Happy meteorology irrelevancy day, everybody!

It took me nearly five years, but I finally worked a Ned Ryerson reference into the comic! Although the comic has landed on February 2 the last two years, so I don’t know why I didn’t come up with this idea sooner.

Hopefully everyone is catching the reference in today’s comic. For me, it was a real joy to draw. Incidentally, Punxsutawney Phil predicts an early spring!

I have some big news, so listen up. I need to clue you in to some production changes on the site for the month of February.

Our due date for Baby B is coming up on February 15. Our doctors have told us that Cami could deliver him anywhere between two weeks before and one week after the due date. As such, I have decided to scale back my commitment to Theater Hopper for the month of February.

What does that mean? Good question. Basically it means that I will be updating once a week instead of three times a week.

When can you expect updates? I’ll be posting a new comic every Friday. However, I haven’t completely abandoned new content on Mondays and Wednesdays. I’ve managed to recruit some of my good friends in the community to help me out and I have SEVERAL guest strips lined up for the days I will not be producing a comic.

So that means every Monday and Wednesday there will be a guest strip and every Friday a new comic from me. Each comic will include a blog from me, as well.

So, really, it’s not that bad. I’ll still be around, talking to you every day. I’ll even be keeping up with The Triple Feature talkcasts every Monday at 9:00 pm CST for as long as I can. I just can’t commit the time behind-the-scenes to producing new comics while we’re waiting for Cami to deliver. Also, I’m pretty sure there is going to be a period of adjustment after Baby B is born where I’m going to want to focus completely on my family and I won’t have 3 or 4 hours every other night to draw, ink, color, shade and letter comics. It takes a lot of time.

I wasn’t really looking forward to breaking this news to you because there’s no easy way to say it. But obviously having a baby is a big deal and that’s where my focus needs to be. I know you guys understand. The amazing, supportive e-mails I’ve been getting since we annouced our pregnancy have been proof of that.

So things will be a little different around here for a while. But I hope you continue to make Theater Hopper a part of your week just as you have before. Making comics is something I love doing and the fact that you guys have been there to support it means the world to me.

Thank you.