Congratulations!

You are one of the 15 people who come to the Akashik page once in a while. What an adventurer you are! And look what your eyes have been met with: a big verbose page and no comic at all. Why? What the hell is going on? Dammit, has another webcomic bit the dust?! I KNEW there was a reason to hate webcomics! And I hate webcomics! Why do I even read the damn things?!?

Ha ha, yeah. As of today, 13 Sept, 2012, Akashik will be the 2nd webcomic I've had to throw in the towel on in my life. The resulting page you see here is going to explain it - verbosely - and thoughtfully tell you where the story was going to go so you won't have to wonder. By now at least 2/3 of you have already sighed angrily and moved on without reading. Don't worry, you don't have to feel guilty about it. Your lack of participation won't kill this webcomic any deader than it already is.

Moving on.

Why Do Webcomics Die Mommy?

There are a lot of reasons why webcomics die. Most die within a year of their creation. Some, like Akashik, manage to make it a few years before they also bite the dust. It's all in the numbers.

1. The creator loses interest. This is probably one of the biggest reasons. The creator gets all excited and somewhere along the way they just... stop caring.
2. The creator loses free time. This has got to be the second biggest reason. The creator has finals to take, a new baby to burp, a new job that works them countless hours of unpaid overtime.
3. The creator can no longer maintain a financial foothold enough to keep going. This is also one of the more frequent reasons and is pretty self explanatory.
4. The comic comes to its natural conclusion. This really does happen once in a while. I had hoped Akashik would be one of the blessed few, but alas.
5. Due to the comic not becoming a huge success like For Better or Worse or Sluggy Freelance, the creators drop the project. This last reason may sound shitty to you, but it's the law of marketing. Mainstream comics are cancelled because of failure. Webcomics die because of that, too.
6. The creator gets enthused and takes on too much at once.

I'm sure there are more reasons, but I just can't think of any right now. Feel free to email me another reason if you like at uwillneverdoit@akashikonline.com.

Of the reasons above, I'd have to say what has killed Akashik is 3 resulting in 2. Number 5 isn't helping.  Honestly, my day begins the moment I stumble out of bed. I go to this computer, I sit down, I look at my commissions, answer client emails, work. And work. And work. And work. In the evening I break to watch about an hour of TV with the family. Then I come back here and I work sometimes until 3 in the morning. I go to bed. I get up anywhere from 9 to 11 in the morning and rinse, repeat. And for what? To pay the monthly payments on a few credit cards (all monthly payments are supposed to be under $40 but get behind a LOT due to financial stress) and maybe some food. I make *that* little money.  Fitting Akashik, Heavenly Bride, and 10 Confessions into that is worse than murdering an angry shrew on steroids with flaming ninjas at their back. I'm tired, damn it. I'm fucking tired to the point all I want to do is lay down and stop moving forever. I ache. My right arm from the wrist to the shoulder joint is a permanent mess.

I've been thinking for the better part of the year how it's time to throw in the towel. It isn't that I haven't stopped caring. I didn't take on too much. I took on what was right for me, and then my circumstances changed and life became too much. It's because I have no time anymore except to be a slave.  It's because not enough readers care - and without the readers I just see no fucking point with carrying on. For those of you who do come and read, I love you for it. I do know you're out there. I also know how scant in numbers you are.

Let's face it. I've been doing Akashik for well over five years now. I honestly am not sure how long I've been working at this monster. It has a planned ending. It has ... a lot of important (to me) stuff in it. You're supposed to give a comic 2 years before you decide if its a failure and close it because of marketing reasons. I gave it at least twice that long - and the amount of readers I have now are no greater than four years ago. Hell, my own husband doesn't read it anymore. He'll probably never realize I've put this page up. Or the other two people who used to help me create it. This comic is not a marketing success. It's literally killing me instead.

So I'm having to make another choice. Of the comics I do I choose to keep Heavenly Bride going and close Akashik. 10 Confessions was closed a long time ago: if you want to read that you have to buy it or participate in a Kickstarter campaign. And it's sales and campaigns that allow it to happen. No support, no 10. Plain and simple. That may not seem fair, but it's no different than buying the latest edition of The New Mutants - well. My editions come at a more reasonable price at least.

So what now?

I shut down this website open-endedly. What I mean is this website stays here. And if my circumstances magically change I'll be back. But I'm not going to hold my breath. I don't recommend you do it either.

I'm also taking down the damn forum - I'm sick and tired of cleaning out spam bots from it while only 3 people use it. And that only sporadically.

I will keep working on Heavenly Bride and only Heavenly Bride. And in the future, maybe I'll finish Akashik's story as a prose novel or something. If I can extend my life by 200 years so I can find the time.

This is breaking my heart to have to do this. But I'm just not able to carry on by myself anymore.

Why Heavenly Bride?

The script is 100% written. It's placed before Akashik so linearly it happens first. It makes sense to tell the tale of Taus's youth first then her messed up adventure in space later. It has ground work in it for what makes Taus tick: also important for Akashik. The two comics are very linked together. So I'll go in order somehow. Maybe. And maybe Heavenly Bride can survive at least. I hope.

So... about Akashik...

By the time of this shut down, Taus had already lost her ancestral home and decided to get serious. Events surrounding her little team were going to reveal the oppression people suffer under the Adonai and his policies - anything from triple priced spaceship insurance to indefinite prison interrogations because someone suspected you stole an apple pip. There were going to be a couple of more space battles. The team were going to end up in a swampy area of a planet where they meet Krom - who got a mention in chapter 1 - and some Amazon type lizard ladies. Booze was going to be involved. Taus, it turns out, used to live in a temple for very special reasons that I can't reveal here because of Heavenly Bride - but its those reasons that will give her leverage to amount a push back to the Adonai.

Originally Akashik was going to be a very long epic with a quest to find all these relics, but that was too long so it got cut short to a few battles, a lot of soul searching, people developing, Ganji returning, and Yuna deciding to stay with the Amazon lizards to have and raise her baby. There was going to be this really fun prison break arc... and a very dramatic dark period in the story where Taus loses her feathers and is tortured in prison for a long while. Things were going to wrap up with your typical victory - except there was going to be no ticker tape. Just a tired fallen angel, what's left of her band of fellows, and a planet called Earth. The end.

Yeoman was going to die at some point. So was Fox. I'm prepared to say a lot of people were going to die - but Hrlorg's name was originally Dies-in-Windshield so who can say for sure.

Oh. And most important: there were going to be rain turtles.

Sorry to reveal such a boring and typical ending. Akashik's formula is just your typical King Arthur type story, is all. (More popular stories than you realize use that formula, so I don't feel bad about it.) I always felt that with Akashik was more about how the characters got to where they were going and the jokes inbetween than anything.

And that's it. I'm finished talking. 

Anything else I have to say here is just a repeat of all the things I've hinted at subtly over the years. Those that weren't paying attention then aren't going to listen now. And the rest of you: I'm very sorry. I'm truly very sorry.  I hung in there as long as I could. I hate doing this and publically acknowledge I'm still hoping tomorrow will be another day as it always has been before. But right now, even when the sun rises again... it's only so I can work some more. And that's just how it is.

Moving on.