Hiatus Announcement (Patreon)

Hey everyone. I’m here to deliver some bad news: I am going on hiatus from creating Heartstopper again, starting today. (The main webcomic updates will continue until May 1st).

I want to be honest with you - I am mentally unwell. I have been suffering from burnout and intense stress for many years, and it has reached the point where I feel exhausted and depressed every day. I haven’t had any new ideas, any desire to create new stories, or much passion for anything I’m doing, for a long time. My closest friends have expressed concern for my health and wellbeing. If I continue trying to produce work at my current rate, I am scared I will lose my desire to create forever. I am terrified of having to create the end of Heartstopper while feeling like this, and looking back on this experience and remembering how shit I felt all of the time. But above all I am deeply afraid of ruining the end of Heartstopper, because I’m creating it while feeling so miserable all of the time.

I want to be able to enjoy creating Heartstopper. I want to feel able to celebrate my achievements, and feel happy and excited by the art I’m putting out into the world. I want to have the mental energy to give Heartstopper the best ending it could possibly have.

The only way to do this is for me to stop working on it for a while.

I am stopping making pages for the time being, and it will probably last for several months. I will be focusing on completing the Yearbook, which is due at the end of April, and on completing an extremely important writing project that needs to be done as soon as possible, and then I will be resting and recharging as best I can.

You will still be charged for April as I will still have stuff to share with you! I am going to be creating a new mini-comic for the Yearbook and sharing it in the full comic tier, and I will be sharing one of the upcoming guest comics by Emily Thomas. But you will most likely not be charged in May, or any future month until I begin making Heartstopper pages again.

What will happen with Volume 5? Plans are underway to make sure that Vol 5 will still come out in 2023. I will be able to share more about that soon!

Regular online updates on Tapas/Tumblr/Webtoon will continue until May 1st, after which they will stop for a few months.

I really hope you understand, and I’m sorry if you feel disappointed. A very close friend of mine has helped me to realise that my mental state right now is not ’normal’ and I cannot keep powering through. I have to do this for the sake of my health, and the sake of the comic itself.

Lots of love,

Alice x