The end of the waiting, at last. Despite missing the Christmas 2011 deadline I set for myself a while back, I am ridiculously close to finishing the book. I suspect the finished product will be done around February or March. Hopefully that includes the government censorship process (not that there’s anything to be censored, but I gave the Air Force permission to review any works I do involving the military or intelligence community).

There’s more good news, though. I bought a MacBook Pro. Now, you’re probably wondering why this is good news because MSPaint doesn’t work in the Mac OS. While that’s true, it appears to be true that MSPaint will work on a Mac using the Windows 7 operating system.

Thank you, BootCamp!

While this will enable me to work on the comic while on the go, it probably won’t make me more productive on the train for my 3-hour daily commute. at 6’6″, it’s impossible for me to even sit on e train comfortably, let alone begin working on the greatest pixelated epic ever told.

Anyway, what you really care about is the release date; and I’m afraid I don’t have one for you. Since I’m going to have time, I’m going to try and make sure the comic is listed by Diamond for distribution so you can buy it in stores, Amazon, Lulu, or from the KTracy.com store.

I am bummed about this. Unfortunately, Volume I of the The MSPaint Comic, Institution, won’t be ready by Christmas. Don’t expect any Christmas miracles, it’s not possible.

I am working on page 91 of what is probably going to be 100 pages. If you remember, the comic was only supposed to be 80 pages. I’m not sure what happened at the end, but the length just exploded.

There are some positives to this. For starters, I’ll now have time to seek out advertisers.

ADS!? HOW THE HELL IS THAT POSITIVE!?

Ads are positive because they allow me to sell the finished comic book for less money. Despite there being over 100 full-color pages in the finished book, I still aim to price the book at BELOW $10 a copy (when bought on KTracy.com or at a convention).

This also gives friends of the comic an me more time to convince comic book stores to carry copies of the comic. That’s good because pre-order money will be used to invest in printing more first edition copies and, when I buy in bulk, YOU save.

I suspect I will be done with the comic in March of 2012, but It won’t be released until later that spring or summer while Krista and I take our time to ensure we do everything we can to ensure this pristine independent comic can be read by as many people as possible.

This should not affect the schedule of other MSPaint Comic projects, but my story about terrorism in Chechnya is being kept on the back burner while I concentrate on the first volume of MSPaint Comic’s completion.

To avoid this in the future, I’m going to story board Volume 2 of the comic and all other projects from here-on-out. That process is yet to begin, so I can’t tell you how many pages will be in Volume 2. I will tell you this, however. As much as you will love the story in Volume 1, the story in Volume 2 is MUCH more dynamic and in depth. It may actually be the best of the 5 volumes. That will typically require more length, but there are also going to be fewer flashbacks necessary to explain what’s happening… that will tend to shorten the finished product.

I’ll give you a firmer estimate when the story boarding is complete. That’s coming after the Chechen storyboard, though, so its still a while off.

Sorry for the bad news, folks.