It was on this day, 7 years ago, I published Lease Bound's first 8 page to Smackjeeves. If I told myself then, that I'd still be at this 7 years later, with two printed volumes and a third on the way, nearly 550 pages, and a regular weekly upload schedule, I probably wouldn't have believed me.
Thank you for all your wonderful comments and support. And thank you to my wife for baking cupcakes for the occasion. She made caramel ones and apple-cinnamon & zucchini ones. I made the plushies. I've been on a bit of a plushie-making kick recently since my health is still not so great and I've been stuck in bed a lot. Making them really helps pass the time.
The behind the scenes stuff was originally boosty exclusive, but since they fucked me over, I figured I'd share them here. Those are the first ever drawings I did of Riley and Jaden when conceptualizing Lease Bound. There will be more available in the print, including Blaire, Mrs & Mrs Hazel, Shez, Parniya, and even AGPgang. With any luck Volume 3 will be ready for print before the end of 2025!
What year, or which chapter was complete, when you started reading LB? Would love to know in the comments <3
BEEN HERE FROM THE START, BAYBIEEEEEEE! Congrats Rusty this is so delightful!
Oh my god, happy birthday! I’m really trying to remember when I started reading Leasebound, but I have no idea. It was sometime in the amorphous COVID years. I feel like it may have been during chapter five or six? It feels like forever. I’m not normally one for reading stories as the come out — I’m a HUGE binge-reader — so it’s really strange for me to realize that I have been reading this comic one page at a time for so many years now.
It’s a huge achievement, and you have every reason to be super proud of yourself! Congratulations on making it this far, and thank you for all the hard work. I really look forward to a new page every week, even when I am too exhausted to have anything to say, and reading through the comment section and seeing people who think like me discuss their thoughts is always such a great bonus.
To another seven years, then?
Congrats on the 7 years!!!! It’s amazing to see how far Leasebound has come since then. Here’s to many more years of this wonderful comic!
THOSE PLUSHIES ARE SO CUTE T___T <33 Happy bday Lease Bound!
I’ve been following you since your (redacted) tumblr days lol so I’ve been reading LB from the start 🙂
HAPPY BIRTHDAY LEASEBOUND 🎂🎉🎂🎉🎂🎉🥳🥳🥳
What a testament to your tenacity that you keep such a regular uploading schedule and i keep being aamazed by how engaging and evolving your art and writing is. Outlasting all the haters one by one !
I’m also so thankful that we got to become friends during those times, you’re a wonderful person and your strength and kindness inspires me every day ❤️
I never remember exactly when people enter my life but I think it was still fairly early in the chapters that i started reading leasebound.
Her burden is still probably my favourite because of all the insight into Jaden’s life and psyche and how complex her relationship with her mother is.
I know i comment privately more now but i still wanted to leave a message here for this special day ❤️
Happy birthday again to Leasebound and to further proof of how awesome you are !
AHHH!!! Happy 7 years of Leasebound! Totally missed this haha- been working 8 hr shifts with only two days off so im dead on my feet and totally forgot its birthday was coming up!!
I think i was a hate reader at first? The discord group I was in at the time (at like,, I wanna say 14-16 ish?) absolutely LOATHED this comic for gendie reasons and me grappling with alot in life atm was a ~transmasc genderfluid futch~ (read: autistic girl who was raised by a similarly autistic tomboy divorced single mother so I was othered by my peers) so going with the cult I started reading and reading your tumblr at the time! Honestly this comic, your tumblr, and the tumblrs I found via it helped me peek alongside my life bettering once my mom got full custody of me. Life had been mega crazy for me (moving cross country, going through a pretty messy breakup with my ex fiancee, going back to get my GED since I dropped out etc) but genuinely this comic updating every week has been a wonderful little rock that reminds me that life keeps on pushing and that some womyn, somewhere, is making her art dreams come true no matter what happens.
Thank you Rusty for this wonderful comic and for being a wonderful womyn whos true to her ideals and values! Heres to your health, your wifes health, and the continuous prosperity of this comic and for every womyn who reads this!
(And the fic is coming soon! Been able to get 2K words in after my shifts and in between on slow days but ive been TIREDDDDDDD lolololol- I want to have a backlog of at least five chapters just in case I get goku death posed by work,,)
Happy Belated Birthday, LB! 🎉 I kept thinking about getting on here yesterday to see what the surprise was, but I was too lazy to turn on my old phone to look (switched to a dumbphone so I would touch grass more). I love the plushies (Jaden’s shirt! Riley’s Gohan hair! Everything about Muddles!), and Mrs. Rusty making cupcakes for the occasion is so precious.
I wish I could say that I was secretly lurking for a long time before I started commenting, but it was only last year in March that I started reading while Chapter 12 was in progress (I binge read the whole thing up to that point on a weekend off). I came in at the perfect time to see the satisfying conclusion of Shez’s backstory. I actually got the idea for my username from an offhanded comment you made in one of Radical’s livestreams, which are what brought me here, but I can’t remember the full context or which video it was. 😅
Congratulations on all you’ve accomplished so far, and here’s to many more years of Lease Bound! 🥂
Hmm, so Blaire should have never been created 😒
I peaked in March 2022 and found this webcomic about a month later, so somewhere around the page 20s of Chapter 10. I remember backreading after I found it while we were driving to a restaurant for my sister’s birthday, lol.
Happy birthday, Leasebound! It’s so good to have a comic like this for us women, lesbians and bissexual, to read 💜💜💜! Thank you so much for your hard work, Rusty! It’s an amazing story, the characters are very well developed and cherished, and the plot is thrilling! I wait for you to update every week! I love this page with the main characters first drafts 😍! I love Jaiden and Riley so much 🥰💕🩷🙏🏻!
I started reading LS last year! Read it everything in one afternoon!
Your wife is so sweet, Rusty! Also, get well soon! Take good care of yourself, you’re a light and an inspiration for all radfem and lesbian artists! We need you healthy! Drinks love of water, we love you 😚 💕!
I only started LB in early-ish 2025 I think. I read the whole thing in a day and I’ve been excited for the weekly updates since then. Those plushies are lovely!
Oh my god can’t believe I missed this page!!!! Congrats on 7 years! I think I jumped in maybe a year or two ago??? Has been a wonderful ride the whole time!