ComicsJAN 5, 2023

In My Series Of Comics, I Combine Fantasy With Humor To Create A World That Revolves Around Swords (30 New Pics)

My name is Matthew and I'm the creator of swordscomic.com, a webcomic series all about magical swords and the people who live by them (and sometimes die by them, too!). The series began in 2018 on Reddit and has grown to multiple platforms - it turns 5 this March and will be around 700 episodes in length by then!

Swords is a project that I was doing in my free-time, but as of 2022 I have been brought on to the team at Pointy Bits to create a video game set in the Swords universe. While that is now my job, I'm still hustling on the side to keep growing my brand so that it can do more things.

To see my previous posts on Bored Panda click here, here, here, here, here, and here.

#1

In My Series Of Comics, I Combine Fantasy With Humor To Create A World That Revolves Around Swords (30 New Pics)

149points

I never expected "Swords" to become my full-time career, but I've learned from my game development background that you just keep building on a thing a little bit at a time and make it better where you can to achieve long-term success. There are lots of things I would change with the power of hindsight, but I don't think the series could have happened any other way.

#2

149points

#3

147points

I usually give myself from 8 pm until midnight to create the whole page; including speech bubbles, writing the episode transcripts for the site, and uploading it to 8+ places.

#4

136points

#5

136points

2022 was a CRAZY year to be an artist. AI-generated art appeared on the scene in a big way, looking to change how people consume art online. NFTs created a complicated landscape where people were emailing me every day trying to get rich quick off the platforms I had built up over the last 5 years. The recent purchase of Twitter by Elon Musk disrupted the way we communicate and share ideas. Instagram have made a course correction into video, leaving comic artists like me to try to figure out how to also be movie stars. For me, the challenge now is how to make sure my brand can weather these kinds of shifts in the digital world by being memorable, easy to find and making comics people want to read more of.

#6

133points

#7

132points

I want to adress artists who feel keen about creating comics: You need to walk before you run. Make a comic strip every single day. Make a fun comic that makes you smile. Make something which is easy enough to make that you can still make it on your worst day. Your big serious Sandman/Watchmen dream project can wait until you've improved enough to match the vision in your head. And don't forget that those things were made with a multi-year budget and a team of 7+ artists and writers. I'm certainly not going to make something like that by myself.