Chances are if you read webcomics regularly, you’ve heard of Chad Diez. Been a fan of The Pet Professional lately? Yep, that’s his crisp, concise line work there. Today: The Comic? That’s also Chad, lampooning the political and pop-culture headlines of today with natural satire and a smooth wit. The Sophisticated Pig? Also a great read, courtesy of Wiz Rollins’ uncompromising scripting and Chad’s dynamic, yet subtle style. Well, as of today, only one of these strips now feature Chad on visuals.

Effective today, Today: The Comic and The Sophisticated Pig are on indefinite hiatus. I grant the strips this state of existence because you never know when a creator might decide to obliterate the nebulousness and resume updating. Given the reasons behind their respective ends, however, that fate may pass us by.

Today: The Comic has always skirted the line between copyrighted material and free reign information. According to the Diez, this line has been crossed one too many times.

One thing I want to mention about ‘Today’ is that one of the big things for me ending the strip . . . is the copyright issues with using the articles. Unless, Yahoo! wants to have me draw strips only using their articles then ‘Today’ can’t reach it’s fullest potential. I have been thinking about trying to get Yahoo!’s attention but we’ll see how far that takes me.

Outside of stretching himself creatively thin (the reason for the demise of The Sophisticated Pig), it appears Diez has run into the wall that can stop any work dead in its tracks (just ask Rich Stevens for his thoughts on the subject). But he’s not taking the newfound time and freedom for granted:

Pet Professional is one of those comics (to me) that has all the potential in the world. . . . Jason (Salsbury) has been really open towards my ideas for the strip as well as the black and white artwork up until this point. I feel as if Pet Pro is my strongest work right now, so I’m gonna put my all into it.

As a long time fan of the off-again, on-again, off-again, on-again, off-again, on-again hit, I was glad to see The Pet Professional get a new look completely different than that of the original Pet Pro artist, Matt Kaufenberg. Diez’s terrific interpretations of all things Pet Pro have been of a high enough quality in their own right and deserve to be just as highly regarded (and defended) as Kaufenberg’s. And with this resurgence of the animal hitman comes an upgrade to a twice-a-week update schedule (Tues. and Thurs. starting Oct. 31st) and a return to the full-color goodness of the old school PP.

Don’t believe me? Check out this sharp announcement JPEG that Chad hooked us up with and join me in the baiting of the breath. Also, click through the archives of Today and Pig to remember the quality B&W work and prepare to have your monochrome mind BLOWN.