Ulta

A happy New Year one and all! I don't post journals often, but I kinda have been putting this off for a while. Be prepared for a read with this one, but if not here's the TL:DR version.... For the year of 2023, I have to earn at least $600 a month somehow, or I risk going homeless. There's a few things I need to say, both regarding Hybridor and a few other things that affect it. And it all is related to how 2022 went. I'll try to make this brief, as I already am dreading writing this. 2022 was, funny enough, a rather good year for me. At least in the things that matter most to me. It's the first year that I went through entirely without many moments of intense chronic depression. For those who aren't aware, I visited the doctors sometime last year (maybe sooner, my memory is trash) for what I found out to be chronic depression and anxiety attacks. Thanks to the meds I'm now on and the life-saving forethought of the one who pushed me to go see the doctors, I am stable, and can enjoy life once more. 2022 has been a year where I've been free of such a horrible existence as suffering from depression that at the time, I thought was just normal life pains everyone goes through. It was a rather good year because of that. Being able to go through the year without having suicidal thoughts is a blessing, and I can't tell you how nice it was to just work on Hybridor all year with not a care in the world. But we all know just being happy doesn't pay the bills. As most of you may or may not know, I had quit my job to focus entirely on Hybridor, hoping it would build enough readership to be able to sustain me in covering my monthly bills through support on Patreon or one-time donations. I have been at it for over 2 years now. During this time, I ran entirely off the savings I built up from my old job, to allow enough time to gain readership and support. I'm sad to say though...that Hybridor's support through Patreon is not pulling in enough to support me. I'm now dangerously low on funds, and the monetary goal I set on Patreon is still not even close to being reached . Which means...I now need to try something else, or I risk going homeless. There's a few things I know I wanna try. My first try is this journal. I just want people to be aware of my situation, since the month of January and maybe some of February is my last try at living off of Patreon support for Hybridor. I really do wanna keep working on this comic, but I'm also aware of how people are not fond of subscriptions or anything that asks for money once a month. I had kept open my direct paypal donations too, and while it did help a little, I got less from it than from Patreon. I'm so...soooo thankful for those who did take the time and money to support Hybridor though. I'm just shocked that it even made what it did and how many have stuck with me and this project for as long as they did. Without their help, this moment would have arrived a ton sooner, and I'm happy that they put forth their support and faith in me. I'm just sorry that I seemed to have failed in seeing that support all the way to the planned end of this project. I will be keeping my patreon open for now, though for the start of January, I will be unable to get early pages out for patreons in the 2 dollar tier. Working on fixing that so that at least most of january I can fullfill the rewards of all the tiers. This is my last chance to make this work. Otherwise, I'll have to wait until my life situation changes for the better before I can reliably work on Hybridor again. I'm gonna start off slow this year. My first goal of 2023 is to at LEAST earn a minimum of $600 a month. How I do that is what I'm really scrambling my brain over. Obviously support for Hybridor through Patreon or paypal donations is most ideal, as 2022 has showed such a lifestyle is a happy one for me. But if I can't pull in that much with the comic alone, I'll be trying other methods like art commissions, trying to make a presence on Youtube or Twitch, and some other side-hussles in real life that I have little experience in, but at least have an interest in. If NONE of that works, it'll be back to the dreaded grind of a 'real job', and given my age, I don't think there's any out there that I'll truly enjoy...I've looked in so many places and tried so many different jobs, and none have truly helped me feel like I'm living, no matter how much money it earned me. This journal was hard to write, but it's a necessary one so folks know my life situation. I don't know what 2023 holds for me, but I sure hope it'll be a nice one like 2022 was, not just for myself, but for all you lovely people as well. My last bit of wordings to you all is this. If anyone has any suggestions or ideas...or any feedback as to what you'd like to see out of me as far as content (be it more Hybridor, or seeing me become a Vtuber of sorts, or if you are interested in buying art commissions, etc.), please speak your mind. I appreciate any input people have. I'll be making a poll to see where my watchers interest lies the most, but direct feedback is just as good if not moreso for me. Thank you all for a wonderful year. May 2023 bring enjoyment and happiness to all of us~

The winners of the Last Laugh contest have been decided! We only had...8 entries total! Yeah I timed this contest badly me thinks...XD I'll do another in the future though when I need more cameos. For now... THE WINNERS OF THE LAST LAUGH CONTEST ARE:

1st PLACE = Bakannon

2nd PLACE = CrystalFossil 3rd PLACE = Adreos Congrats to the winner! Our sides hurt now from the chuckles we got from these! I will be sending out notes soon to discuss details of your winnings Keep an eye out for the next contest! Any suggestions on what sort of contest it should be, my ears are open~ (also excuse the lake of links, DA shortcuts just don't work anymore D: )

It's that time again for a contest! And an easy one at that! No actual art talent needed!

Entering is simple really. Re-read the comic, pick your favorite or most fitting page from the Prologue-Chapter 3, and re-caption it! Make me laugh! I wanna get a hearty giggle out of what you all could do if you were to have the characters say something different at any point. The possibilities are endless AND most likely hilarious!

What's in it to win it? These prizes below!

1ST PLACE = A speaking role for one of your characters, AND a non-speaking cameo for a different character. That's TWO characters you can use!

2ND PLACE: 2 non-speaking cameos for two of your characters!

3RD PLACE: 1 non-speaking cameo for one of your characters!

To make sure your entry counts, be sure you've done the following:

1. Post your re-captioned page to any form of public media (DA, Instagram, Furaffinity, ComicFury, forums, Facebook, etc.) and in it's description make SURE to both credit me for the art, and link back to the original page of the comic you captioned (the original page you link back to can be from any of the places I officially post Hybridpr pages to). Also message me in some way so that I may view your submission It will only count if I reply to it!

Ex. Bob finds his fav page from Deviantart, re-captions it with their art program of choice (Fire alpaca is free, MS Paint works too!), then posts it in his own thread on ComicFury's forums. In the revealing thread, he states that he's entering a recaption contest, and that Ulta made the original page, and puts a link back to the original page that I made on DA. He then messages me on DA and links me to his submission, and does a wiggle dance for added good luck!

Rules:

-Keep it PG-13 friendly or nicer. No explicit words or situations mentioned plz.

-Only 1 entry per person, so make it count!

-Do not edit any of the art on the page you select. I'm only looking for you to change the text inside the speech bubbles present.

-Do not edit the number of speech bubbles present. What's in it already is what you get!

-I do not care how ugly or messy the editted text is. I just need to be able to read it, so don't fuss over that ugly obvious erase mark.

-Be sure to post the re-captioned page somewhere where the public can see it. No exclusive places like Patreons messages. People need to see it!

Tips:

-Try to make it funny!!

-Any art editing program can work. MS Paint for example works just fine!. I recommend Fire alpaca (free download) if you are looking to make a more pretty edit job, but I'm not caring how messy it looks, so use whatever you can find!

-I'll help you make a character for this if you don't have any existing to use!

Example of a re-captioned page:https://www.deviantart.com/crystalfossil/art/Recaption-Contest-entry-898940107

Simple right? The contest will go on from this very moment until the final hours of the 8th of December (11:59PM EST). That's more than enough time to find your favorite piece to re-caption. No extensions will be given.

Let THE LAST LAUGH contest begin!

If you want to help Hybridor get to 2 pages a week, or better...help it get a hired team to make it visually better AND be produced faster? Then read on! A cooler summary of this journal can be found on my most recent deviation.

Basically, I'm offering quite a few rewards over on my Patreon in hopes of earning enough funds monthly to both survive, and to help Hybridor get even better, faster. My real job has been cutting my hours drastically and I'm starting to run into money issues, so here I am, offering services in hopes of earning the lost funds. Link to Patreon is found here: https://www.patreon.com/Hybridor THE GOAL IS TO REACH $700 monthly ON PATREON. If this goal is reached, Hybridor's submission schedule will go from 1 page a week, to 2! IF THE $2000 monthly GOAL is hit, then...first off, holy smokes, is this reality. And second, it'll mean I can hire more folks to help me make the comic, and this will result in higher quality pages AND faster production, which means more pages each week! Since it's the start of the new month, right now is the best time to support the Patreon and become a member of the Hybridor family. You'll get lots of neat rewards instantly, and you'll be doing me a huge service with your generosity. Plus you'll be helping towards increasing Hybridor production speed, which means more pages faster, AND better!

No pressure to anyone reading this of course. If you can't, that's fine. Just share the word about the comic and point more readers to it and all should work out ^^ Thank you to anyone who ends up supporting, and all readers who read Hybridor, supporters on Patreon or not! This project would be nothing without it's reader base, and I am blessed to have each and every one of you giving time to read my silly project.

Here's to another 4 years and beyond!

This journal is basically gonna explain what's been going on this entire time and what my plans are going forward. If you like Hybridor, be sure to read this! It's got good news! To start with, I will explain why there was a huge gap in updates. Hybridor only earns money through it's Patreon, and while it's enough to cover 1 of my bills, it's not exactly making enough for me to make it my 'job' yet. During my holiday break to work on the next Chapter, I was approached by some game devs who wanted some of my artistic help, and offered to pay me. I couldn't refuse such an opportunity, so I shifted to focus on that and see if it would go anywhere. The good news is, it was enough help for me to leave my mark, and I will have my name in the credits of this game and also will have my mark left behind in the form of a playable character I helped design. It's all really exciting stuff! The bad news is, my services are no longer being seeked out, at least for the time being. There's potential still, but it's not something I can sit and wait for. I also got my Covid shot during this time, so I was sick for a little while.

This just leads to more good news for all you readers though. Now that my time is back in my hands, Hybridor is back to being my main focus. And my plans for it's resurgence are gonna be quite large. For starters, the comic will be hitting ComicFury and FurAffinity, and resuming on all the sites it's been viewable on as well, which is Deviantart, Webtoon, Tapastic, and the new Hybridor website (you can find the new site by typing www.hybridor.net in the url bar of your web browser). Out of all of these, the Hybridor website is probably the BEST place to view the comic if you like Traditional comic page style, but if you like reading comics on your phone, Webtoon is so far the best. But if you happen to live on any of the other sites, you'll be able to fav and read it there if you so wish! As far as DA is concerned, I spent hours yesterday literally fixing a ton of broken links on the comic, since apparently the move to Eclipse broke several of their OWN codes. It's defiantly not a site built for comic hosting @_@ But since I love my DA readerhood here, I took the time to make sure it would be as easy to enjoy as possible here. So if you find any broken or weird links, let me know! You also might be noticing something weird...where did the Prologue go?! It's gone. Sorta. I'm replacing it with a NEW prologue that will start being posted in June! The old one will be slightly revised and thrown into a exclusive tier on Hybridor's Patreon. Like a behind-the-scenes side comic if people wanna refresh or see how Starlight ended up off her island. It will be having some slight changes, so it won't be entirely the same as you last remember it! (it had some old info and some characters weren't behaving accurately). Once the new prologue is fully posted, Chapter 4 will resume on all websites that are not starting fresh, while the fresh websites will just get massively good uploads until they are caught up. Might be a nightmare for me to keep track of, but I will do my best!

What I'm hoping for with this resurgence is that new and old readers alike will enter the story with this new and better prologue, and then hopefully they'll refresh their memories and re-read the comic all the way till where it is now. By then, Chapter 4 will have begun and the comic resumes as normal from then on =)

Patreon will be getting a small revamp as well, so some tiers will be changing. Anyone who's a patreon of mine will be alerted of the changes via the discord.

I'm excited to get back into making the story. The new prologue imo is SO much better than the old one. While the old one wasn't exactly bad, it wasn't a very good leg to start the story on. This new one should really set the tone properly, and I am quite proud of it. So I hope you guys enjoy it! It will drop on a Wednesday in June. Which day? We'll find out =)

There are a small handful of art things I need to finish up and fix before I can start posting. Many of the other sites need some of their pages fixed, and I'm the only one who can do so. I wanna make sure Hybridor gets love on all places it's viewable on to try and gain the maximum amount of readers possible. So share it with your friends when posts start dropping!

I can't wait to interact with readers again! I miss my DA readers and talking and interacting with you all. See you next month! This will be my slightly late birthday present to you all! XD