State of the Rock vs the State of the World

Brad here again. This was originally going to be the blog post for the newest page, but it ended up being too long and too rough and I figured it might be best to put it out for everyone.

I gotta get vulnerable with you all for a bit. I talked about this briefly last post, but... it really has been scary for adult creators lately. I've seen my friends get demonetized and removed. I've seen bills go up to criminalize us. More and more states and countries are demanding ID verification. And while Rock Cocks has always been on the lighter side as far as explicit content goes, that doesn't really matter much when states like Michigan are proposing a ban on all explicit content. Or hell, even if the government doesn't do it, there's always the looming threat of credit card processors pulling out.

This Patreon is our main source of income and Leslie's full-time job. Since writing doesn't take as long as drawing, I use my time to help other adult artists on Slipshine and am currently helming an adult game project. All of that is in danger right now. And regardless of how likely some of these things are to pass, the fact that so many bullets are being fired from so many directions is enough to make us worry when one's going to actually hit us, and how much damage it will do. While we do have a Subscribestar in the event that something happens to us here on Patreon, the amount of subscribers is only a fraction compared to Patreon, and I don't know how many people would jump ship if it goes down.

Leslie and I have had to have some uncomfortable conversations lately. We're over halfway through our intended progression through the Rock Cocks story, but we've had to discuss whether we should consider ending the comic early, perhaps even in the next chapter or so. Is a rushed ending better than risk never being able to complete it at all? We don't know how long we'll be able to allow the main Rock Cocks site to be freely viewable with these potential laws coming. Ironically, we might have to depend on pirate sites to continue updating our comic for the general public (because obviously, they'll still exist)... but that depends on if we have anywhere to post new pages at all. Should we start laying down the tracks for a new project now? Is that something anyone would even want if Rock Cocks doesn't get to properly conclude?

There's a lot of uncertainty, and a lot of questions I don't have answers to.

But we don't want to quit. And we won't. We love this comic. We love making adult content. It's not fucking fair when actual sick sex pests hold the highest offices in the fucking world, and we have to worry if we're going to get potential fines or jailtime for drawing consenting cartoon adults.

So... fuck it. We're going to keep going until we physically can't. We do have ideas for what comes after Rock Cocks, but we're going to try our best to finish Suria and Steg's story even under all this goddamn fucking bullshit from this ridiculous psycho clown show of a stupid fucking country. We're going to outlast it. We're going to outlive this incredibly shitty era. We love these characters and we're going to keep telling stories with them as long as we possibly can.

But we do need a break, because holy shit, this has been exhausting and it's definitely been affecting our work.

Rock Cocks will be taking a short two week break, but we'll still have new rewards out at the beginning of next month. If you haven't subscribed, we would greatly, greatly appreciate it and have hundreds of amazing rewards to thank you for it. This comic couldn't exist without your generous support, and we are eternally grateful to you for allowing us to make this our job for this long. Thank you so, so much. Let's keep making comics together forever.

That's all for now. See you soon with more Rock Cocks!