...then please read this, if you don't mind.

I'm coming close to going for two weeks without coming up with a new Pyre. While that's hardly something that I haven't done before, I feel like that the gaps between Pyre updates are becoming more frequent.

I've felt like I've run out of ideas before, but then I'll run into a new idea. But it's something of a bad sign when the production of each strip starts with "ponder the next strip for a couple weeks", both concerning the strip's future and my dream to become syndicated...

I could say school or family or friends or social crap or games are slowing me down, but they really aren't, in the grand scheme. I just have my sketchbook with me in hopes an idea decides to pop in from Pluto every day of the week.

It gets worse (for me, at least) when I realize that the humor of Pyre is pretty dang narrow. For most of the strips, the humor comes from the ill-matched personalities of the cast bouncing off each other. As a result, if you don't have a basic grasp of the characters, you're not gonna think Pyre is funny.

Heck, I went through my current sketchbook (which dates to around early September '07). Out of 28 Pyre strips I drew in it, less than ten (anywhere from 5 to 8, depending on how you look at it) were strips that I can see someone laugh at without knowing the characters. Call me crazy, but I feel that if I'm gonna do a regularly-updating gag strip, I'll need to have most of my comics have humor that is not dependant on knowledge of the characters.

Which comes to the next problem I've got: How the crap do you come up with something like that without sound like you're stretching to make a joke??

I personally feel that I'm pretty good with wordplay, I love slapstick humor (must be from reading Garfield), etc. But unless there's an ongoing story planned out (e.g., 8BT or IWD), I can only see me desperately jumping though hoops to try to get something that KINDA looks like a gag, but isn't funny at all. At least if I want to update on a regular basis.

I just fell like I'm stuck. I dunno what to do.

On a lighter note, though, it's Phil's birthday today. Happy birthday Phil.