Whoa! Who, who are you?? How’d you get in here??
I’m Dave (or David), the creator of MAiZ. This is my webcomic I started back in 2012 and paused in 2019 for a much longer hiatus than intended!
It’s been a loooooooooong time since I last updated, and I’ve been meaning to do one for years now, so my deepest apologies for the veeeeeeeeery late post.
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What happened? Why has it been so long???
Short answer: life happened!
Long answer: In 2019, I’d put the comic on hiatus with the intent to create the physical 2nd volume of MAiZ collecting chapters 5-8. Not only that, I wanted to make it special by recolouring in all the original pages, so the entire thing would be in colour! It was ambitious, but I was keen to do something special for the second volume.
Unfortunately, for most of 2019 it was a mixture between a tough work schedule and a lot of personal issues, all in which messed with my mental health and put me in a bad place for a while after that.
Then 2020 happened. The Sydney bushfires. COVID. Home isolation.
I was home bound with only work and friends and family online to keep me company. I am so very grateful I got to keep my job and still be able to do fun art commissions during the lockdowns, but it was also very isolating.
With my mental health out of whack, it made it all the more difficult to return to MAiZ, especially as I struggled to lock in the story for chapter 12. No matter how many times I banged my head against the script, the story just didn’t work.
At the end of 2020, with vaccines still slowly rolling out and borders sloooowly opening up, I decided to move back to Brisbane to be closer to family and get back into therapy. It helped me immensely and I made great strides getting my health back on track.
Then in 2021, something pretty neat happened: I met my now wife!
And the last several years since we met have been a whirlwind of amazing life milestones: We rented together, we got engaged, we bought a house and we got married. She’s the love of my life, my best friend and she inspires me every day.
Then 2 years ago, we had a child together. I’m a Dad now.
So yeah, life happened! After a few years of hardships, life suddenly came at me with a sledge hammer in the form of a house, married life and a baby. Now my life is still working out how to balance my job, being a husband and being a Dad.
Spoilers: it’s surprsingly hard!
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So….MAiZ is dead then?
This is the question I often get asked and it means a great deal when people check in with MAiZ and I’m so very grateful folks are still interested in the story and want it to continue.
The short and long answer is:
No, MAiZ is NOT dead!
However I’m still learning to balance my life around work, fatherhood and life in general.
Despite all the craziness of the last several years, MAiZ has never left my mind. It’s still popped up in bits of art and fun I’ve posted on my socials like Instagram and Blue Sky.
As I mentioned previously, the script for chapter 12 had stalled. However since meeting my wife, I’ve talked with her about the story, bounced ideas, and after so long feeling stuck, the script is starting to feel good again.
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So, MAiZ is coming back??
Eventually yes!
However, there’s no definitive start date for chapter 12 as of yet. I’m sorry it may not be the answer people want to hear, nor do I want to give false hope. The intent is to finalize the script, figure out the new balance of family life and work, and somewhere in there, get Meli and Jaz back on track for more adventures.
From the bottom of my art, thank you for checking back here. Thank you for supporting the comic and being so very patient with me!
Welcome to follow me on Instagram and Blue Sky to keep up with my semi-regular art posts!
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