70 years ago this week, from the December 13, 1948 feature story in LIFE - CHRISTMAS AT MACY'S—"As becomes the world’s largest store, it is prodigious, furious and for cash only.“ This image ran in the story with the following caption: "Long slide from the 19th floor to the ground floor through Macy’s package chutes has been taken every working day for 26 years by Mike Reynolds, 53, whose job is to make sure that no bundles are sticking in chutes. Mike wears out a suit of coveralls every six weeks and slides about two miles every week in line of duty.” (Nina Leen—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images) #thisweekinLIFE #Macys #NinaLeen
https://www.instagram.com/p/BrNc0LVgKSP/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1tnxx517qk241

From an unpublished story about April Atkins in 1954 - April Atkins, “the world’s strongest seventh-grader,” Muscle Beach, California. (Loomis Dean—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images) #MuscleBeach #California #AprilAtkins

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I have an important announcement:

As of the end of July I will stop producing new Basic Instructions comics. This may seem sudden, but it’s been several months in coming. A while ago I worked all day slowly wringing a comic out of my brain (some days are harder than others). When I was almost done I realized that I had rewritten, almost word for word, three whole panels of a comic I’d made years before. That, my friends, is not a good sign.

I always said that if I got to a point where I was repeating myself I would stop. I’m sorry, but I’m convinced that we’ve reached that point.

After I’ve run my last new comic I plan to start rerunning every Basic Instructions, in the order they were created, at a rate of three a week. At that pace, it will take over six years to reach the end. If you read the comic on GoComics you’ll get the reruns, but here at basicinstructions.net I will also be commenting on the reruns as I post them. Some of the comments will be like a full blog post. Others may be a single sentence, but there will be something. That’s also where I will tell you about what’s going on with my fiction writing career, which is going to become my primary focus.

I’ll say this again closer to the actual end, but I am deeply grateful to everyone who reads Basic Instructions. This comic has kept me sane through more than one job I didn’t enjoy, and gave me the extra income and promotional platform I needed to transition into a career that I love. I just don’t want to waste your time, and I certainly don’t want you to waste your money supporting me while I waste your time.