- Oct 21, 2016
- 1,961
- 3,949
Original letter:
"Hey folks,
After a long silence I can finally say something about Epoch… or better yet, here is his letter to all you fans:
Epoch:
Hey Fam,
Well hello there! How have you guys been? I’ve been meaning to write to you all for awhile now, but I haven’t exactly known what to say. Xipomus has mentioned to me repeatedly that email inquiries and comments are piling up with questions about my whereabouts and, more importantly, when I might be returning to the fold and making comics again.
Unfortunately I don’t have answers for you. I wish I did. I want nothing more than to return to my life in comics, writing interesting stories and creating wonderful art for all of you fine people. But I don’t honestly know if/when that will ever happen again.
As most of you are aware, I am in federal prison. I did something stupid that earned me 78 months as a guest of the Bureau of Prisons. I’ve been incarcerated for a little over a year at this point, minus the four months I was out on bail over Christmas and the beginning of this year. I’ve served a total of around 8 months so far, and with good time behavior and a drug and alcohol abuse treatment program, I’ll probably end up serving around 3-4 years here in prison before going to the halfway house and then to home confinement. Hopefully I can go to home confinement right away after I get out but that will depend on a lot of things. When I finally complete my halfway house/home confinement term, that’s when I go into 8 years of supervised release (of which I am required to serve 2/3), which is when the real test of my fortitude will begin.
The collateral damage from what I’ve done has been catastrophic. I’ve lost my wonderful girlfriend, I’ve disappointed my family and friends, and I’ve let all of you guys down. Thankfully, all of my family and friends still remain at my side (and even my girlfriend to a lesser extent), but I am a felon now, and that is a hard pill for them to swallow. I’m not trying to garner pity or make light of what I’ve done, but all I can say for sure is that the punishment sure as HELL did not fit the crime. I honestly cannot believe how much time and supervised release they gave me. It is horribly unjust and unfortunately I had a front row seat to the failings of the broken and lopsided U.S. criminal justice system.
But I’m not writing to tell you how backwards our government systems are. I wanted to let you know that I am trying to remain optimistic for my future. Those of you who know me know I’ve always been a proactive and determined person, and I don’t intend to let my time in here go to waste. I’ve known since early 2015 that I was going to prison eventually, and from that point I’ve been planning for my future with various forms of self-improvement. Besides the “simple” things like learning to speak Spanish, Italian, and getting into a heavy cardio and strength training regimen, I had decided to also try my hand at becoming a writer. To that end, I decided to develop “Dark Rift” as a trilogy of novels. I love that story and world so much, and I simply do not want to let it sit dormant for the next couple of years. I am already deep in the plotting stages of the trilogy, and have bought many, many books on teaching craft to new fiction writers, novel-plotting, understanding “show don’t tell”, writing believable worlds, crafting believable characters, and even some books on popular sci-fi tropes and constructing alien planets using real science. I am doing daily writing exercises to get better with prose and I hope to put out a product that is compelling for both old fans and new. And if I cannot get the interest of publishers, I will simply self-publish through the major digital outlets. At least I know there is a handful of you guys who will be on-board to see what Polly and Kole get up to, and how Ember and Fyra enter into the story. Oh, and don’t worry. While it won’t be overtly sexual, there will be plenty of “sexy” moments!
Also, I’ve gone back to my roots and gotten way into traditional 2D art. I’ve gotten books on human figure drawing, dynamic anatomy, clothed figure drawing, gesture drawing, perspective, comic book art, etc. I am doing daily work on drawing, too. I’ve also had Xipomus send me a reference book he compiled of some of the 2D erotic artists I admire like JAB, John Persons, and Akabur, and I am emulating their style in different drawings to sort of assimilate their styles. I’ve also been drawing from a ton of manga, so I can create a style all my own. Basically I want to create art in a hybrid Eastern/Western style, but one that is identifiable as purely Epoch.
And lastly, I am 28 pages into a design doc for a 2D video game that I hope you guys will be interested in supporting. We’ve only begun hammering out the details as to the development, funding, and distribution methods, so it will be awhile before we have anything to show. Right now I am just excited to be working on something that I had wanted to do for years but never had the time. It will be an ambitious freshman release for sure, but I never want to do anything half-assed. I think it will be a fun game and something you will all definitely enjoy.
So I hope to talk to you guys again soon, and please don’t judge me too harshly. This is going to be a tough couple years going forward, and even tougher years to come once I am out of prison trying to pick up the pieces of a life left behind, but I still remain optimistic. I want to thank you all for your years of support, and hope to be one day making comics for you all again. Like the tagline on the back cover of our releases says: “we’ve been making comics since 2006 and we’re just getting started”. I’d still like to believe that statement is accurate, and hope you do too. Right now I’m like a bear in winter; hibernating, yet still very much alive, just dreaming and dreaming. I’ll have quite the appetite after I emerge from this hibernation, and I hope I can get right back to work on what it is that sates my hunger… and yours as well. Yes, Epoch Art is dormant… but it is far from dead. Don’t count this young bear out just yet.
Epoch
So that’s it folks. I hope you understand why he found it difficult to tell you.
I’m still going forward with CR 1 HD, but due to my father having health issues suddenly, i’ve been spending most of my free time getting the home up and running and helping out.
This month I hope it stablizes some more, so I can take some holidays I still got coming.
Then finally I can make some progress again, instead of 1 render when there is time.
If you have questions or remarks, let me know and I’ll see if i can get them to Epoch.
Ciao,
Xipomus "
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"Hey folks,
After a long silence I can finally say something about Epoch… or better yet, here is his letter to all you fans:
Epoch:
Hey Fam,
Well hello there! How have you guys been? I’ve been meaning to write to you all for awhile now, but I haven’t exactly known what to say. Xipomus has mentioned to me repeatedly that email inquiries and comments are piling up with questions about my whereabouts and, more importantly, when I might be returning to the fold and making comics again.
Unfortunately I don’t have answers for you. I wish I did. I want nothing more than to return to my life in comics, writing interesting stories and creating wonderful art for all of you fine people. But I don’t honestly know if/when that will ever happen again.
As most of you are aware, I am in federal prison. I did something stupid that earned me 78 months as a guest of the Bureau of Prisons. I’ve been incarcerated for a little over a year at this point, minus the four months I was out on bail over Christmas and the beginning of this year. I’ve served a total of around 8 months so far, and with good time behavior and a drug and alcohol abuse treatment program, I’ll probably end up serving around 3-4 years here in prison before going to the halfway house and then to home confinement. Hopefully I can go to home confinement right away after I get out but that will depend on a lot of things. When I finally complete my halfway house/home confinement term, that’s when I go into 8 years of supervised release (of which I am required to serve 2/3), which is when the real test of my fortitude will begin.
The collateral damage from what I’ve done has been catastrophic. I’ve lost my wonderful girlfriend, I’ve disappointed my family and friends, and I’ve let all of you guys down. Thankfully, all of my family and friends still remain at my side (and even my girlfriend to a lesser extent), but I am a felon now, and that is a hard pill for them to swallow. I’m not trying to garner pity or make light of what I’ve done, but all I can say for sure is that the punishment sure as HELL did not fit the crime. I honestly cannot believe how much time and supervised release they gave me. It is horribly unjust and unfortunately I had a front row seat to the failings of the broken and lopsided U.S. criminal justice system.
But I’m not writing to tell you how backwards our government systems are. I wanted to let you know that I am trying to remain optimistic for my future. Those of you who know me know I’ve always been a proactive and determined person, and I don’t intend to let my time in here go to waste. I’ve known since early 2015 that I was going to prison eventually, and from that point I’ve been planning for my future with various forms of self-improvement. Besides the “simple” things like learning to speak Spanish, Italian, and getting into a heavy cardio and strength training regimen, I had decided to also try my hand at becoming a writer. To that end, I decided to develop “Dark Rift” as a trilogy of novels. I love that story and world so much, and I simply do not want to let it sit dormant for the next couple of years. I am already deep in the plotting stages of the trilogy, and have bought many, many books on teaching craft to new fiction writers, novel-plotting, understanding “show don’t tell”, writing believable worlds, crafting believable characters, and even some books on popular sci-fi tropes and constructing alien planets using real science. I am doing daily writing exercises to get better with prose and I hope to put out a product that is compelling for both old fans and new. And if I cannot get the interest of publishers, I will simply self-publish through the major digital outlets. At least I know there is a handful of you guys who will be on-board to see what Polly and Kole get up to, and how Ember and Fyra enter into the story. Oh, and don’t worry. While it won’t be overtly sexual, there will be plenty of “sexy” moments!
Also, I’ve gone back to my roots and gotten way into traditional 2D art. I’ve gotten books on human figure drawing, dynamic anatomy, clothed figure drawing, gesture drawing, perspective, comic book art, etc. I am doing daily work on drawing, too. I’ve also had Xipomus send me a reference book he compiled of some of the 2D erotic artists I admire like JAB, John Persons, and Akabur, and I am emulating their style in different drawings to sort of assimilate their styles. I’ve also been drawing from a ton of manga, so I can create a style all my own. Basically I want to create art in a hybrid Eastern/Western style, but one that is identifiable as purely Epoch.
And lastly, I am 28 pages into a design doc for a 2D video game that I hope you guys will be interested in supporting. We’ve only begun hammering out the details as to the development, funding, and distribution methods, so it will be awhile before we have anything to show. Right now I am just excited to be working on something that I had wanted to do for years but never had the time. It will be an ambitious freshman release for sure, but I never want to do anything half-assed. I think it will be a fun game and something you will all definitely enjoy.
So I hope to talk to you guys again soon, and please don’t judge me too harshly. This is going to be a tough couple years going forward, and even tougher years to come once I am out of prison trying to pick up the pieces of a life left behind, but I still remain optimistic. I want to thank you all for your years of support, and hope to be one day making comics for you all again. Like the tagline on the back cover of our releases says: “we’ve been making comics since 2006 and we’re just getting started”. I’d still like to believe that statement is accurate, and hope you do too. Right now I’m like a bear in winter; hibernating, yet still very much alive, just dreaming and dreaming. I’ll have quite the appetite after I emerge from this hibernation, and I hope I can get right back to work on what it is that sates my hunger… and yours as well. Yes, Epoch Art is dormant… but it is far from dead. Don’t count this young bear out just yet.
Epoch
So that’s it folks. I hope you understand why he found it difficult to tell you.
I’m still going forward with CR 1 HD, but due to my father having health issues suddenly, i’ve been spending most of my free time getting the home up and running and helping out.
This month I hope it stablizes some more, so I can take some holidays I still got coming.
Then finally I can make some progress again, instead of 1 render when there is time.
If you have questions or remarks, let me know and I’ll see if i can get them to Epoch.
Ciao,
Xipomus "
