Hello again. I wanted to do another post regarding chapter 7 because I rushed the last one out between needing to lie down to make the headaches go away. Unfortunately painkillers didn't work so I was semi-bedridden for most of that week. Go read that one if you haven't already.

I'm probably gonna fill this thing out with images anyway.

Despite how long it took to actually release with our lives getting in the way, #7 was actually pretty quick to draw. Since Epper was trapped underground for most of it I could just not draw backgrounds for a lot of the panels. Work smarter, I guess. Maybe Misery just has very sensitive ears. I think the main thing I'm not thrilled about for this one was the colouring. There's a lot of grey in this one. BE is a hard series to colour for in general because the characters all have vibrant designs, but cranking the saturation up all the way would hurt the tone so the end result ends up looking muddy. It's a difficult balance to strike and it's one that I end up missing a lot of the time, at least in my opinion.

Still, it felt good. With things being paid off, Voca disappearing underground to do... something... and even something as small as Chloe from chapter 1 (fat girl with the scarred face) reappearing, it really feels like the first year of the series wrapping up (even if this is technically the third).

"There is no future"

As I said in the last update, this is a chapter I've been waiting to draw basically since the series started. It's the climax of an arc and a pivotal moment in regards to Epper's character and her relationship with her sprout buddy/accomplice. She's a fun character to write as an (allegedly) normal person in this world with something ugly beneath the surface. The "there is no future" exchange was something I was both looking forward to and dreading. At least at the time of writing/drawing it and up until it's release. Now I'm not so sure.

I'm begrudgingly aware of the terminally online's attitudes towards "edge" and how it's currently fashionable to be hopeful in the face of societal collapse and unnecessary, or worse, poorly justified cruelty (for some reason). It's not an attitude I share (sorry). Without squeezing my entire fucking life's story into a webcomic update rant, I've seen some shit. It's definitely not healthy to be walking the Earth full of hatred, but at the same time this attitude that "humans are beautiful and there's good in all of them" just straight up isn't true. I'd even go as far as to call it dangerous in its naivety. Because of this, I can't write a story about the inherent good of mankind in earnest.

Since that kind of negativity is frowned upon by the loudest voices, I was fully anticipating some kind of backlash or rejection of the series for sending a bad message (despite said message being incomplete at the time of writing). Imagine my surprise when people... actually liked it?

Don't get me wrong, there's still time for some 7 hour video essay on why BE is "a blackpilled webcomic for school shooters" in a few years, but seeing the long-timers embrace it despite the extent of Epper's sickness being revealed did force me to reexamine how a series like Bury Everyone and a character like Epper might be viewed by a wider audience (just a little bit). I'm not sure what happened. I like to say the writing process for BE is like vomiting, but who knows. Maybe there is room for a shonen-inspired series by an artist-twitter reject that isn't all sunshine, rainbows and hope for the future.

Or the backlash just hasn't reached me yet. Only a few thousand people read it.

Or that panel of the lad making an "I don't want this" face balanced it out. I dunno.

The wait for 8

If you follow the patreon, you'll know it's taking me FUCKING ages to draw the pages for chapter 8. There's several reasons it's taking me so long. My health, commissions, motivation, the actual art itself. Page 3 especially took a lot out of me (if you want to see it early, you better throw money at me). As I'm sure you know, BE's monster designs are grotesque and messy, which makes them challenging to draw, especially during action scenes. There's a reason our little purple friend's design has become more simplified as the series goes on... at least up until recently.

Basically, it could be a while before this one sees the light of day. I'll release it in parts here, as always, but even then I'm only just now starting page 5. It'll be out when it's ready.

Also, as a quick aside, a few people pointed out to me that BE hasn't had a frontpaged chapter in a while. Thanks for the concern, but it's honestly fine. If I see it through to completion, BE is going to be 60+ chapters, which could end up being over 100 on NG if I keep posting them here and breaking them up into parts like I have been. It'd be VERY unrealistic and entitled of me to expect every single one of them to be featured. The fact that I've already had such an impressive streak of frontpaged chapters is fucking unreal and I can't thank you guys enough.

That's all for now. See you in the next one.