 The last in a seven-part series in which I looked back over ten years in webcomics.As I neared ten years in webcomics, I had two major goals. The first was to compile a hardcover volume of the entire run of Greystone Inn -- all five-and-a-half years of it. The Complete Greystone Inn took 416 pages, and it included the syndicate submission for Greystone Inn and several weeks of a college version of the strip in its chrysalis stage. It also features sample of my very early work as an editorial cartoonist in the 80s and 90s. Publishing that book brought me great enjoyment. The other goal I had set for myself revolved around Webcomics.com. A couple of years earlier, Robert Khoo bought the Webcomics.com URL and donated it to Scott Kurtz who decided Halfpixel should use it to supplement the How To Make Webcomics book with updated information. This was something I had a real interest in, and very quickly, I found myself doing daily updates and moderating a bustling forum. For two years, I donated my time to the site, but in 2009, it was becoming clear that I couldn't continue to justify the time I was putting into the project. I talked with both Scott and Robert and shared my idea. I wanted to take Webcomics.com to a subscription model and turn it from a simple Web site into a kind of professional trade organization for webcartoonists. They supported the idea, and on the first Monday of January, Webcomics.com announced its new subscription plan. As you might imagine, moving a site behind a paywall had a pretty fair number of detractors. The first week was absolutely fierce. However, as the flame war raged, subscriptions quietly poured in. With strong support from Robert Khoo and Scott Kurtz -- both of whom have a regular presence on the site -- both with written content and direct commentary -- the site has already grown in its first six months to be everything I had envisioned for it. Looking back over ten years, I guess one of the threads that runs throughout the entire thing for me would be support. I've been so lucky to have had the support of so many talented and open-hearted people over the years, it's hard to believe. People like Robert and Scott, Dave Kellett, Kris Straub, Ed Ryzowski, my friends at Blank Label and AltBrand and Keenspot... too many to mention. But none of that would have mattered a whit without the love and support that I've gotten from my wife, my boys and my family. Caroline, in particular, stood second to no one when it came to believing in my comics. And, trust me, it wasn't always that easy to believe in. But she never wavered when it came to helping find time to complete strips, funneling vacation time to comic conventions, and most importantly saying "yes" when the world seemed to be saying "no." When I was nine years old, my parents gave me How To Draw Comics the Marvel Way for Christmas because I was obsessed with drawing cartoons. It was my career goal when I was eight, and it never, ever changed. It has been, simply put, my One Thing. To have been able to live out the dreams of a nine-year-old boy... well, it's staggering. So thank you for reading, and for buying books, and for writing e-mails, and for stopping by conventions, and for generally supporting this thing that I started on a whim in 2000. It means the world to me. Now... enough with the looking back. I need to start working on material for my twenty-year anniversary column. See ya then. Not the end. Ten Years of Webcomics: Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six |
 |
