The first mention of Richard the Dragon was of course from my wife, Monica, who was of course thinking of the crude double-entendre of what Richard is often shortened to. After she had that initial thought, she mentioned it to me and as we both enjoy a good metaphor, we began spit-balling ideas for how to spin the metaphor into a story. At first, we thought of the project as a full book, so I put together some basic ideas on paper, and then that paper got set aside for quite a while. Every once in a while, Monica would look at me and say what’s going on with Richard? Most of the time, I would shrug and say, well I’m not at the writing phase. I’m still thinking about it. So in another way, Monica stayed on me to come up with a story to elaborate on this story which, as it turns out, became a subtle and on-going "dick" joke, turned coming of age story. The stage was set.
Eventually as I continued to ponder the story and began doing outlines and character ideas, I began to think that this may get done faster if I break it apart into individual episodes. This was right around the time that we finally had a web page, and were thinking of ways to get more web traffic. So, I proposed the idea to make it a story that would be readable online and not a book to Monica and the company, and the idea really sounded good to everyone. Eventually, it was discussed that we should add some art to each episode as well. Rosie Wells jumped on the idea and started in with a concept dragon, and we all loved it. Richard finally had a face, and all I had to do was to come up with new episodes. Then we had to figure out how we would make it a paying story and how that would work. Adrie Newman told me about Patreon, and that sounded like the best way to go, so I made a page and started writing. That brings us to today. As of now, there are 6 available, and I’m working on a 7th episode. Speaking for myself and the company, we would really love it if the story could get a large audience. The stories are nice and short and accessible for teens and up. Please enjoy and share!
