We’ve come to the end of UTC’s key storyline, and the comic is now going to enter another hiatus.
Now, the big question is whether UTC will continue with Phase Four. Unfortunately, I don’t know the answer yet. I’m definitely not ruling out the possibility, and a major reason why is because this was never intended to be the stopping point for the series.
While the major story of UTC was centered around Cass and Flint being stuck with their transformations, they weren’t supposed to truly be permanent transformations. I wanted to change Cass back one way or another, it was just a question of how and when. My original thinking was that, once she was cured, the comic would then open up to a new world of possibilities for transformation shenanigans. At the outset in 2007, though, I hadn’t imagined that it would take 16 years to get to that point.
Now, I’m 40 years old and very tired. I want to make different comics, and grow my art style in ways that drawing this comic on a regular basis wouldn’t allow.
Don’t get me wrong, I still love UTC. I still love these characters, and I still want to take you on new adventures with them. But I really need a break.
If UTC returns, it will be a long time from now. Most certainly several years. While I can’t guarantee that it will ever resume, I will say that if it does, it will be–appropriately–much different. The story can go almost anywhere from here, and there’s yet more potential in these characters and their world that’s just waiting to be tapped.
In fact, I already have a loose framework set up for Phase Four, and multiple scripts are in progress. But I’m going to take my sweet time with it. Everything could change radically between now and who-knows-when, and I will only resume the comic if I truly feel that further adventures of Cass, Flint and the gang are worth telling.
Thank you all SO much for reading UTC. Those of you who were there from the start and kept faith in me to keep it going, through all the fits and starts; and those of you who found the comic more recently and are binging it for the first time. UTC is my love letter to fans of transformation stories, and I am grateful and humbled that it’s been embraced by so many of you.
Stay tuned for news about future projects, whether they’re UTC-adjacent or something completely different. For now, you can follow me on deviantArt, Twitter, and Pillowfort for updates on whatever’s coming next.
Take care of yourselves, and keep on changing for the better.
Jim
