Update as of 9/26/21 – There have been some sporadic updates since the below announcement. Please be sure to check things to make sure you haven’t missed anything, and be sure to follow me on social media for possible further updates.
It is with a heavy heart that I make this announcement, but as of today, Bardsworth will no longer be updating. While I don’t want to say that it’s for good, I have no intentions of returning to it in the forseeable future. This was not a decision that was made lightly, but rather something that has been brewing for a long time now.
Bardsworth was always intended to one day be my full-time job. Sure, it was absolutely a creative outlet for me and one that I enjoyed, but from the very beginning my dream was to make enough money from it so that I wouldn’t have to work any other jobs. Nearly twelve years later that still hasn’t happened, and I’m working two part-time jobs while being a stay-at-home father for two children. I’ve been stressed out trying to get updates out, as well trying to keep up with Patreon rewards that people are paying to get. And, unfortunately, I can’t do it all. So something needed to get put to rest, and I made the very difficult decision that it needed to be Bardsworth.
While Bardsworth will lay fallow for an indeterminate amount of time, I do want to assure everyone that I don’t plan on abandoning it completely. I won’t tease you and say that I’ll continue the webomic because, frankly, I don’t know if I will. I need to spend some time away from it. But I do want to continue writing the Bardsworth novels. I feel like the story can be better told in prose than in a webcomic.
Now, I have been on the other side of this. I’ve been reading webcomics for much longer than I’ve been making them, and I always hated when a creator would stop updating in the middle of a story without any kind of closure. I owe you guys more than just a full stop, so I’m giving you that closure. I put together an outline of major plot points from the point that I’m leaving off of the comic all the way to the ending. Keep in mind two things before reading it, though.
1.) Nothing is 100% canon. These are all things that I wanted to do, but in the course of writing the actual scenes, things might have ended up differently, or they might not have ended up in the story at all. I’ve had quite a few “deleted scenes” and ideas never fully used in the past, and it probably would have continued happening.
2.) Since I do intend on continuing to write Bardsworth as a series of novels, I have to warn you that if you plan on reading them, you will possibly encounter spoilers for future stories.
Those points being made, if you want to download the PDF and read it, get it here.
Lastly, I wanted to say thank you to each and every one of you. Some of you have been here from the beginning, some are new. Some of you have given me support in the form of money, some of you have given me support in the form of encouraging words. And I treasure each one of you. Bardsworth never would have made it this far without you. So thank you so, so much for everything.
To the next great adventure! The plate might be empty for a moment, but who knows what kinds of cookies will be on it in the future.
