Annotated 50-33
This is the final annotated page of Guilded Age. We plan to make only one further update, a while from now, that’ll serve as a permanent “front page” for the archived comic. Other than that…it is done.
If you’ve enjoyed hearing my “creative process thoughts” and want to keep up with what I’m doing, I’m going to recommend my Substack, which updates daily. It’s focused on my giant crossword project, the Ubercross Abecedaria, and will be for a while, but I’ll be announcing any new comics series and other new items there for the foreseeable future.
I know this is a bit like saying, “If you enjoyed my cooking show, check out my history of medieval Europe”—interest in one of those things does not mean an interest in the other, just because they share a creator credit! But so it goes. I’m quite likely to do more with comics, especially with Webtoon, but nothing’s set in stone on that front yet.
About this page…even when it ran, I was old enough to identify with the “contemplating your mortality in the sunrise” that Gravedust does here (as the dwarves start to break ground for a more permanent settlement). And now, I’m…older. Old enough to be conscious of my limited time here, time I want to spend on new projects and new ideas, not just going over old ones. Doing these annos has been fun! But they’re about as much “looking backward” as I want to do for the rest of my career. Much as I’ve enjoyed my time in Arkerra…I’m looking forward to forgetting how to spell “Syr’Nj.”
Oh, hey, totally forgot we worked that one last Guilditization in. Hello, Gungier! Your story will be left to the imagination.
Thank you for this second adventure to Arkerra, T. It’s been an absolute pleasure.
Guilded Age remains one of my favourite webcomics and will forever hold a special place in my heart. I’m sad to say this final goodbye to it, but all good things must one day end (lest they stop being good things).
I suspect I will check out your other projects, once I have a bit more free time.
Until then, all the best to you, and to Flo as well. You truly did create something magical.
Thanks again for the annotated run through the series, Mr. Campbell. Best of luck in your future projects, and may you enjoy many contemplative sunrises.
Thanks for guiding us through this adventure!
Welp, this marks a constant of my life over the last decade ending… for the second time. I’m gonna miss opening this page as part of my daily routine. But, as they say, don’t be sad that it ended, be glad that it happened.
Thanks a whole bunch T, your commentary was a very interesting read and I enjoyed experiencing the story for a second time.
And here I find myself finishing the comic for the second time!
I started reading, the first time around, shortly after the Death Pit and followed closely ever since. While I wasn’t expecting this second run, this ending does feel a lot more bittersweet than the first one. I think I’ve followed these annos a lot more consistently than any other currently-updating webcoming.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts, you all created a wonderful story. I’ve enjoyed Traveler as well, in its entirety. GA will be sorely missed, looking forward for the next adventure.
My very first – and very last – comment, and it’s to say goodbye. Thank you so much for taking us all on a second run. I don’t remember when I started reading Guilded Age, but it was somewhere during the initial run, and this second one’s been just as good a time – perhaps even better, thanks to the commentary.
Here’s to the end of old journeys, and the start of new ones, for all of us.
Great ending.
GA is easily one of my all-time favoprite webcomics. So this was a really fun re-read with the annotations. Thanks for doing it.
And here at last we find ourselves at the parting of the ways… again. It has truly been a great journey.
I thank T and Phil/Flo for giving me the chance to illustrate this unique and wonderful story.
To the next adventure!
And here I was hoping we’d get another run-through of the whole series, but with you annotating this time.
And now I just need to unlearn the muscle memory of typing “guil” into the address bar that I have built up over the course of a decade and a half. This comic will continue to haunt me for the rest of my days… but like in a good way. Godspeed to you all.
Yeah, still coming back here on autopilot some times.
I come here every day and check the comments number. Shhhhhhhh!
Half a year later, and still coming back here on accident occasionally.
I don’t know what to day without making a giant wall of text. So…
Thank you, very much. Campbell and Waltrip’s commentary made this even more engaging.
I can’t believe it was this long. At the same time, I can’t believe it was this short.
Thank you.
I fell out of the habit of reading the daily updates for this annotated run somewhere back in ’21, which I feel a little guilty over. This world that T, Flo, Erica, John, Jason and anyone else I’m forgetting was a big deal to me, more than I think I can express, so I’m not going to try. I was happy I could contribute with the Kickstarter, entranced by seeing a version of my character, Saphora, make an appearance in a freaking web comic, laughed with the comments left by other readers, and sad when it all ended.
Just… thanks for everything, all of you.
One last thought, self-centered though it may be, is my simplistic headcanon for Saph’s fate after the doubtlessly traumatizing battle in Chapter 36. After picking herself up from that, she was among the Sky Elves who flipped the bird at Caneghem and became an Urban Elf. She might still have some of her old belief of being better than others, but the battle reinforced her view that she was therefore duty-bound to help others. She probably developed a greater respect for adventurers as well. If somebody like Best were to come calling, maybe she’d answer it.
Thanks so much for the re-posts!!! It’s been a blast to read through these again with your behind-the-scenes commentary!!! With Traveller wrapped up and now this, I cannot wait for whatever any of you, T. Campbell, Flo, Erica, John and Jason, have cooked up and ready to unleash on all of us next!!!!!
Thank you for showing us how the sausage got made, good with the bad. It’s heartening to see that creators working at a high level have the same issues as those of us trying to get started. There’s no magic “I got this” as much as a willingness to work the work. That gives me hope
So long and thanks for all the fish.
Thank you all for a wonderful ride!
Thanks for the wonderful comic! Look, we even came back for seconds!
My compliments to Mr. T, to Flo, to Mr. Waltrip and to everybody else involved in the making of Guilded Age. I’ll be delighted to read another one of your creations.
You bring the funny pages, I’ll bring the views and the likes. It’s a date
Oh, the amount of time I spent reading webcomics instead of doing what I was planning to do … a few years ago, I stopped with most of them, even started reading XKCD only occasionally, but the Guilded Age rerun stayed in my routine as the only constant.
Thanks a lot for the story, and thanks once more for explaining so much of what went on behind the scenes and your thoughts about it, including the not-so-great things. Even though I’ve found few more things about it that I didn’t quite like, it’s still made it dearer to me for some reason.
And third: Thanks to all the people commenting here. It’s not like commenters were hard to find online, but somehow the comments here were not just funny or entertaining but occasionally even thoughtful and enlightening.
Thank you all very much, and the best of luck to you, T, Flo, John and Jason.
…and Erica! Erica too!
It’s going to be awful weird when I stop checking the site as part of my daily routine. I’ve been reading since early in the first go around, and I was stoked when it started up again with the annotations.
Thanks for sharing this wonderful story, wild worlds, great art and memorable characters. I kept up with Traveler, and now with this finished too, I cant wait to see what you bring to us in the future!
Thank you very much, it was quite a ride !
I’m not sure what to say. It’s pretty much over now. Getting to read your thoughts, regrets, and filling in details on some early page mysteries has been an absolute hoot the past few years and I’m glad this was done. There was quite a few parts where I had some questions but your little annotations more than satisfied the itchy bits of my brain.
A bit bitter sweet to come to a conclusion, but it’s a well earned one.
T, Flo, Erica, John, you did amazing.
PS:
The part about growing old however? Just a swift jab to the feels. It’s a hell of a feeling huh?
Along with a handful of other webcomics, this feels like it’s been a frequent companion through much of my adult life. It’s going to feel strange now it’s finally, definitively over (again).
It’s been a good journey though; thanks for both your part in making this the first time around, and for sticking it out for the many years of commentating the second go through.
It’s been a heck of a ride, going through this thing twice over now. Not sure when I started reading, but I definitely went all the way back to the start. To have this ending all over again… for good this time… it’ll be a pill to swallow, for sure. And it reminds me a bit of my own mortality, and my always-budding-yet-never-quite-blooming desire to do projects of my own. Mayhaps the future will be kind to such endeavors, mayhaps not. Whatever your next work ends up being, here’s hoping it ends up being of the same quality and even more of a success.
I’ve never commented on one of these comics before, but I’ve been here since the UN-annotated run. I started around the chapter where Bandit kills Byron after he’s gone berserk and him and all the berserkers have killed everyone in the logging town. Let me tell you, binge reading the whole series without knowing that was what waited for me at the end of the binge was … powerful. That whole scene and chapter, especially with the way it ended, was so well done and hit me hard. I was hooked from then on and have followed each update since. Thank you for sharing this work of art with us. It’s been an honor to be here.
I don’t remember when I started reading this during the first run. Sometime after the very first Sepia World reveal is as precise as I can get. All I remember for sure is that when I went back to the start and read my way through the archives, it really worked for me and I enjoyed it immensely. And I’ve never been a World Of Warcrack player, so it won me over entirely on its own merits.
I know you have other things you want to move on to now, and that makes all this annotation you’ve given us even more special. So thanks for the second run and all the behind-the-scenes looks at how the sausage was made. I’m sure we’re all really grateful, both for that inside look and for how it shows that this project clearly means a lot to you.
And now, I have to move the browser bookmark to the “completed comics” folder. I’m sure I’ll occasionally pop back in to re-read parts of it, but it no longer gets to be part of the daily routine. I guess that’s something we’ll have in common.
Thank you for all of the work that you and everyone else did to make Guilded Age possible.
Funny that you should contrast a Cooking Show with a History of Medieval Europe. One of my favorite Youtube Channels is about exactly that! (Tasting History, with max Miller)
Ha! I suspect that was in the back of my mind when I wrote it…
Mang it feels so strange that this is all over now. Again. I was overjoyed when the director’s commentary version kicked off and updated daily.
If there was one thing I wish the narrative had addressed differently was showing that the sepia Five — and to a lesser degree standard players — had an enduring effect on their Arkerran counterparts beyond the plot-driven moments of immortality. That HR’s interference had birthed new people from the fusion of the old, that his attempt to bamboozle then with their grapejuice ‘real’ double had been met by the emergence of the real deal, the twin souls of each of the Five — which of course would have needed clues placed throughout the story up to that point showing the changes.
Maybe that wouldn’t have worked. But I think seeing The Five consciously choose oblivion in Sepia world to continue here or for the sake of here, would make finally letting Guilded Age go easier. That’s what fanfic is for, I guess.
So thank you everyone involved, in creating and sharing this wonderful ride
This comic has brought me so much joy, both times through.
Thank you for years of entertainment and for reminding me of how much work goes into an endeavor like this.
Thank you for the fantastic journey. I have enjoyed the trip. I will miss it. It was part of my life that I looked forward to for quite some time. Farewell and safe travels.
I don’t know how to say thanks, so I’ll just say thanks. I dropped by here for every day of these annotations (and most of the regular run too), FWIW.
A suggestion: If the Archive page (linked via the Heart symbol on every page) cannot be completed, I think it would be helpful (for readers new and old) for the final update/permanent front page to have at least a link to the first page of the Annotations (which can be a bit difficult/tedious to find) as well as to the original first page — a choice of ways to read the story.
And while finding that link, I rediscovered the Bonus Content you guys gave us at the end of the original story! Great stuff!!
Aaaaaaaany chance of a Kickstarter for the rest of the books? I’d really love to have the whole thing in print!
Sorry, but I have to say the chances of this are practically zero. It’d only happen if we could be confident of selling a certain number of copies, say 500, and we didn’t feel like there was a great chance of that when the series was still in its original run, much less now. I mean, if we got some kind of production deal with a streaming service, then that might revive interest significantly enough to give it a whirl, but that’s like planning to win the lottery. (Kickstarters are helpful, but I don’t see more than 40 people pledging to ours at this point, especially since we stumbled a bit with the stretch goals for our last one.)
There are other obstacles that make it even more difficult. Toward the end of the series, we stopped writing to the expectation that we’d be collecting the story in books. Our six-chapter “seasons” and 24-page cap for most chapters eroded and were gone about two-thirds of the way in. I’m not even sure where all the high-resolution files are, if they still exist…Flo handled the lettering end, so only she would know. We designed the print books to be oversized and well colored, but that gets expensive. You’re lookin’ at a $200 minimum to own the series, probably more like $250 or $300 with the supply chain the way it is.
And honestly…I don’t really want to, and I don’t think Flo does, either. Like, even if the money to do it just fell into our laps, there’d be the hassle of getting the book files print-ready, getting the books shipped to us, and then storing them for as long as it took to sell them or give up (they’d probably end up looming ominously over the guest bed). Lugging boxes of them to conventions. Lugging those boxes back from conventions. I don’t regret the days I spent as a book salesman, but that’s a chapter of my life I’m happy to close.
That’s a shame T. But I will keep recommending Guilded Age to as many people as I can. Maybe one day a streaming option will fall on your lap and with it, someone who will take over the processing and handling and logistics that you describe. Let’s just hope Flo still has those hi-res files!
Modern print-on-demand services could in principle solve a lot of those problems, as I understand it. You wouldn’t need to store any inventory or commit to a fixed minimum print-run size.
Yeah, the thing about those is that it’s a lot harder to maintain quality and offer full-color full-sized volumes at a price I’d consider reasonable. And I know there’s always going to be a few dedicated fans who’d pay a fortune, but I wouldn’t really be able to live with myself rushing out something substandard just to grab their money.
I still don’t enjoy saying no, but trust me, I considered every angle of the print question back when we had a lot more time, money, and emotions to invest in it. Guilded Age is a series that’s best enjoyed online, and neither Flo nor I have any further print plans. Our focus is elsewhere now.
The technology may have improved in the last couple of years, maybe? Web reviews tell me that IngramSpark is basically up to the same quality standards as other print options- they go all the way up to 280 x 216mm, 104 gsm paper.
https://www.ingramspark.com/plan-your-book/print/trim-sizes
Apparently their UI isn’t the most user-friendly though. Anyway, just thought I’d mention the option.
So the (very) rare webcomics that are worth reading more than once I always appreciate when the creators make a printed version available. Why? Because I know in twenty years it will still be readable. Guilded age is an epic story of phenomenal quality, and my grandchildren will probably never get to see it because once you guys are gone it’s just going to evaporate like so much smoke.
Kickstarter probably doesn’t make much sense because getting your widely-dispersed fanbase to all check in during a one-month period would be impossible.
But if you just put up a sign-up form here on your website you could get a tally of how many people are interested without a hard time limit, and if it ever gets to the point where it’s enough copies to be worth the hassle, then take a look at what there is for printing options.
Thank you, T. Both for the original run and this commentated Re-run. It’s been a joy of a ride, both times around.
Thanks for the comic and the re-run!
I really liked looking back at the original run and the speculations versus the planning (or lack thereof). There is an interesting dimension between the story as read and the expectations of the story, in particular when it is published in installments. Both the writer(s) and the reader(s) creates a tentative story that includes (and hopefully agrees on) that which has been published up to that date, but can diverge a lot when it comes to the future. And also diverge from the story as it was actually, eventualy writeen.
Feels like there should be some useful shorthands for this, similar to Doylist and Watsonian. Probably are, just haven’t come across them.
I didn’t realise I’ll miss Guilded Age now that it’s officially over… It has been, in my case, nearly twelve years since I discovered the comic by chance, and since Monday (my time zone, which, if anybody cares, is GMT+2) something is, well, missing. There was a time when this was my favourite web comic…
I want to thank everyone involved – T, Flo/Phil (a namesake back then, actually!), John, Jason, Erica – for the ride and for the adventure, and to wish them all good fortune in everything they embark on. From my part, I’ll try to follow.
I’ll miss *that much*, that is…
I was sad when this ended the first time. Guilded Age and Faans both were important stories to me at various points in my development as an adult. So I was thrilled to hear that you were going to re-run it with annotations. I have loved the annotations, and while I’m again sad that my daily Guilded Age checks are finally coming to an end, I’m a little more ready to say goodbye this time.
Thanks folks, it has been a great run through both times.
I only read about 5 comics and this has been one for a long time. It will be missed. Thank you so much for doing the second run through.
I was surprised at first when the comic just… started over the first time it ended, but I ended up really appreciating these annotations. It’s going to be so strange not to check back here for updates but it was a great ride while it lasted. Thank you for making such a wonderful and enjoyable comic that I’ll look back on fondly for years to come.
Man, this really was a ride. It’s sad to see it end, but at the same time, not giving it a definitive conclusion would have been a disservice. And the fact that I feel this way about it the SECOND time around says a lot about how well it all came together.
I’ve followed Guilded Age since near the beginning, but never actually commented. But now that we’re at the end with nothing else planned for the site, I just wanted to say to everyone involved: thanks for making Guilded Age, and thanks for sharing it with us. It feels a little melodramatic to say that our lives are better for having Guilded Age in it, but… well, it’s still true, at least a little. So… thanks, and good luck with everything that comes next.
Sad to see this end, AGAIN! What would it take to get this entire thing printed/bound in color? It’s got to be 1,500+ pages… I would pay handsomely for such a treasure!
Man, I hate sayin’ no, but I’ll refer you to my answer to Josh Coffin above. Glad you enjoyed it, though!
I take it the PDF’s of each chapter can still be bought through the store?
Flo set that up with Gumroad ages ago, and what’s available on there now should be available for the near future. I see Volume 1s are starting to get low-ish on copies, but I doubt they’ll run out anytime soon. We’re not in a position to put anything that’s not there up, though.
Day 9 of me forgetting and checking out of habit. Y’all are missed.
I didn’t catch up until after the end the first time, but I’m glad to see the end the second time.
It was a pleasure reading through your comic, twice. Best of luck in your future endeavors.
so one thing I hope is that when comic is archived with next page, its still readable fully and not deleted
Still miss you guys. Hope all of your pursuits go well!