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And now, some really cool news…

Rehabilitating Mr. Wiggles: Vol. 4 goes on sale today!

Vol. 4 collects the last batch of over 160 comics up to the very end! If you’ve enjoyed this comic, please consider purchasing this book (or any of my other three books, actually). It will go a long way towards helping me set up the next great project. Vol. 4 is available from Lulu.com.

Thanks again to all the folks who have supported this comic for so long! I hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as I have!

Best,

Neil

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In regards to personality:
MR. WIGGLES: I’m full of moral fiber! I’m like a laxative for the soul!
NEIL: Well, you are full of shit…

On crime:
Mr. WIGGLES: They could base three Law and Order episodes around what I did to you last night.

As Neil complains to Mr. Wiggles about his porn-viewing habits:
MR. WIGGLES: Hey, it’s not just any porn. This is that rare Woody Allen porn, Hannah And Her Fisters.

On prescription medicine:
NEIL: Are you on your medication?
MR. WIGGLES: If by “medication” you mean “heroin” and “gas fumes” then the answer is “yes”!

On relationships:
MR. WIGGLES: I like you better when you’re not around.

After Mr. Wiggles makes another tasteless joke about molestation:
NEIL: That’s not funny. How would YOU like it if I tied you up and molested you?
MR. WIGGLES: Are you hitting on me?

An unused comic that didn’t make the cut:
NEIL: Mr. Wiggles, why is there a bag of crap in the freezer?
MR. WIGGLES: It’s not mine; I’m holding it for a friend.
(beat)
NEIL: Tell your friend he eats too much corn.

On sex-ed:
YOUNG BOY: My dad has erections all the time. But they’re mostly when he’s naked on the kitchen table, coked out of his mind and screaming about the CIA.
MR. WIGGLES: Your dad sounds awesome, Timmy.
YOUNG BOY: He makes me call him “Susan”.

Another tasteless punchline:
MR. WIGGLES: Tell me something, Timmy: have you ever tasted fear?

And that wraps ‘er up! I’ll dig around through my archives and see what other goodies and/or stories I can come up with for next week. See ya then!

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In regards to anorexia:
MR. WIGGLES: Whatever you haven’t been eating, it’s working.

On division of labor between Mr. Wiggles and Neil:
MR. WIGGLES: I am the 99%.
NEIL: You realize there’s only two of us, right? That makes you the 50%.

On dating in the technological age:
NEIL:  She said she only liked me as a Facebook friend.

In regards to personal grooming:
NEIL: I have so much body hair, I can braid corn rows on my butt.
MR. WIGGLES: I think those are called “cornhole rows.”

Also in regards to hair:
NEIL: I saw a bald guy with corn rows. It was the weirdest combover ever. It was like a cornover.

On relationships:
NEIL: I just want to be part of your life.
GIRL NEIL’S INTERESTED IN: You are. You’re the part that’s not there.

On love:
MR. WIGGLES: I love you like a fat kid loves diabetes.

On being told he’s afraid to express his emotions:
MR. WIGGLES: Punching’s an emotion, right?

On poor sales of his new product:
MR. WIGGLES: It was like I was selling AIDS juice.

On religion:
NEIL: I couldn’t tell if they were praying or talking to themselves.
MR. WIGGLES: Aren’t they the same?

An unused concept:
Pets with Pubic Hair

On attraction:
NEIL: Is it weird that every so often I’m sexually attracted to mannequins?
MR. WIGGLES: Frankly, I think it would be weird if you weren’t.

Also on attraction:
MR. WIGGLES: Who are you—the erection police?

More to come next week!

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Obviously, this wasn’t an easy decision to make. Rehabilitating Mr. Wiggles has been the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done. Throughout my adult life, it’s been the only constant—lasting through a variety of jobs, girlfriends, apartments, and cities. I’ve grown incredibly close to the characters and have always thought of Mr. Wiggles like my child. Well, that’s not true. Like my friend. Because you usually have to look out for children and help them, but Mr. Wiggles did the opposite for me. He helped me to make sense of the world and to grow up. With him I was able to pour through my neuroses and figure out who I really was and what I was about. And I had a lot of fun doing so. He really is a kickass teddy bear.

My reasons for retiring the comic strip are varied. The first one is that I feel like the strip has run its course. When I first started the comic, I vowed that I would quit when I’d exhausted the premise. I loathe cartoonists who continue to rehash the same concepts week after week or, worst than that, phone it in. Doing a comic where I merely “showed up” every week would mortify me. After thirteen years, it felt like I’d reached the tipping point. Having already mined so much comedic gold in the premise, there aren’t a lot more places left to go. Continuing would only see me retracing my steps. It wouldn’t be fresh anymore. And that’s not fair to me or my audience.

The other reason has to do with the limitations of a weekly comic strip. With the premise milked to the bone, in order to take Mr. Wiggles further, I would need to focus more on long story arcs that would have to span many, many comics. Unfortunately, this is not easily or satisfactorily done in the weekly comic strip format due to pacing issues, audience retention, and general reader interest. My only other option would have been to turn this into a daily comic strip and that would have been impossible for me.

The third reason is financial—though not in the way you think. I’ve been fortunate enough to have been paid to do Mr. Wiggles for twelve out of thirteen years (my first year was free when I did it for my college paper). The payment was never a lot, though, but that didn’t matter as I would have done it no matter what. Financially, the problem became one of time. Mr. Wiggles was never self-sufficient so I’ve always had either day jobs or, in the past several years, freelance work to pay the bills. Because of that, Mr. Wiggles simply got done after everything else I needed to do to live was taken care of. What that always came down to was working on the comic on the weekend. For almost the entirety of its existence, I’ve spent my Sundays creating it. For thirteen years. And I miss my weekends. To say that I was getting burned out working six to seven days a week is an understatement.

The final reason also ties into this issue of time. As any creative person knows, there is usually not enough of it to be able to pursue all the things you want. Over the years, my interests have been growing in other media. I have many projects I want to develop and need the time to be able to do so. Unfortunately, committing the hours and the energy to Mr. Wiggles every week has been a stumbling block in doing so. No longer having a weekly commitment frees me up to pursue these projects more fully and passionately.

Individually, each one of these reasons has made me consider retiring Mr. Wiggles. Together, they formed a juggernaut of an argument I could no longer ignore. But, it’s not a sad occasion. I’m enormously proud of the comic, the relationships and friendships I’ve built through it, and the fans that have supported it. As a cartoonist and a creator, what more could you want?

So, the comic will go on for six more weeks to finish out this final storyline. I’ve worked really hard to come up with an ending that I hope will be satisfactory and worthy of the emotional investment that you’ve given the strip over the past decade. If I haven’t screwed up my dates, the last comic will run on June 25th. This will also be the release date of Rehabilitating Mr. Wiggles: Vol. 4, which will contain all the comics since Vol. 3, including the very last strips.

And as for me? While I might not be doing a weekly comic strip anymore in a month and a half, I certainly won’t be disappearing. At the moment, I’m illustrating a Middle Grade novel for a very well-known author that will be published in the next year, an episode I wrote for an upcoming show on Cartoon Network will premiere this summer, and I’m pitching a variety of new projects—from books to TV shows—to various publishers and networks with some promising prospects already nibbling. In addition, I’ve just launched my personal blog, To Baldly Go…, which will be my new home on the web to write about whatever comes to mind. There may even be some comics on it from time to time.

And we’re not quite finished here. We still have six more comics left to go and, throughout those six weeks, I’ll post some random thoughts and unpublished things that might be of interest to you in regards to the comic. I’ll save the official goodbye and send-off for the day the last one runs.

In the meantime, I want to thank everyone who’s supported me and Rehabilitating Mr. Wiggles for the past thirteen years—the fans and the publishers. If it wasn’t for you, this comic would have never made it past the first year. I feel incredibly fortunate to have had a forum to speak my mind and tell my dirty jokes and to all the people who listened and laughed. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

-Neil

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Rehabilitating Mr. Wiggles: Vol. 4 will go on sale in two months. Check back on this site for more updates soon!

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