Hey! Erika here! You still remember me, right? …I drew all the pink comics on this site for the first, like, 8.5 years of its existence? Yeah, that was me!

Well it’s been a while and I thought it was about time I gave you all an update on where I’ve been and why!

After nearly a decade of working on OJST non-stop, I was feeling preeeeetty burnt out so I’ve been taking the last seven months to switch gears for my creativity and health. What does one do when they take a break from their long-running, deeply personal and frequently autobiographical comic series? One starts a new deeply personal, entirely autobiographical graphic novel, of course!

over on my Patreon. I’m already past 70 rough pages! If you saw some of my earlier OJST comics that mentioned going through IOP and wondered “What the heck even is that?”, then Letters From Space Camp is for you!

Aside from comics, I’ve also been making lots of cool shit too, with the Good Posts about them going up (mostly publicly! For free!) on my Patreon. Oh, and I just made an Instagram account to show off my extremely cool and not at all unnerving Lady Lovely Locks collection, despite intense discouragement from multiple people who love and care about me. Could an unstable person make….THIS?

I rest my case.
Anyway, I just wanted to let you guys know I’m still alive and I am just so incredibly grateful for and impressed by all the hard work that Matt and the newly assembled OJST Team have put into keeping this site running without my participation so that I have the time and energy to rest and work on my other projects for a bit. It’s been fascinating and heart-filling to see this place fill up with comics by other creators. Obviously, we’ve always showcased the work of additional cartoonists, but to see this site become more of a community-driven resource that shares an even wider variety of views and experiences, I dunno man, it just feels good. AND it’s making me inspired for my own OJST comics again??? I don’t wanna get anyone’s hopes up or anything, but there may be a comic or two from Matt and me again in the future.

This time away from the regular grind has been good for my brain and heart. It’s helping me see what I loved about this place and career in the first place. I feel so lucky to have produced all the OJST comics that I did and I’m proud of what this site has become and I’m so, so, so grateful I have the support to take some time to myself to recover. Thank you everyone for sticking around and all your support over the years.