This is how the first chapter of Maximus Wrecks ends. It’s also how the strip ends for the time being.

When I posted page 38, I fully intended to follow it up the following week, and the week after, and the week after. However, some health issues my mom had been dealing with since September continued to escalate. That—coupled with my day job and starting a new gig as an adjunct professor—culminated in me missing a few weeks of the strip.

“I’ll catch up,” I thought, and “I’ll bank a buffer of strips so that when I start back up, it won’t be late again.” Neither of these happened.

My mom passed away on January 10, 2021. I’ve dealt with the passing of a parent—my dad, back in late 2007—but the finality of this…cleaning out her home, and finishing everything up, was a massive undertaking for my brother and me. During that time, I started to realize that my tendency to pack my schedule full of projects I love (three Kickstarter campaigns for The Catch, and a campaign for Athena Voltaire, continuing as I type this, along with Maximus Wrecks) conspire to monopolize my time.

While drawing this strip, I realized that there’s a sense of closure in it. Again, this is the strip I’d always planned for week 39, with Rex, Tatiana, and Lena taking off to continue the mission. But, if I don’t get back to it, I hope it provides an insight into the characters and their relationships, and where I plan to take the strip…enough for you to have that same sense of closure.

Maximus Wrecks means a lot to me, even beyond the usual proprietary sense that we creators get with our characters and stories. It began as a fun tip of the hat to the post-apocalyptic fiction from my youth. And that’s still there at the core of the story. But, in the spirit of the 80s fiction that inspired it, there’s a reflection of the world in which the strip is created, too.

As the parent of a transgender child, I want to be a part of making a better, more accepting world. The character of Lena Lone represents that.

My daughter never came out to my mom, for fear of—and I quote—”giving her a heart attack.” By extension, we hadn’t shared it with my side of the family, and I adjusted my social media mentions to only referring to “my kiddo,” or “the kiddo.” With my mom’s passing, Lucy is out and open (and welcomed!) by my remaining family.

I have no idea how my mom would have taken the news. She’s from a different era, and may not have grasped it. But she was also a kind and compassionate person, who loved her family deeply. In the end, it doesn’t matter. What’s important—then and now—is doing right by my daughter.

This final strip (for now) will forever be linked in my mind to my mom’s passing, but also to Lucy, and what a wonderful young woman she is.

Thank you for joining me on this strip. I hope to be back here, finishing this story sooner rather than later. In the meantime, you can talk to me on Twitter and Facebook