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Every Hole #1 Now Available
on November 17, 2023 and modified on November 17, 2023.
The first book of the Other Project is now available, free to Patrons or $5 standalone on itch.io.
At the lowest points of my personal meltdown at the start of 2022 I poured it all into writing this weirdo prose-comic fusion. It contains my nostalgia for OCTs of the 2000s, in which I met some of the more important friends of my life, it contains shards of my midlife meltdown, and it contains the semi-suppressed queerness that accounted for 90% of the meltdown. Visually it’s a deliberate throwback to how I once drew battle comics on web forums, to the black and white indies that had the most actual impact on the comic artist I became. It is an unashamedly stupid story, but working on it saved me at my lowest point (trite but true!) and it is now important to the fabric of my being in a way Next Town Over never was. It is also going places, places this first, experimentalish chapter doesn’t fully speak to, for better or worse. It is my melancholy over my age and the missed opportunities of my closeted life, snuck in between the sheets of what is going to be a very weird time. I’ve paused working on it to finally finish Next Town Over but after Next Town Over, this is one of the places I’m headed. While this first book gets an 18+ for content, it is not erotica. I cannot say the same for later chapters.
Elephant
on March 8, 2023 and modified on March 21, 2023.
I wasn’t going to make a post like this.
I quietly and gradually came out on social media, over the first half of 2022. As a binary trans guy who just wants to functionally disappear and live my life and is also pretty exhausted with the social effort of disclosing, over and over, exactly precisely how trans I am on dating apps, etc., I just wanted to let readers figure out where I was vs making another awkward, formal announcement. I figured it was easily assembled via my Twitter, my presence in the comments on here and on the Discord, and anyway it makes very little material difference to the comic, which is what people are here on this website for.
But it’s getting harder to sit quietly with people seeing me in the comments, replying as who I am, and then responding to me or someone else with my old name. More importantly, in the current climate of unprecedented attacks on my rights in states all over the US, where I live, being stealth, being silent, is a privilege, even a luxury, a safety net not everyone like me has. My people are being effectively Othered by a narrative positioning us as child predators; the Arkansas Senate just passed a bill that would by its phrasing make me a felon if I use a public restroom with my own son who needs to go. So it feels important you know we’re not child groomers; we’re the dude who makes the comic you read with the magic horses and cowboys, who takes his kid to the dentist on a Wednesday morning and writes stilted coming out posts from the waiting room. We’re trans and we’re also regular ass people just existing out here. Half of you didn’t even notice I’ve been an out trans guy for an age at this point, that’s how regular my ass is. Now please stop calling me by my old name in the comments, and please resist, to the best of your individual ability, the rising tide of bullshit looking to strip me and people like me of some of our most basic rights in whatever state or country you call home.
So hi. I’m EE “Ben” Mehlos. Don’t get it twisted. I hope we’re still friends and partners in storytelling, but if not, if you can’t hang with it, don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out; you aren’t the first, you won’t be the last, and I will likely notice you’re gone about as hard as you noticed who’s been making Next Town Over. 💖
—Ben
EDIT 3/21/23: Thank you all so much for the supportive comments! It has been far more positive than expected and I’m touched and a little relieved. I intended to reply to each but there are now so many I’m probably going to stop but please know that I read and appreciate every one.
I apologize for the semi-confrontational tone of the original post but I was fresh from scrolling the newsfeeds and anticipating comments more like the ones left by a singular, tenacious transphobe, which I shoveled fairly instantly into the trash. My existence is not a debate and I’m not paying for webhosting to platform stochastic terrorism, full stop. To that person: if you get around my IP blocking through accident or intent to leave more I’m just going to do it again bro; enjoy using your limited time on this earth writing shit for the dumpster I guess.
Welcome to NTO v2; Just in Time for the End!
on November 1, 2021 and modified on November 1, 2021.
Well. New website is here just in time to start posting book 13. The end. I intended to get this up about 18 months ago. I intended it to look better and do more. But wait; back up: I intended to put up a better site basically since the beginning. The beginning over a decade ago. And this is the farthest I’ve managed to get.
It is possible you dislike this new site! But! Give it a chance. It is more responsive, easier to work on, and friendlier to mobile devices if not strictly mobile-friendly. All your old comments are here, a database feat I had to get some outside help with as this is a fresh install of a slightly different platform on a new webhost. Every page of the comic has been reuploaded at a significantly higher resolution as well, for those of you who like to really scrutinize the deets.
And, hey, if you do dislike the new site, there’s always the NTO mirrors at Tapas and Webtoon.
Happy Halloween!
2021 State of the Comic
on January 12, 2021 and modified on March 8, 2023.
I’m overdue to make some kind of blog post addressing the state of the comic and I, and a new year seems like as good a time as any. Scroll to the bottom line if you’re not interested in what will probably amount to a blow-by-blow of 2020.
First of all let’s not mince words: last year was a catastrophe as far as Next Town Over was concerned in addition to being a disaster all around. Heading into 2020 I felt like I was heading into the homestretch, the finish line of this sucker in sight, and I was simultaneously excited to be working on the Patron-only comic again, as well planning on a return to streaming and more work on game dev in addition to being back at doing illustrative work for hire, which is always more lucrative if somewhat less of a passion. I was also about half done with a new website on a new host meant to eliminate several extremely longtime issues with the current site and just update the comic’s primary home to be more usable, more readable, etc.. And then March and April happened. My kid and spouse came home for keeps. I was suddenly responsible for essentially homeschooling the boy because there was no virtual learning plan in place when the school initially closed and they were scrambling to even send out any kind of resources. My partner makes the lion’s share of our money, so I was functionally banished from my office as he [needfully] took it over to work from home. It got real hard real fast to stay on top of the comic while making good on additional commitments made pre-COVID. Then it was summer. Then it was fall, and school recommenced – virtually. And then it was the holidays. On Christmas morning we awoke to a freezing house; our boiler had died in the night and we had no heat. And and and.
I am tired.
Since I started posting Next Town Over I have always managed 52 updates a year, give or take, until last year. In 2020, I posted 21. Coincidentally and somewhat hilariously, last year was NTO’s 10th anniversary. I have been doing this for a decade. And rather than commemorate it with something big, I mostly just rattled around my house trying to keep up with my kid’s education and stay on top of commissions. I’m sorry. I hate it. I wanted to be celebrating the conclusion of NTO by now, for all our sakes.
But all I can say is I’ll keep going if you will! Thanks for sticking around! An extra thanks to Patrons who’ve supported me throughout this fallow stretch, some even offering to support me when I paused my billing for a few months because I didn’t feel I was keeping up my end of the bargain!
I hope 2021 finds you faring … decently, at least. It’s hard times for a lot of people right now and I don’t mean me; I was fortunate my big issue in 2020 was I couldn’t update my webcomic as much I wanted to and I’m very aware of it.
All the best.
NTO Discord Server
on March 15, 2020 and modified on March 15, 2020.
My spouse is working from home, my kid’s school is canceled for the next month; it’s a weird, isolating time! so in spirit of community I finally made a Next Town Over Discord server! General chat is open to anyone so if you’re a Discord user please feel free to join! Patrons also have access to voice chat and a Patron-only text channel. I hope to see you there!
