Omnia fluet, nihil stat. –Hereclitus

As many have probably guessed, I will no longer be updating the Uber Bean. No, hopefully not forever, but at least for one year. Will it return? well that depends. Keep reading.

I love this comic. It was conceived in my first apartment among a group of very dear friends back in 2003. I was attending a junior college at the time. A close friend of ten years and I had been inspired to do such primarily by Real Life. The four guys of the comic were inspired by that original group.

This comic has been my single longest running –and by far my most successful- creative and artistic venture. I took great joy in creating these characters, giving them lives and backgrounds, and even tormenting them occasionally. The joy that I had in creating these comics was a reflection of the joy that came from true friendships. My closest friends reading this recognize many events and stories as near verbatim incidents of what happened on any given day over the last three years. Other times, I greatly exaggerated the humor I found in life and let the fictitious characters run with their own personalities. I even took some of the saddest events in the lives of my peers poured the emotion into more serious tragedies. In any case, I immortalized much from one of the best times in my life with this comic (“It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. It was college.”)

Now, sadly, I feel very far from my original inspiration. I graduated from Azusa Pacific Dec 2006. I have not been around an evangelical Christian College much since then. The initial group of friends who first inspired this strip are still dear to me, but have since moved on from the lifestyles that closely reflect the Marks, Ian, and Andy.

Furthermore, my life demands so much of me right now. I am about to enter my first year of graduate education. I know this will be tough. I cannot stress about my comic while pursuing a Master’s and working full time. My attention is divided as is, and I cannot pursue this endeavor for at least my first year. So for now, the Uber Bean is closed.

Yet I still hope to return to this someday. I will continue to write stories, as inspired, over the next year. Should I feel that the comic is worth returning to, I will leave it up to you –the reader to decide if should return circa August 2009. I will place advertisements and a donation page. If people like the comic enough to donate to it, I will revive it that future time. Who knows where the comic could go?

Until then, thanks for reading. I wish I could thank each and every one of you. Instead, I offer a humble list of those friends who helped, in one way or another, make this comic possible.

Anthony Giacolone
Mike Malm
Dane Bradford
James Harris
Robert Clark
Christine Kern
Cliffton Pee
Jeff DeSurra
Allison Fode
“The Girls”
“the Monestary”
And finally Comic Genesis

Don’t ever stop being wonderful.

Si Valetis, Valeo. -Joel Gonzaga