Hey dudes, good news! I’ve decided to end DAR!
Maybe you already know about it, as it’s been no secret since I’ve talked about it in a lot of the interviews I’ve done in the last few months. But here is my Official, F’reals Announcement. The final strip will air on December 29th, 2009.
My very first DAR! strip was drawn in October 2003 and then made it online sometime not too long after that. That means I’ve been working on this project for about six years now.
It started my sophomore year of college as a 20 year old student and has seen me through my first love, finding my queer identity, my first heartbreak, my first rebounds, traveling to another country, depression and medication, having stupid adventures, meeting the man I’d eventually marry, re-structuring “my identity”, graduation, working in the real world while struggling to keep making art which brings us to today where I’m a 26 year old self-employed happily married woman.
Oh, and I guess there were some dick ‘n’ fart jokes in there too.
Having a weekly deadline has taught me to draw more efficiently and the limited space of six panels has forced me to communicate my ideas as concisely as possible. It’s helped me find my voice and opened up a helluva lot of doors to me professionally. I am extremely fortunate to have gathered a big enough readership that I can mostly live off of this goofy little journal. Most importantly, this comic has been directly responsible for me meeting my heroes, some of my very dearest friends and especially my husband.
I’m extremely grateful for the wonderful opportunities and experiences and connections that have come into my life because of this ridiculous comic.
After six years, I feel emotionally and mentally ready to move on.
But don’t worry!
I have so many more projects I’m turning my attentions towards! DAR! was not my first comic and it is so far away from being my last. Making comics has been my passion for over a decade now (Hell, I even graduated from college with a self-made degree in comics) and I can’t see a time when I’ll ever stop. I’ve still got a whole second volume of DAR! to put out! (It’ll be in my store in early 2010)
If you would like to be updated when my new projects launch, please sign up for my newsletter (I raaaaarely actually use it, you won’t be getting blasted with weekly emails, I promise):
As always, you can keep up with me on the various different networking sites out there:
Twitter + LiveJournal + Facebook + Flickr
My books and original art will continue to be available for purchase, of course!
And you can see more of my work on:
ErikaMoen.com + The Complete List of my Comics + DeviantArt
In closing, thank you.
Thank you to everyone who has read my work over the years.
I truly appreciate every ounce of support I have ever received from my readers and cannot even come close to expressing how much it has meant to me.
Thanks for sticking around and I hope I see you guys in the future,
Erika
