Please bear with this brief interruption to your access to Accidental Centaurs. You will be provided a link to continue on to the main page at the bottom of this page. Thank you.

Effective immediately, Accidental Centaurs will be undergoing some changes to the distribution model. These changes will, I hope, ensure the future of the feature. These changes include rebooting the narrative and returning to the very beginning of the story, as well as moving the feature to printed comic magazine format.

Let me explain a little more in depth...

The upcoming changes to Accidental Centaurs have actually been in the works for about 18 months. While at Further Confusion 2007, I decided that I would move the feature from a newspaper-style format to comic pages. This would, I hoped, enable new possibilities in storytelling than the somewhat restrictive newspaper style strips.

As I prepared to do make this change, I decided to put the existing story on the back burner, and do a story that had been frequently requested: the story of how Alex and Sam came to be centaurs. It was was story I had planned to do as a massive 64 page epic for the patron program, but the increasing complexity of the story began to spiral out of control, it was backburnered until I could get a better handle on it. I revived it for the start of 2008, and the pages began running.

An idea that's been running in the back of my head since I started Accidental Centaurs was that of a printed comic book. Having seen the model that Vince Suzukawa has done with his comic "I.S.O.", I have decided to adapt and implement this distribution model to Accidental Centaurs. Here's how it's going to work:

The comic book will be published bimonthly. It will be a 36-page black-and-white comic with color covers, and will be sold exclusively through the Moonbase Store and will cost $5, plus shipping and handling. Pages for the book will be posted at accidentalcentaurs.com to give you an idea of what the book will be about. When the issue is published, I will start posting pages from the next story.

That's it. It's that simple.

(Soon to be) Frequently Asked Questions

So, I've gotta pay to see how the stories end?
I prefer to call it "supporting the feature and ensuring the future of Accidental Centaurs", but yeah, if you wanna put it that way.

But why? It's been free before!
Nothing is free, now more than ever. Nothing ever is. "Free" network television isn't free—it's paid for by advertising revunue. This webcomic isn't free—it's been supported in the past by different revenue streams, like book sales, site ads, commissions, etc. This is just a new phase in the ongoing quest to find a viable business model.

The demands on my time have changed, now that my freelance work has significantly increased, and I'm handling publishing duties for artists like Bill Holbrook (by the way, if you haven't dropped by The Bill Holbrook Store, why not drop by and load up on some Kevin & Kell goodies?), I need to make the most of the time I have available for projects. If the sole criteria for determining which project to do was personal satisfaction, I'd be doing Accidental Centaurs day and night. Unfortunately, the mortgage company has a different opinion on that.

What's the deal with the reboot? What happens to all the previous continuity?
It's all still gonna happen. They're still going to meet the insectaurs and Sam is still going to turn into a bug. They're still going to spend a few months as merfolk. They're still going to get mixed up in the intrigue surrounding the occupation of Tauria and Sam's still gonna die. Alex is still going to meet Nahrm and get his armor and so on and so on.

What's going to be different is how these events occur and how they are depicted. I've never been shy about my displeasure with the quality of the storytelling and the quality of the art in "Lair of the Insectaurs". However, that was six-and-a-half years ago. Working on Accidental Centaurs all this time has allowed me to hone my artisitc and writing skills, and I want to revisit these stories and tell them the way I wanted them told in the first place. As we used to say back in high school, "Run that play 'till you get it right!"

What's going to happen to the archives?
They're not going anywhere.

Let me rephrase that: They're still going to be available.

At some point, I will be switching the site's software over to Phantom Inker's marvelous CMXpress system, which currently runs The Wotch. When that happens, this site will get moved to a new subdomain and will be locked down. It'll still be there, preserved for posterity's sake, but won't be updated.

What about "Accidents Happen"? When's it going to stop being updated online?
"Accidents Happen" has turned into kind of an extended preview. When the book goes off to press, I'll stop putting pages from it up, and will start presenting the second comic's story, entitled "Guess Who?" With any luck, this will be by the first of September.

Are you going to pull posted pages after their book has been published?
No. Posted pages will stay up.

The Plan Nine books are out of print. Are you going to reissue them?
No.

Well, not exactly.

Sometime next year, they will be reissued, in new editions as "Accidental Centaurs Classic". I'm in the process of laying them out, and they will include everything up to where Book III left off. Right now, it's looking like three volumes.

Stay tuned to this page for more details.

So, what if I don't want to buy the comics?
That's your choice. By putting Accidental Centaurs out at the mercy of the marketplace, I must ensure that the stories I tell and the art that I draw are compelling enough for you to buy. If they're not, then they don't deserve to be in that marketplace, and will make an exit.

It is my plan—and my feverent hope—that not only will you find you can't live without it, you'll get your friends and relatives hooked on it and they will find they can't live without it. Granted, I may not achieve 100% of that plan... :)