Warning: Incredibly self-centered ramble follows!
So after an incongruous number of months mulling and musing it over I've finally bitten the metaphorical buckshot and changed the name of my comic character, formerly known as Chris, to Rufus.
This may seem to come from nowhere, but it's been bugging me for quite a while.
You see I've been drawing comics since January 2012 (having previously made comics exclusively with vector-drawn shapes with eyes...). Originally many of these comics revolved around myself and my friend Stuart sitting at a coffee shop table saying hopefully humorous things.
Soon I began inventing a variety of fictional characters for our avatars to engage with for more surreal jokes, including aliens, ghosts, the grim reaper and some weird guy with stone for a face (I wonder what happened to him).
As time progressed my writing changed, my drawing changed, and the comics - astonishingly - changed. Stuart began to appear less and less (not deliberately) and certain fictional characters made more and more appearances as I could write them funnily more consistently than others. Before long I found myself with only 4 recurring characters: Malakhi, Emm and Stoic, my fictional characters, joined my avatar Chris.
Now this, in retrospect, is strange. I've fictionalised myself and allowed it to interact with wholly fictional friends. It has its own relationships, its own misadventures and, crucially, its own developing personality. This is one step away from a psychological disorder.
Again the comics began to change and as they did my avatar became less and less like me, or perhaps we both mutually diverted from a common course. Either way it felt as though my own life changes were impeding the writing of this character. I kept thinking 'oh that'd be funny... but I wouldn't do that', which is poison to 'comedy' writing.
Thus, after five and a half years, I have decided to grant this semi-fictional character full fictionality through emancipation, and with it a new moniker. Hereafter he is free, through my writing, to pursue his own personality separate of mine. This will happen gradually, but I hope fruitfully.
As an immediate upshot I went to update the 'Comics' page header image with the new info, only to find it so hideously drawn by my current standards that I've remade it (twice in one year!)
New
Not-so-new
It turns out that drawing lots and lots and lots and lots and very, very much causes you to get a little bit better at drawing. Whod've thunk it?
Anyway having taken a short sabbatical from After Dusk whilst I worked this all out I shall be getting back into it soon enough. Hopefully you guys are enjoying it, and if not I'm going to start making more interstitial comics betwixt regardless.
Enjoy your lives!