Bardsworth

Today is a big day in Bardsworth history. A huge day, in fact. Please read this entire post to make sure you get all of the important information.

1.) Today marks the seven year anniversary eight year anniversary of Bardsworth’s launch. On November 7, 2005, I posted the very first strip, which was read by a handful of supportive friends and family. Who would have thought I’d still be doing this seven eight years later? Well, I kind of hoped I would be, but I probably would have hoped that I’d be further along in the story. Which brings me to my next announcement…

2.) Starting next Monday, November 11, Bardsworth will return to it’s twice-a-week update schedule, something that was abandoned back in 2008 and that I’ve never been able to return to. This will hopefully move the stories along faster as well as provide more content for my loyal readers and potential readers. It’s going to take a lot of work on my end to keep up with this, which means less time on paid projects, which leads me to my next announcement…

3.) Monday will also mark the launch date of my first Kickstarter campaign, and that campaign is to finish up and have printed the long overdue second Bardsworth collection. I haven’t been able to devote much time to the project over the years, but I’ve gotten through nearly half of the work. In order to get it done quickly, though, I’m looking for the support of you guys and others who might be interested in seeing the second collection come to fruition. If you can’t support the campaign financially, please spread the word far and wide. Word of mouth is a powerful tool.  So check back here for a link to the campaign, or keep track of me on Facebook, Twitter, and/or Tumblr.

And that’s it! As if that wasn’t a lot.

As some of you may have noticed, I’ve switched to using a text font instead of hand-lettering the dialogue.  This is a decision that I’ve waffled on over the years, and usually decided against.  I’m a stickler for consistency, and my own hand-lettering always matched my drawings so well.  However, I think I’ve finally gotten to a point artistically where the drawings are good enough to constitute a text font.  It may take some getting used to, but in the long run I think it’ll work.

The other reason I chose to make the switch is that I’m seriously barreling forward to try and bump my update schedule to two times a week (Mondays and Thursdays).  Hand-lettering takes up a decent chunk of production time, especially when it comes to text walls like we’ve seen in the past few weeks, so using a text font makes things chug along a little bit faster.  The changeover to twice-a-week won’t happen for a while, as I’d like to build up a buffer first, but I will inform you as we near the launch date of that.  I’m excited because it’s been several years of once-a-week updates, and I’ve never been happy with that.  But my life has shifted to the point where my schedule allows that extra time that I lost so long ago.  Believe me, I’m just as excited as you are!

While I have your attention, I want to say that I know I’ve been lax on getting new wallpapers up for supporters, but I hope to have a Halloween-themed one up soon.

Also, stay tuned for a pretty big announcement coming soon.