Wayrift – 24 Years of Webcomics
Posted on March 26, 2026 by Aywren
Today is the celebration of the 24th anniversary of Wayrift, our ongoing webcomic. Ten years ago, I wrote a post very much like this on this blog, which you can find here. On that post, I created an image that compared the older art to the art of 14. So, today, I’ve taken that image and created an updated image that adds 2026 next to that.
And, as I noted in that post, before folks point out that 2003 to 2026 does not make 24, the comic was originally released in 2002. However, we rescripted and reworked the original chapters later on, and to find the old stuff would mean digging around for it. So, this image included 2003 stuff instead.
As you can see, there’s not a huge jump in style in the last 10 years for Ben. Other characters have changed a bit more, but Ben’s design seemed to normalize about that time and I’ve been drawing him pretty similarly ever since.
During that 10-year gap, I did take a break here or there. I also dropped back to posting pages only once a week for many years. In fact, it wasn’t until last year that I kicked up the production to two pages a week and actually built a significant buffer of comics so that when things befall IRL, I can skip a week of comic creation and still have stuff to post.
I also lengthened the pages physically, hoping that between the two pages I post a week, the extra length will make up for the third page that I used to create in terms of story pacing. I’m not sure if readers see it that way, but that’s the idea.
Back during Wayrift’s 20th anniversary, I moved it out of the long-time WordPress environment into the static HTML site. Last year I undertook the monumental task of coding out every page of every chapter of the webcomic and restored all the old comments. This was based on feedback that folks preferred comics on a page-by-page basis. I also kept the long-form chapter layout version for those who just want to scroll the archives without clicking page by page. I think that’s a good compromise given how large our archives are now.
We’re now up to chapter 93, and have already scripted out chapter 94 last weekend! I’m not sure when chapter 100 will roll around, but we’ve got plenty of ideas and stories to tell. So much, in fact, I doubt we’ll ever be able to do it all in our lifetime. That’s a morbid thing to think and say, but it’s the reality of it all.
Next year will be our 25th anniversary, obviously, and I’m already thinking about what we can do to celebrate it with our readers and friends. For everyone who has stuck around all these years, and for those who might yet discover Wayrift (maybe even through this post), thank you and welcome!
It’s been very much worth it!
In celebration of this milestone, I put together a post of old art for folks to enjoy!