Cosmic Dash, my webcomic, has had a titanic schedule slip. The comic, in recent years, has been known for that; as much as I have tried to fight it, it’s been a nightmare to create new comic pages on any consistent schedule. At this point, Cosmic Dash, as a comic, is not a sustainable concept.
A lot of this is due to changes in life, between my dependency on freelancing over the last few years, and finally getting the full-time teaching position I have been after, the comic ended up taking a backseat. It’s understandable why – survivability trumps my passion projects. Cosmic Dash is a labor of love, but it is so time-consuming that I can’t make it work with my schedule. I am one person, with an occasional assist from Kevin, of course, but I put a lot of effort into the comic that just slows me down overall.
The time investment in the comic just isn’t worth cutting into my existing full-time schedule. As fun as it can be to draw, I am not a fast artist either. It’s a perfect storm of production issues.
But one thing I know is that Cosmic Dash, as a concept, is bigger than the comic. The characters and stories can exist through writing.
The Switch to Prose
Cosmic Dash’s characters and settings have been explored in prose before. I’ve written two novellas and numerous short stories featuring the characters and setting. I believe the volume of written material outpaces the comic material by a significant margin at this point.
So, why am I keen to switch to prose primarily now? If you’ve been following me and my website, you’ll recognize Fang of Triseria and The Dead Life, two novels I am writing. Simply put, I have been able to turn around installments of those far faster than comic pages. Additionally, they just make me happy to write. I have always seen myself as more of a writer than an illustrator and feel most at my element with sentences and paragraphs.
So, my impulse is to continue telling Cosmic Dash stories that way. If I stick to comics, the story just won’t update enough. Through prose, I am far more consistent, and I can get through the backlog of stories I wish to tell.
How Will This Work?
While I still intend to finish episode three of volume four, “Ladies Fight,” as a comic, I plan to start novelizing the story of volume five immediately. It is a big story I have been itching to get to, and I am excited to finally be writing it – I’ve had the outline in my Google Drive for literal years at this point.
But I am not giving up on art entirely. The plan is to have chapter images and additional illustrations included in the written work for some visual variation – much like the chapter image galleries for Fang of Triseria or The Dead Life. I can draw a character or scene in a relatively quick manner. Entire pages are the issue, here.
Additionally, the idea is to scale back the CosmicDash.com website to a project hub here on hpkomics, including a PDF archive of the comics and existing short stories. Pulling down the website and folding it into this website is a huge deal and not something I am pursuing lightly. I’ve had a standalone Cosmic Dash website for decades. It’ll be sad to see it go. The same applies to Serreven.com, of course, including all those comics and the lore posts. All of those are going to be folded over into hpkomics as well.
Feeling Optimistic
I’ve been agonizing over this move for a few months now. I saw the writing on the wall in early 2025, and as much as I tried to fight it, I knew this was coming. In a lot of ways, I am still not entirely comfortable with stepping away from Cosmic Dash as a comic, but I have grown more accepting of it.
As fun as the comic is, I believe that what people come to the website for are the characters and the stories. I am excited about the opportunity to write a more reliably frequent story for the people who love Dash, Mara, Kracker, and the rest of the cast. There have been so many plot threads that are just hanging there, and I will have a way to finally get to them. Plus, everything that exists is still canon.
I don’t think this is the end of the comic, entirely, either. One day, maybe I’ll have the ability to hire help to create comics. For now, though, that will need to wait. I am just not reliable enough to tell the stories primarily through comics right now. I accept my limitations, and I am thankful I can find another path to the same story concepts.
See Ya, Space Cowboy
As it stands, I am already in the writing process for the first new Cosmic Dash novel that will cover the events of what would have been Cosmic Dash: Volume Five. I am working to give myself a buffer of a few chapters before I begin releasing them. Additionally, I’ll need to post the archived materials to hpkomics, which will eat up a little time as well. I am not going to confirm a date, but I feel giving myself six months to accomplish the migration and write new material is fair.
So, we’ll say to expect the new Cosmic Dash novel in June. That seems about right. But in the meantime, don’t be surprised if we have some smaller releases.
This week, we’ll be launching with the story hub, timeline page, and two remastered short stories, “Son of the Soil” and “Preacher.” Expect frequent updates of existing short stories as I begin to port everything to hpkomics. Additionally, the PDF edition of Volume One of the comic is available right now as well.
Once the archive is moved over to hpkomics, the Cosmic Dash domain will redirect to the story hub here on this website.
In any case, please share your thoughts in the comments below. If you enjoy this material, consider supporting my work on Ko-Fi.
