Well, I guess some of you saw this coming.
First of all, I want to apologize for the lack of news on what was going on behind the scenes over here. We saw this coming, too, but we’ve been doing our best to fight it, and that meant not wanting to admit it. But now we figure it’s time to cut back on the stress on ourselves, be honest with our amazing and wonderful readers, and plan for the future.
Runewood Abbey will be going on official hiatus for the remainder of 2011. The reasons are about what you’d expect–a toddler for me, new wife and career for Michael, and blah blah blah about the economy for all of us. We need to regroup and to change our strategy, because the current method of producing pages takes way too friggin’ long and is incompatible with also eating and sleeping and earning money.
The plan is, we’re going to experiment with drawing comics directly via a tablet (which we already use for the Photoshopping phase, so we may as well save some time, eh?). Meanwhile I want to flesh out a lot of the script for the future. When we come back, we hope to be producing pages much more efficiently, and more frequently. There may even be a Kickstarter campaign to help us devote more time to the project, and to work toward publishing. Despite the downtime, we’re excited!
This story is really important to us, and we’re determined to keep telling it. We still have the itch! We just want to do it in a way that’s faster and smoother for both of us and for all of you, and we want to take care of our families at the same time. Words can’t express how grateful we are for all your continued patience and your fantastic comments. This has been an amazing experience. It’s not over yet.
Check back on January 1, 2012 to see what our new plans are going to be. In the meantime, please feel free to “like” us on facebook or subscribe to our RSS feed, so we can update everyone right away as soon as things are up and rolling again.
There will be minor updates during the hiatus, too–these last two pages will be finalized, and one more drawn to at least finish the current conversation. Michael is planning to do a profile image for Ferryn. I’m vaguely daydreaming about starting another webcomic I’ve had in mind for a while, which I would draw myself, meaning it would have much lower visual standards and be publishable on a daily basis. I still have to consider the details, but it could be fun. Meanwhile, whenever a minor or major update happens, you can hear about it by either RSS or facebook, as mentioned above.
Thank you again! We love your guts! We’re excited to kick things back into gear once the new year hits. Send us an email any time you like. ♥
~ Rachel
3 thoughts on “RWA on Break”
Bitter Sweet
It is sad to not have my weekly fix of Runewood Abbey but I am glad that you are both taking time for your family. I can’t tell you how excited I am for the new year. I hope that things work out for all of you!
Rachel
Thank you! Be sure to take a look at our Links page–there are some mind-blowingly awesome other comics out there to help tide us all over in the meantime. :)
Tangentsreviews
How odd. Megatokyo is moving away from using the tablet for drawing the comic because it takes too much time, and Runewood Abbey is moving toward a tablet to try and save time. ;) I recommend reading my “The Cost of Complexity” article at the Tangents site (it’s fairly recent – the one on social networking and technology). While technology can help you save time… it’s tempting to use programs like UStream with it, which end up wasting even more time.
Good luck. I’ll miss your comic and look forward to seeing it return in five months.
And good luck with the toddler. :)