News about upcoming posts and who's who (Patreon)

For about the next month or so (and hopefully no more than two), we're going to be frequently (but trying not to be too often) updating you all about what's going on behind the scenes just so you all know where Exiern's at.

Scott as you may have heard has some big life changes coming up very soon if it hasn't happened already and so he can't give Exiern the full time and financial commitment that he'd like at the moment. So, that's why I (Shan) have got the primary control of the Patreon (and the first person participle) going forward.

Don't worry, Scott will still be the primary writer on Exiern even though he very generously offered to let me take over the direction of the story. He's got a plan (which even I mostly don't know) and we're going to stick to that (plus it's really for the best that I ... you know ... don't take over the writing).

My job is going to continue to find some way to get Exiern to the break even point or possibly more likely, some additional source of revenue to cross-subsidise the costs (like what Scott was doing for some of it - which he presently is not in a position to do so).

It's also that to date, Exiern has been fortunate enough that in its 15 plus years, it's found someone to help keep it running where the logistics are concerned (paying the artists primarily) but I'm also trying to future proof it lest I get hit by a piece of falling satellite or something sudden like that (I mean I hope I don't but you know life sometimes has other ideas!). 

That's because even though Scott still has access to everything in case of emergency, it doesn't solve the financial reasons he passed it on to me in the first place. So, as fast as I can, I'm trying to sort that out just in case. Plus, regardless I can't think of any reason why the comic itself earning more money would ever be a bad thing.

Anyway, I'm going to update what all that's going to involve in future posts which hopefully aren't too intrusive or too many. One thing I was encouraged to see was that contrary to my guess, we have frequently been getting new patrons on Patreon, it's just that we've been losing them at about the same rate.

So, for starters, I understand if you ever have to stop Patreon payments due to financial circumstances but if it's creative or other reasons, I'm hoping you'd contact us first so we can see if we can help fix things if possible. Part of what we're trying to do for starters is update with as much bonus material as we can for at least the next month. We're hoping as many of you as possible can stay around at least until the end of this one (no charges until the start of the next one, after all).

We're always contactable and we're happy to answer questions and help if we can so please feel free to message here anytime!

A brief who's who (apologies for anyone I miss - it's past midnight when I wrote this).

Drowemos - original creator and artist

Studio Boom - the original professional artist for many years who rebooted the original pages with Drowemos still writing them

Shipeng Lee - the artist who took over from Studio Boom for many years with Drowemos still writing for a while

Scott T. Hicken - the second manager (administrator?) and the one who took over from Drowemos in that position

Chemiclord (Thomas Knapp) - the writer after Drowemos as Scott didn't want to take over straight away. The author of my favourite part of the whole story (sorry Drowemos and Scott!)

Antipus (now Luis XIII) - the artist who took over from Shipeng Lee for a number of years

Studio Katsumi (was Studio Boom) - the current main artist since the start of 2020 (so, we're all but full circle again)

I haven't started on all the guest artists who've helped out over the years like Sean Harrington (Spying With Lana), Marshall Reeves (Yesterday Bound), Colin Wells (Normal) most prominently in terms of guest pages done but also many, many more.

Oh and I nearly forgot myself as I was writing this (Shan) as your third and latest manager? administrator? producer? fix-it person?

Well, more soon about what's going on behind the scenes and what plans for the future are coming up, hope to see you then.

Of course, please feel free to message us or post in the comments section below (in this post or future ones) with any questions or observations as well.