November 25, 2008: Five Years of SHD-WK

So it's been five years of SHD-WK ... time to look back, I guess.

In early 2003, I found myself with too much time on my hands, looking for a new creative outlet. I had recently finished writing a novel-length story, had worked on a few others since, had tried to draw a bit more, even briefly started a webcomic which went defunct really quickly. I was doodling random characters on a notepad, trying to come up with some design simple enough to maybe draw a handful of 4-panel funnies. It went something like this:

"Hmmm ... let's see. Maybe a young knight. With a sword. Except that I can't make a sword look good in this pose ... well, without a sword then. Oh yeah, and a baby dragon."

And it all went from there. (Friends of mine on IRC might remember when I asked "Hey, I have this character, he's some stupid knight, which name should I go with, Siegfried, Kunibert, or Vincent?") Once I had a basic idea and a basic character design, I thought I could try the webcomic thing again. It seemed like a good idea: it would force me to draw regularly, which would ensure that I would eventually get better; and it would force me to create something regularly, which would certainly give me a much-needed feeling of accomplishment, right? Well, it sort of worked.

In November 2003, I finally had the story sorted out enough that I could start. I decided I would update twice a week, Tuesdays and Fridays, and I would always try to be about 8 comics ahead, so that I wouldn't run into trouble with deadlines. I think I actually had 6 comics ready when I started. The format I chose was still that of a 4-panel funny comic, but I knew from the start that I was going to end up in "serious story" mode really soon; I knew the format wasn't really suitable for that, but I enjoyed (and still enjoy) the limitations. It makes it much easier for me to stay on track (I have a bad habit of getting distracted and/or caught up in details).

The comic ran twice weekly for a while. At the end of 2005 I was laid off from my day job (partly due to health problems, which made it impossible to find a new job any time soon) and immediately decided that I could then update the comic more often. I started to work on expanding my buffer (by then I was trying to stay three months ahead at all times), did a trial run of three updates a week in January 2006, and starting from March 2006 the comic ran on a four updates a week (Tue/Wed/Thu/Fri) schedule.

With four updates a week, never missing one and never even being late, I realised at some point that I had quite a lot of readers. It was a bit scary sometimes; I'm really a shy, introverted person, and getting fan mail from strangers made me quite nervous (It still does!). I started worrying a lot about how to make the comic better, how to make it funnier, how to write it in a way that the readers would enjoy it. On some days, I found keeping up with drawing and developing the story to be more stressful than enjoyable.

In February 2006, I had set up a forum for SHD-WK, which I opened to the public in October 2006. It was fairly active for a while. I added SHD-WK to Project Wonderful, an advertising service used by many webcomics, and to several topsites (TWC and bCx still remain). At its peak, SHD-WK was usually in the top 20 on both major webcomic topsites.

In autumn 2007, after my health hadn't exactly gotten better over the past few years, my 3-4 month buffer had dwindled to only about one month. I tried to catch up for a while, but really couldn't. After months of debating with myself I finally realised that it would be better for me if I went back to the original twice weekly update schedule, which happened in April 2008. Since then, the number of readers has noticeably declined, the position on the toplists has dropped, and the forum has all but died. It's understandable, of course. The story flowed much better at four updates a week, and twice a week just isn't enough to keep folks coming back all the time; easier then to just check it maybe once a month. Or once every couple of months. Or maybe not anymore.

Still, I think it is better to update steadily twice a week (even that is difficult for me sometimes, but I'm slowly getting back to having a healthy buffer again now), than to try updating four times a week, being late, skipping updates, putting up stick figures, filler strips, or very rushed comics, and finally giving up altogether. No, I want to finish my story. Even if it takes forever. (It's really hard to estimate at this point, but I think it'll end up being around 2000 strips when all is said and done. That's what, another 12 years? ;))

So, after all this, can I say something like "I have come a long way"? Certainly not. Sure, my drawing skills have improved noticeably in the first year, and still a bit after that, but I'm no artist, and I'll probably never be good at drawing. I'm a storyteller, creator of characters, builder of worlds at heart, and I hope I'm succeeding at least in that, even if my choice of 4-panel webcomic is probably not the best vehicle. I can say though that "I have a long way to go", if only because it will take me a while still to finish my story.

I hope some will go with me, at least part of the way :)