The Warden, as stated, is a western first and foremost but differs slightly in that it is set in the middle-ages. I won't be specific as to the exact time and place but it's roughly in Europe around the Thirteenth century. The language however, is modern American, i did this basically because it's just too much work to try and write dialogue in a way that is reflective of the time period, and more than likely i would do a terrible job at it.

I won't go into the story too much because i want it to unfold in the strip, but i can state a little bit about where it comes from. I've had the idea for the story for quite a while or at least the beginning anyway. I was greatly influenced by a number of sources such as Blade of the Immortal, Lone Wolf and Cub, Savage Sword of Conan, and Prince Valiant. Outside of comics, all the films of Sergio Leone, specifically Once Upon a Time in the West and Fistful of dollars, also the novels Child of God, Outer Dark, and The Road by Cormac McCarthy. All these things worked together to create the tone and theme, and the countryside i saw after moving to Oregon finished off the vision for the series. There was one more contributing factor that finally pushed me to start working on it...

The main reason i started the strip was that i really needed to start getting good at inking with a brush. i pretty much always use a pen to ink with, with a few exceptions, and i felt it was time to get on board with the brush. So, i decided to practice everyday with it, and to practice i just started doing a strip a day, and soon i had a handful of pages, after that i got really interested in the story and just kept going. One more thing about the story, i have written it in what i call "Brandon Graham" style, which means that i am just making it up as i go along. I have ideas in mind for what's going to happen but thats about it.

As for updating, i'm not 100% happy with the format/layout of the online presentation right now. I did the best i could but can definitely improve on it, so as of now, I will update by entire chapters at a time, whenever i finish one, thats the best i can do for now until i come up with a better system.

Thanks for the interest in the strip, if you want to contact me with questions or feedback you can email me or leave a comment on the strip itself.

--r