Buffer = 40

At the end of last week I cranked the inked buffer (the queue of upcoming strips) to 38, which is the highest it's been in three years. Today I scripted, pencilled, and inked another week (A really good one, but you're going to have to wait until March 11th for it), nudging the inked buffer up to 40. That STILL doesn't beat the high of 42 (insert obligatory H2G2 reference here) on January 31st of 2004, but I'm in a position to KEEP the buffer bouncing between 32 and 40 for the rest of this month. My goal for this year is to add a week to the buffer each month, so that in December of 2007 the buffer reaches 110. I also plan to keep farther ahead on the coloring. Why work so far ahead? Three reasons:
1) It allows me to take actual vacations. I had my first ever family Christmas vacation in December thanks to a big buffer. 2) My comic does not need to be topical, current, or hip, so there's no reason to NOT work a long ways out. 3) If I die, my estate will have sufficient lead time to hire an artist and writer, such that you might never miss an update. How would THAT be for a webcomic track record?
If you want to keep score at home... well, you can't. But I post buffer updates in the Nightstar Schlock forum, with a new thread each month.