Sword Maths
It's been a while since I crunched the numbers, so I thought you might enjoy a Swords-eye View of the series and the journey it's been on.
I think it's easy to lose sight of some things when you're standing in the middle of them. I maybe didn't fully appreciate the magnitude of how the Patreon has almost doubled slowly over the last 18 months! Thank you!!
People get worried sometimes that the series is a bit slow or that I've disappeared for a bit too long, but there's usually a reason. March and April 2021 were all triple-length episodes building up to the Season 3 finale, so it's fair to say March this year was the slowest on record - but I did explicitly announce a hiatus to ship cards.
October 2019 is the only time I successfully did an Inktober/Swordtember and actually finished it. But I'm a silly boy, so I'll probably try again this year!
And So, The Current Roadmap:
Swordtember in September - we can make a prompt list together, let's make it weird
Finish the Patron Swor'nament in October and squeeze in a Halloween episode after
Try to reach Swords #1000 by Christmas, but failing that, the 8th Anniversary in March is a nice time to do something big with Kargob and panDEMONium too.
It would have been nice to race gracelandwest to 1000 episodes (952/1000), but I'm still a bit too far behind (936/1000) without some sort of unhinged comic marathon to close the gap. I probably have healthier things to do.
It's about time to finish Quest Sprout's Main Quest too... but I'll need to decide if I can commit to that in August or it should wait until November. It's definitely happening before Episode 1000, even if I have to make Episode 999 a 10-parter.
Comments (4)
I'm not worried when you disappear. I just assume you're visiting the Wordsmith for new sword puns. (I continue to be deeply impressed that you're still coming up with new ones after this many comics)
I should really gather up the years of drafts and scribbly notes and share them all - there are some real bangers in there I'm just too lazy to actually draw.
My only real request is to do whatever is healthiest for you!
Very hard to quantify what would be the healthiest. If the job market was clearer and there was a straight path for me to get back into full-time work, I would put the comic aside for a while to do that. Swords money should be getting used to grow Swords. On the other hand, while it's unclear how long I will be out of mainstream work, any time I'm not spending on Swords is failing to capitalize on the time I have available. Just being in a limbo between the two which I didn't plan for is probably the kind of daily stress my Doctor would be telling me to avoid, if I felt like I could afford to go. But I'm not complaining - I'm leaning into comics right now, because that's the thing I have the most control over.