Exiern

Yet more fantastic artistic work by Marshall Reeves for another Halloween! So, thank you Marshall and also, thank you Scott for letting me continue with Halloween specials for a second year as well as this spiel ~ Shan

Check out Marshall’s efforts from last year’s Halloween with our inaugural efforts here!

This is also our and the main characters of Exiern’s way of saying thank you and goodbye to a webcomic that was very good to Exiern over the years.

A question for you all, if a webcomic falls off the Internet and no-one can see it anymore, did it make a sound?

The first ever webcomic is said to be “Witches and Stitches” from the year 1985. However, it’s long since gone from being readily available from the web to us only knowing about it second hand from people telling us it ever existed in the first place and hence as an item of historical interest as it’s effectively as gone as the first ever email (though the guy who wrote it said the actual content of said email wasn’t that exciting, so at least there we’re not missing so much).

The longest running webcomic still with us (“Kevin and Kell“) came along ten years later in 1995 and Exiern appeared ten years after that in 2005.

So that brings us to about this time last year when another very popular webcomic abruptly left the web. I’m sure many of you already knew of it.

We’re not here to speculate as to why “Bloomin’ Faeries” ended but to thank it for all the traffic referrals to Exiern over the years as well as celebrate its existence.

Interestingly enough (for me at least), even though I knew the name from the recorded statistics from Exiern – both as one of the top sources of referral to Exiern as well as one of the top links people clicked on from the Exiern links page when we still had one (on the to do list to fix), I’d never read it – and now the most readily available means to do so is gone. It got me to thinking about the potentially ephemeral nature of this medium.

So, here’s my attempt at piecing together a referential tribute for this year’s choice of Halloween costumes for Exiern’s main cast based on whatever I could find from the impressions and traces “Bloomin’ Faeries” left on the web and wherever that led me from its time with us online.

And as one door closes (though that’s probably not  the reason why it ended but as I said, we’re here to celebrate, not speculate), another one opens.

For as chance would have it, after this page was thought of and designed, a new project from the creator of “Bloomin’ Faeries” was announced as starting the very next day (not a webcomic but what seems like illustrated prose) on November 1st – that’s right, the very next day from this very Halloween!

So be sure to at least check out Tales of the Undying City and its quite remarkable promotional video here! (If it’s moved, try one of the earlier links, some of them also have the same video.) I really wish we could do things like this. Maybe someday … ?

Also, with the making of all this for this year’s Halloween, it led me to thinking about the future of Exiern itself. Inevitably, Exiern too will finish as well one day as all things must but I have no idea when (or how) that is.

I have the easy job compared to Scott, who has to provide at least one new page week-in/week-out, interludes like this current period notwithstanding. Without him, there is no webcomic. So part of that continuing future is because Scott is making it happen with each successive page.

I, on the other hand get to deal with other behind the scenes stuff and being able to dip in and out mainly for the holidays so far. Things can most definitely survive without me, though I like to think I’m adding something of value to the mix somewhere.

Anyway, I shall use this opportunity to thank Scott for keeping this all going since he took charge all those years ago as well as everyone else with us now as well as who came before him both behind and in front of the camera so to speak – as well as the audience who both also help keep Exiern running and who it’s being made for.

It’s been 13 years and I think it’s good for at least 13 more if I had to guess. Which I am because like I said, I know all but nothing about what’s coming next.

But everyone involved has been having fun making Exiern, so here’s hoping there’s a long way to go yet and that you’ll be coming with us. So, here’s to many years to come and I hope you’ve enjoyed the ride so far!

So, I guess what we’re saying is even though the creator of “Bloomin’ Faeries” has moved on to a new project, we’ll remember it once was here too. We’re also aware that in general webcomics are always coming and going but I think from what I’ve seen people say about it, it was definitely up there with the more memorable ones.

I suppose what we’re also saying here is that we hope that whenever and however we’re done (a long time from now we hope as we’re still having a lot of fun!), someone will remember Exiern, this story and this audience in such a fashion for as long as possible too.

Finally, in answer to a possibly more immediate question, when is the main story coming back, hopefully very soon! (Over to you Scott for that one!*)

~~~

*November. 2018. ~STH