprise, given that I've named this project Super Sad Squad, but I suffer from some pretty debilitating depression. I've ignored it most of my life and just powered through it, but in 2021 one of my closest friends had committed suicide - and that hit me in a way that I couldn't ignore anymore. That year I dedicated a large majority of my time and effort into my physical health - losing about 80 pounds and getting in pretty great shape. Tragically that had no effect on my depression. In 2022 I decided to finally see a doctor for the first time in my adult life, and that's what brings us to where I'm at today. I'm in the middle of a trial and error phase with different medications trying to see what works for me and learning just as importantly the things that do NOT work. While this is going on, my mind is feeling foggy and my creativity is just in the tank. I'm sure this won't be a permanent condition, but I can't even pick up a pencil without wanting to crawl under my desk and hide.

The second part of this is probably the biggest - I've been working a part time job for 6 years that I've been holding out hope would turn into a full-time career, but that hasn't panned out. So for those 6 years I've treaded water in regards to debt and overall financial health, and at the start of 2023 I'm finding it no longer up for debate; I absolutely have to take a second day job. Luckily I have landed a job that will be great for me and will be doing that alongside the current job I've been doing for 6 years. This is great news, but also bad because this will leave me practically no time at all for drawing.

But who am I kidding? I haven't written anything or moved an inch on Blank Verse in over 400 days. I've not been in a place where I can create in so long that I feel like I'm beginning to forget how. So I'm going to do what I swore I would never do - put Super Sad Squad on a temporary hiatus.

This is not the end. It can't be the end. This project is something I love desperately and has been the vehicle that's let me pursue what I'm passionate about and accomplish childhood dreams I was sure weren't possible. But for now, there are things I need to focus on with every last drop of attention I have.

My hope is that within the next year I will have found the right medication to get my head right with the help of my incredible doctor and get ahead on some financial burdens that have been hovering over me and my wife for the past few years. When the storm clears, I will return - but please don't wait up for me. I can imagine that many of you may want to help out, but these are problems I have to tackle on my own and are much too personal to get y'all involved in it, but know that I appreciate your kindness and willingness to help.

I'm grandfathered into a Patreon plan that doesn't exist anymore, and so I don't want to lose that. Instead of unpublishing my creator account, I will be routinely pausing billing each month until the project is ready to start moving again.

I will still draw new pictures every chance I get and always keep you posted on what's going on. You'll still have access to everything on Patreon and still see new posts, though they may be more thin than usual.

This sounds like a super negative post and my instinct is just to apologize over and over again until my voice goes out, but I feel really great about this. It will be a tremendous weight off my shoulders while I get the parts of my life that are out of order back in order. I will never quit drawing. I have dedicated my life to drawing short haired cuties with big ol' booties and unless I'm dead - this train will keep moving.

Until next time,
Nathan Young