EL INDON is a story of intrigue and mystery. In this world, people make their way by mastering the powers of a magical Trade, like Weaving or Smithing. Tradespeople are raised and trained by Guilds and Guildmasters, and at the center of these Guilds is the holy city of El Indon.
You can read it here:
Thank you so much for reading! For those who have just found this story, and for those who remember it from a long while back, some words:
I started making this comic in 2012, but more regularly in 2013, and I haven't finished a new page since 2021. It sits at 8 of a planned 20 chapters, and that's after many, many streamlines to its script, the back half of which is still kind of airborne. So now, El Indon is over a decade old, and nowhere close to being finished. And honestly, I don't know if I'll ever finish it.
The reasons for this are pretty broad, but mundane: my 2010s were very tumultuous and unstable. I moved around frequently, I was an emotional wreck, and I was in a state of semi-bankruptcy for most of it. Thankfully, my social media / comic project Ask The Werewolves really took off, spiked in popularity, and started to earn me for-real money. El Indon, a long-form dark fantasy that is a very moody and slow read, did not. When I pitched El Indon to Hiveworks in 2016 (it was a finalist, they loved it, but they politely declined another furry comic), things were going very well for it. Energy was high, output was regular. It might well have shaped up into one of those Long Running Comics that people sometimes talk about wistfully, and catch up with the archives on a rainy Sunday afternoon. Instead, it became clear that other art needed my focus, because that was what paid for my rent, clothes, and food. El Indon thusly went on the backburner, and then the back-backburner, and then into the box files for a long time. Though I occasionally found time for my darling comic, it is simply an enormous labor - one that is not as successful as the other art I do, and therefore, of lower priority. Capitalism.
And yet it's still the most beautiful thing I've ever made, in my eyes. That's why this is so hard to think about.
While I am in far better and more stable living conditions now, presumably encouraging me to return to this story, I can't deny that I might not have 12 more chapters in me anymore. After injuries, changing circumstances, chronic medical issues, transitioning, and living 10 years of life... I am not the same person I was when I started writing this story. I don't know when it happened, but I have kind of lost sight of the core ideas of El Indon: the melancholy of not liking yourself, the terrors of an uncertain future, and not trusting other people. I don't feel those things much anymore. I got my 15 minutes of fame, my validation, my self-worth. I made friends, lots of them. I found the love of my life. And I kind of want to forget what those old anxieties were like - fuck knows I have plenty of new ones.
I have to consider the real possibility that I cannot finish this work - that my oldest, biggest, most favorite project might never come to fruition after all. I might just not live long enough to do it. It would take too long, be too tedious, drag me away from other work that I need to do to pay all these bills. Or, maybe, I'd finally find the time and the inspiration to indulge again... and find that no creation comes at all. Find that I just can't think of much to make anymore, or can't find an ending that suits me. That happens. It's happened to tons of things in my files over the years, full of brilliant first chapters, great concepts, practice notes, and test sketches that all amounted to nothing. El Indon would just be a more extreme case.
I'd rather that not be how it ends, of course. I would like to live. I would love to finish the comic that I hope to call my greatest work, if there is such a thing. But I might never. And that notion doesn't frighten me in the way it used to. As I write this, I'm working on finishing Ask The Werewolves (kind of come and gone itself), and do not plan to dedicate any time to El Indon in the near future. Someday, I might finally have the spark to return to the cold and dark world I wrote once, when I was still young and terrified. Here in the moment, I don't. And if it turns out that I never do... El Indon will still be my favorite work I've ever made. One of the only pieces of my own art that I love without question.
Maybe you and I will come back here someday, or maybe not. Even if that day never comes, you can find and support my other work at any of these other outlets. Thank you so, so much for reading.
Sincerely,
Jade
7-18-2023
You can read it here:
Thank you so much for reading! For those who have just found this story, and for those who remember it from a long while back, some words:
I started making this comic in 2012, but more regularly in 2013, and I haven't finished a new page since 2021. It sits at 8 of a planned 20 chapters, and that's after many, many streamlines to its script, the back half of which is still kind of airborne. So now, El Indon is over a decade old, and nowhere close to being finished. And honestly, I don't know if I'll ever finish it.
The reasons for this are pretty broad, but mundane: my 2010s were very tumultuous and unstable. I moved around frequently, I was an emotional wreck, and I was in a state of semi-bankruptcy for most of it. Thankfully, my social media / comic project Ask The Werewolves really took off, spiked in popularity, and started to earn me for-real money. El Indon, a long-form dark fantasy that is a very moody and slow read, did not. When I pitched El Indon to Hiveworks in 2016 (it was a finalist, they loved it, but they politely declined another furry comic), things were going very well for it. Energy was high, output was regular. It might well have shaped up into one of those Long Running Comics that people sometimes talk about wistfully, and catch up with the archives on a rainy Sunday afternoon. Instead, it became clear that other art needed my focus, because that was what paid for my rent, clothes, and food. El Indon thusly went on the backburner, and then the back-backburner, and then into the box files for a long time. Though I occasionally found time for my darling comic, it is simply an enormous labor - one that is not as successful as the other art I do, and therefore, of lower priority. Capitalism.
And yet it's still the most beautiful thing I've ever made, in my eyes. That's why this is so hard to think about.
While I am in far better and more stable living conditions now, presumably encouraging me to return to this story, I can't deny that I might not have 12 more chapters in me anymore. After injuries, changing circumstances, chronic medical issues, transitioning, and living 10 years of life... I am not the same person I was when I started writing this story. I don't know when it happened, but I have kind of lost sight of the core ideas of El Indon: the melancholy of not liking yourself, the terrors of an uncertain future, and not trusting other people. I don't feel those things much anymore. I got my 15 minutes of fame, my validation, my self-worth. I made friends, lots of them. I found the love of my life. And I kind of want to forget what those old anxieties were like - fuck knows I have plenty of new ones.
I have to consider the real possibility that I cannot finish this work - that my oldest, biggest, most favorite project might never come to fruition after all. I might just not live long enough to do it. It would take too long, be too tedious, drag me away from other work that I need to do to pay all these bills. Or, maybe, I'd finally find the time and the inspiration to indulge again... and find that no creation comes at all. Find that I just can't think of much to make anymore, or can't find an ending that suits me. That happens. It's happened to tons of things in my files over the years, full of brilliant first chapters, great concepts, practice notes, and test sketches that all amounted to nothing. El Indon would just be a more extreme case.
I'd rather that not be how it ends, of course. I would like to live. I would love to finish the comic that I hope to call my greatest work, if there is such a thing. But I might never. And that notion doesn't frighten me in the way it used to. As I write this, I'm working on finishing Ask The Werewolves (kind of come and gone itself), and do not plan to dedicate any time to El Indon in the near future. Someday, I might finally have the spark to return to the cold and dark world I wrote once, when I was still young and terrified. Here in the moment, I don't. And if it turns out that I never do... El Indon will still be my favorite work I've ever made. One of the only pieces of my own art that I love without question.
Maybe you and I will come back here someday, or maybe not. Even if that day never comes, you can find and support my other work at any of these other outlets. Thank you so, so much for reading.
Sincerely,
Jade
7-18-2023