by J Marc on Mon Dec 28, 2009 7:24 pm
The year is about to end, and today I finished drawing and posted the last 3rd Blade webcomic, which will arrive on New Year's Eve.
I am very happy because I completed the goals I set out to do at the start of the year, which were, "to make interesting comics, to do something new with webcomics, and to keep busy for a full year, so I don't get into a creative slump as I often do. The plan is to keep posting comics all through the year, twice a week."
I think I did interesting comics; all of them were interesting to me and I'm proud of them. I did something new with webcomics, that no one else had been doing. (I also did plenty of toilet humour and superhero parody, so it wasn't all new!) I was certainly busy for the whole year. The comics started out taking not very long to complete, but towards the end of the year, they gradually took more and more time. I also posted twice a week, every week, and even put in seven extra comics. So I can happily say that all my goals were achieved. It didn't end my periodic creative slumps, of which I had a few during the year, but it did force me to be busy, which I am sure was beneficial.
I started out the year with a buffer of 20 comics, which grew to 28 when I was at my quickest. In those days, a comic I drew would thus appear two or so months later. However, when SLG offered to publish The Sixsmiths in June, I changed my focus to that for a while. By September my buffer zone was down to zero, and in that month and October I often stayed awake to the wee hours of a Monday or Wednesday morning to make sure the comic was posted on time.
Altogether 3rd Blade comprises about 220 pages.
It was quite exhausting towards the end, and I definitely did not have as much energy for 3rd Blade as I did at the start of the year. I am glad it's done. It's unlikely I'll do it again. 3rd Blade will stay on the net for another year at least, after that I don't know.
My webcomics career has not ended yet, though! The Sixsmiths will continue until later in 2010.