That’s it. That’s the day. Mark your calendars. Tell your friends.

Delia Awesome issue #1 will be out on August 1st. I know the date keeps slipping, but I can now say with certainty that the first issue will be complete before the end of the month. Whether that’s two days or two weeks before July 31st remains to be seen. (I’m guessing it’ll be closer to the former.)

I make no excuses. The occasional and unwelcome interruption of my day job, illness, the rare social obligation, and the fact that – apart from the contributions made by my editor – 95% of the work is being done by me alone have all had their impact. Though it’s really the latter-est of those reasons. Creating a long form comic on one’s own, from scratch is a lot of fucking work. Christ, I spent over four hours last night designing a font for it. Then there’s the penciling, inking, shading, laying down all the word balloons and copy…not to mention all the time spent tweaking the final product and correcting mistakes.

But it’s all worth it when you start to see something you’re (cautiously) happy with take form. And in no more than three weeks time I’ll know if it’s all been worth it.

Anyway, as a treat for the few people who actually follow this blog and a surprise for those who simply stumble across it, I’ll be doing a soft launch of issue #1 as soon as it’s ready. But seeing as how I have no idea when that will actually be, you’ll just have to keep checking back. But August 1st is the official, hard launch of the comic…meaning it’s what I’m telling people on Facebook and putting on the flyers I’ll be leaving at Quimby’s, Chicago Comics, The Empty Bottle, New Wave, and so on.

Really binding stuff, I know.