I wish depression were an emergency. I wish someone could take one look at how sick I am and go “oh my god, we need to get you to a hospital!” and then when we get there I get rushed into surgery and the surgeons say “it’s a good thing you brought her here when you did, this is a seriously advanced case” and then they put me under and spend the next ten hours pulling metres of long, sticky black strands of gunk out of my body, throwing it immediately into an incinerator so that it can’t infect anyone else. And then they could stitch me back up and I could rest a few days, and when I leave the hospital everyone can see how much better I am and they congratulate me saying “well done, you’ve been so brave, I’m so glad you’re ok. I love you.”
The Heartstopper webcomic’s first update dropped on September 1st 2016. Today, on April 11th 2026, the story has concluded.
I don’t quite know how to put all of my feelings into one letter. Heartstopper means more to me than words can express, but I’ll try my best.
Heartstopper has defined the past decade of my life. It started as a fun side project and quickly grew into something much bigger, eventually becoming my career. Despite that huge and unexpected change, making the Heartstopper comic feels the same to me as it did on day one. When I sit down to make Heartstopper, I feel at peace. When the world feels so scary and difficult, I have been able to return to Heartstopper, and everything feels okay again for a little while.
Nick and Charlie first appeared as supporting characters in my first novel, ‘Solitaire’. In Solitaire, Nick and Charlie represent the idea that hope, love, joy and connection can persist and thrive despite the trials and tribulations of being alive. So maybe it’s ironic that Nick and Charlie have come to represent this in my own life. They have brought me joy. They have given me purpose. They have given me everything, really. And I’m so grateful for every moment I have spent with them.
Heartstopper is profoundly special to me. Which makes it extremely hard to say goodbye.
But it is time. I always knew that Nick going to university would be the end point of the story. And despite how sad I am to be bidding farewell to these characters, I am so, so proud and excited to have made it to the end and concluded the story exactly the way I wanted to.
Any webcomic creator can tell you that making a webcomic requires a heavy amount of determination and endurance. To draw a page almost every day for the past ten years has required a lot of sacrifice and a lot of energy. But every moment was worth it. And now that it is complete, Nick and Charlie’s story can be experienced from beginning to end, for the rest of forever.
I wouldn’t have made it here alone. From the very start, Heartstopper’s readers have offered so much support, love, community, conversation, and enthusiasm. Knowing that there are people out there who love these characters just like I do has given me the strength to keep going. I’ve also had the support of many colleagues, friends, and family members, who’ve all helped in different ways at various points in the past decade. Thank you so, so much to everyone who has been here for the journey.
I have no idea what I’ll make next. For now, I’m taking a break. And I know that Nick and Charlie won’t simply vanish. I expect I will always return to drawing them and writing about them, probably in smaller ways, for the rest of my life, as long as my body allows.
Nick and Charlie will forever be in my heart, hand in hand on a beach somewhere.
okay, maybe my need to draw Abby after the tlou2 finale needs to be studied clinically, but...
I just can't stop thinking how distant and detached she felt in her body after everything that happened to her.
Not just because of all the violence she had to endure from the Rattlers.
Her body has always been her main advantage, she has been building her physical form for years to be unstoppable, powerful. And in the end, her body lets her down, not for the first time when someone turns out to be stronger than her, but for the first time in many years when her body becomes weak and literally useless.
For several months in captivity, she was losing strength day after day, hardly able to protect the Lev from the cruelty that surrounded them. In the end, she was so weak that she lost in the fight to Ellie, whom she had easily overpowered earlier in theatre.
I think this loss should have deeply shaken her mentally, because she could no longer trust what she had relied on for a very long time - her body, her strength.
I think it was devastating for her, the physical powerlessness to protect the last person she had left
andulkaphoto
tangentwithtanner
snowghoul
titsay
yousharknotpass
