August newsletter

Hello happy month 8. Also known as LEO/VIRGO SEASON which is a blessed event because ya boy is a leo/virgo cusp. I'm sure you are all very surprised by this.

Familiar news roundup:

Thumbnails for 09 are.... done. ???

July was rough for me for personal reasons. Nothing devastating or really worth complaining about, but I was woefully unproductive and barely got the thumbnails for 09 done. They're.... done. It's 23 pages. But I'm not really happy with the last sequence which is probably because I feverishly completed it last night and may or may not have been drinking. Hoping I can potentially come up with a better series of pages while finalizing them this month since the end cap is one I've been waiting to draw for ohhhh a year. But the good news is: The thumbnails are done, or at least drafts of them are done, and that's better than not having anything done. 

$750 milestone reward - poll coming soon

I have had this Patreon's 750 milestone reward set to be a AMA style thing, but I'm not sure people... want... that? So I'm thinking about doing a poll instead to choose (or keep) whatever that reward is. If AMA comics/sketches is still a thing people want, it'll be an option on the poll. But I'd like to do something that will actually excite people. So in the meantime, if you have any ideas about things you'd like to see, feel free to shout them out in the comments or send me a DM. Or if you're shy, CuriousCat me.

End of month excitement

Somehow we've almost made it to the big August/September excitement cycle where I'm planning still to release two chapters back to back: At the end of August I'll be releasing 1X DESK JOB to the public AND pushing thumbnails for 08 FIREBIRD to Influencers. Because a month later on the 1 year anniversary of Familiar (!!!) I'm dropping FIREBIRD. Which I hope y'all love as much as I do, because otherwise the hype has been a lot and I don't want you to be let down. Haaaaaa.

Help wanted

Finally I wanted to send out a feeler for a couple things, and I wanted to extend the offer to Patrons first because I am open to offering discounted Patreon subscriptions as compensation and also Patrons are the people who care about Familiar the most. So if anyone here has any interest in these activities, please send me a DM. Otherwise I will pitch to my extended platform a bit later.

I can't pay a lot for these services (like I said, a Patreon discount and then a per-page or per-hour fee depending on the service, we can negotiate), so it would have to be something you want to do more for fun/public service and of course I'd be happy to credit you on the site/credits page. Eventually once this Patreon grows I'd be able to pay more by using the Patreon funds to pay for this.

• ACCESSIBILITY WRITER FOR SCREEN READERS. I'm looking for someone(s) who would be interested in writing text descriptions of each comic page for screen readers. I could print just the dialogue with no problem, but it wouldn't really capture the essence of the pages. So, I'm looking for someone who has experience transcribing for screen readers (or who can learn how to format it properly). I am open to having multiple writers work on this, but I would prefer consistency so if we could have a small team that works together that would be ideal.
• LANGUAGE CONSULTANT: PUERTO RICAN SPANISH. I am looking for a Puerto Rican Spanish NATIVE (L1) speaker, preferably native bilingual (with English), who can help me in an ongoing capacity. Bonus if you live in or have recent/regular experience in San Juan. I will not need help with every chapter, but I want to make sure that even small bits are accurate and authentic, and I will be introducing Luis (Diana's brother) soon and I also have some chapters taking place in San Juan/with Diana's mother planned. So I'm hoping to find someone earlier than that with whom I can work on language checking and translation. Please do not apply if you are an L2 Spanish speaker and/or do not have active exposure to Puerto Rican Spanish.

I am also looking into translations, but I need to identify which languages to focus on. Currently investigating Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German. If you have any interest in these, or other languages, let me know.

Community stuff

Finally, I'm also considering creating a Discord server for Familiar. This is something I had really early on, but it wasn't used much when we were very few. But now, maybe it is something people would enjoy. I don't know. What do you think? Also because of how things may or may not be changing with Patreon and adult content as various laws and bills worm their way up from the mud, it would be nice to keep in touch with everyone at the very least. Thoughts?

That's it for now. Stay tuned for some polls and stuff later on, and of course I'll be slipping y'all sneaks of Desk Job, Firebird, and maybe even 09 as time goes on.

Yours,
Jude