Okay, so...

I promised that at some point I would write about my various reasons for making some of the various decisions that I did, in regards to COBALT. And while I spoke about it several times with friends, I don't really think I ever made a public statement that explained, in detail, the reasons for my canceling the book.

The fact is, there were quite a few reasons. It was sort of an accumulated morass, all the ingredients of which all intermingled in various ways, with no one thing really being THE one thing that can be nailed down as "it."

Let's start way back at the very beginning, before COBALT ever happened.

I'd gotten into furry fandom at the time of the great black and white glut. During those days, there was an explosion of "underground" comic titles, printed very cheaply, in black and white. Among the books I was buying and reading were books like Albedo, Xanadu, Fusion, and Boris The Bear. Books with great stories, and compelling characters. And as such, I ended up aspiring to do that sort of thing myself. I'd even gone to such length as moving to New Jersey to achieve that goal. (where I attended the Joe Kubert school, in an attempt to learn the tricks of the trade)

So, creating comics had been one of my die-hard goals, for quite a while. Something I was steadfastly pursuing.

And, when Nexxus (of furnation) told me he was looking to start his own comic publishing company, and offered me the chance to do a book, I jumped at it. I had tons of ideas for projects to do, but Nexxus told me what he wanted was "a sexy cobalt comic." And I knew that was something I could do, so I agreed.

However, this sets up the first reason, and it's one that was there from the very beginning. COBALT was not my idea. So, right from the start, I wasn't doing it for me, I was doing it for someone else. And I continued doing it, right up until Nexxus sold the company.

At that point, I found myself starting to flounder a bit. Nexxus had been the audience I had been playing to, and that had made the job of writing each issue relatively easy. But with Nexxus out of the loop, I found that my interest in the book was waning. My audience had gone, I had nobody to play to, and the trouble I was having staying motivated caused me to start asking myself who I was doing the book for. I was coming to the realization that I wasn't doing it for me.

This bring us to the second reason. Writing porn tends to waver between boring and annoying, because you can't really write much of a story. In fact, the less story, usually, the better. Only the thinnest veneer of plot is required, before it's time for the characters to get their clothes off and get on with it. Trying to write something deep, meaningful, or even creative is essentially a waste of time, because the plot is only there as a support pillar for the sex.

Good porn is not emotionally deep. Try to make it deep and you end up with lousy porn. And while writing light, fluffy scenarios as a precursor to a sex scene may be fun for awhile, having to do it over, and over, and over gets tiring.

And even if you do somehow manage to write something that is genuinely creative, and holds together with a sex scene in the middle of it, at the end of the day all you've written is porn.

When I announced that I was going to begin posting COBALT to FA, someone responded, quite unhappy about it. They felt they had wasted their money by buying the book, because now it was being given away for free. And that right there explains, in no uncertain terms, just what a waste of time it is to bother putting any effort into a porno comic.

Among the many comics I have in my own collection are three books written by Robert Asprin, and illustrated by Mel White. Duncan & Mallory. I don't know how many times I've gone back and read, and re-read them. Mel is now posting them to the web, and I don't feel the slightest bit cheated by that. I don't feel I wasted my money, because I have these actual physical books, that I can pull out and re-read any time I choose.

I guess what I'm getting at, is that once something is classified as "porn" in people's minds, nothing else about it matters. No matter how much time and effort you put into it, once it's become "porn" it will always be only "porn." To be read once, maybe twice, and then tossed aside in anticipation of the next thrill.

Which bring me to my next point: COST.

When I first started COBALT, the cost per book to readers was $5 an issue. $2 went to me, $2 went to Furnation, and $1 went towards the cost of manufacture.

Nowadays, the price per issue at Furplanet has gone up to eight bucks an issue. I just don't like the idea of having people pay eight bucks for a veneer thin plot and one or two sex scenes. Especially not if they're likely to read it once, at most twice. It's a waste of my time, and waste of readers' money.

So, with all these thoughts bubbling away in my head, I was looking to dump COBALT. I wasn't happy with it. I wasn't getting any enjoyment out of it. It had gone from being harmless fun to just a lot of work for little reward. It wasn't what I wanted to do. It was feeling like a dead-end job. I was already resigned to giving it up. The question was not if it would happen, it was just "when would that be convenient?"

At that point some idiot chose to mouth of at me on a web forum about it. And the hostile reaction I received, to a benign request that I be added to the site's DNP list, became the moment.

However, when it happened, it wasn't a seismic shift. "I should give this up and do what I really want." changed to "I'm giving this up to do what I really want." That was all.

So, COBALT ended. And, at my request, as the preprinted copies were sold off, the book went out of print, and that was it. That chapter of my history closed, and I can now move on to doing the sort of thing that I really want to do.

So, why am I now posting it to FA? I guess partly it's because I did put a lot of thought and a lot of effort into the series, and I'd like to share some of that - both the highs and the lows.

Also, because talking about the work I went through, on a regular basis, might help me keep my head in gear and thinking about comic creation as I head off into my next project.

As for that next project, you've likely already seen an ad for it. There was one on the back cover of issue five. (which should give you an idea of just how long the process of ending COBALT has been going on)

SCIENCE PROJECT.

It's going to be clean. It's going to be funny, and since it will have an actual storyline, hopefully you'll think it's worth the cover price.

But really - it's something I'm doing for me.

I've paid my dues.

It's time.