Snow by Night

Hello everyone. It’s Eric. I have some news regarding my family and Snow by Night.

On January 15, my wife and I met Elise Rose — our second daughter. She was born with a congenital heart defect. The valves of her heart were not formed right, leaving her with effectively a two-chambered heart instead of four.

Elise spent the first two months of her life in the neonatal ICU. When she stabilized in March, she came home with us for a brief eight weeks. Her broken heart kept her from doing much more than eating and sleeping. But she was a sweet thing who loved cuddles. She looked up at you with big eyes and made adorable cooing noises.

Elise had her heart surgery on June 9. The doctors reattached the valves of her heart so that it would pump properly. She came through the operation well. Over the next week, she came off all the wires, tubes, and supports. After ten days, the doctors sent her home a second time. She was on the mend and growing stronger and louder with every day. She held a rattle for the first time. I was proud of my little Rosebud who had made it through so much.

On this past Tuesday, Elise took a turn for the worse. She had been fussy all day, but when her breathing started to become labored in the evening, we took her to the hospital. There, her condition quickly worsened. Within hours, her blood oxygen plummeted and her pulse failed. Every doctor in the ER must have been in that small room, working frantically to save our little girl, but around 10:30 they were unable to resuscitate her, and she slipped away.

My wife and I took turns holding her body until it went cold. Then, in the small hours of the night, we said good-bye to our Elise Rose.

I’m going to need some time. There is much to be done over the next couple of weeks. Family and friends are coming into town. A funeral has to be planned and a burial site chosen. Also, I need time to grieve the loss of my favorite flower. To give me time to do all this, I’m extending Snow by Night’s hiatus for three more weeks until July 21. My apologies for the delay, but I hope you will understand.

We close with the last of our hiatus updates — Jacqueline’s headshots by Julie. The extended hiatus graphic above is part of the cover for Chapter 9.

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Hello! It’s Diane again, here to bring you the next sneak peek at hiatus redesigns. Tonight we have Naty’s colors for Jacqueline. On Friday we’ll showcase Julie’s headshots, followed by our return to the comic starting Monday!

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Hello everyone. It’s Eric. I’m back from medical leave. My second daughter came home from the hospital last Friday after her heart surgery. She’s sitting her next to me in the bouncy chair. She’s quite noisy, which is a good thing. She can now get a good head of steam up and bellow with the best of them.

This week’s hiatus preview is Jacqueline. She’s Vivienne’s best friend and aide-de-camp. As I was writing the script for Volumes 3 and 4, I wanted to make a change to her background. More of an elaboration really. There was quite a lot of intermarriage between the settlers of New France and the First Nations. I wanted to reflect that in this story with Jacqueline’s background and make her one-quarter Elakanois. Julie did  an outstanding job of trying to keep her close enough to her previous look while giving her a slight native influence.

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Wrapping up our hiatus sneak peeks this week is a series of headshots by Julie to showcase our redesign for Cienan. Come back next week to see one final character redesign – Jacqueline! Per the usual order, we’ll showcase a sketch by Julie on Monday, colors by Naty on Wednesday, and headshots by Julie on Friday. After that, we’re jumping back into the story with the return of Chapter 9 on June 30!

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Today’s hiatus update includes Naty’s colors for the redesigned Cienan. I particularly like this shot of him – the pose, expression, and shading all really come together to give him the impressive aura that freaks Blaise out. Check back on Friday to see Julie’s headshots of Cienan, and again next week for our last character preview before the comic resumes on 6/30!

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Welcome back to our hiatus updates, going on for just another 2 weeks before the comic pages resume! Our spotlight falls on Cienan’s redesign this week, beginning with a fantastic sketch by Julie. Come back on Wednesday to see Naty’s colors, and Friday to see Julie’s expressive headshots.

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To wrap up the previews of Vivienne’s redesign, check out these great headshots by Julie. Next week we’ll continue our hiatus updates with our next featured character redesign… Cienan! Julie and Naty really nailed his character, so come back here to see a sketch on Monday, colors on Wednesday, and headshots on Friday.

The comic itself resumes on June 30!

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Check out Naty’s colors for the redesign of Vivienne in today’s hiatus update! On Friday we’ll be bringing you some of Julie’s headshots to continue the usual pattern, and next week we’ll reintroduce a sneaky character in these sneak peeks.

I’ve also added in a little visual reminder on the index page that the story will resume on June 30! Story pages will be posted on Mondays and Wednesdays with Almanac updates posted on Fridays.

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