Oh man, only 10 days since the last update? It feels like so much has happened. Or at least, it feels like I’ve made some neat progress. So let’s take a look at what’s been going on. It starts with podcasts.
Not a podcast I recorded, although I did record one that I still have to edit. I have a number of podcasts that I’m working my way through. I think it would be unsurprising to compare my subscriptions to who I am. Probably a decent way to get a feel of a person, although I doubt all of who I am is in my list. (What am I missing and are there podcasts for that? What does a Transformation Fiction podcast look like?)
Anyway, I’ve been listening to the Comic Labs Podcast. Back in the day, I had listened to the Webcomics Weekly podcast, as well as the short-lived sequel to that. I supported the Stripped kickstarter, and bought both the Webcomics Handbook and How to Make Webcomics. So picking up this podcast with the same people I’ve been getting advice from for over a decade felt like catching up with some old friends.
And their advice is totally different than when I looked a decade ago! Time is weird! But with Patreon and Kickstarter becoming mainstream, advertisements are no longer the cartoonist’s main income, social media is a much bigger driver than before. The world for webcomics is vastly different and that’s weird and cool. I’m excited for this future.
Listening to all of their advice has had a big side effect: I’ve been thinking about comics. And committing to a 45 minute session of thinking about comics while I do my time on a treadmill makes me think of the various comics that I have on Hiatus. And in a really poorly speech-to-text, I wrote out my overview for the next Rachael in Gameland arc.
In case you’re not up on the timeline (which I had to go check myself), the last time I posted any of this series was April of 2020. I love this series, and so I was always confused why I could never figure out why I couldn’t muster the energy to make the Pewter City Arc happen.
It turns out, it was because doing it right was going to be a LOT of work.
I’m about 80% done with my second outlining pass, and we’re up to 12 pages of outline. I don’t know the ratio of outline to strips. It would not surprise me if I’m already at the length of the previous arc, which was 3 chapters of nearly 80 strips each. It’s going to be that, if not more.
But it’s gonna be good. I’m really excited for it. Once I finish the outline pass number 1, and probably pass number 2, I’ll post the outline on Patreon to get extra eyes on the edit. I could see that being an exclusive thing there, although for now I’m not going to be locking that behind tiers. Perhaps as we build up a community? Not sure. I’m certainly not using Patreon the way I ought to (See the aforementioned Comic Lab). Anyway, if anyone wants to look at the outline before I actually start making the comic, that would be the time. I’ll take all the comments from that and roll them into my final outline, which will be what I work off of. I don’t have a date for that, but once I actually get producing comics, I think I’ll be able to churn them out at a good rate. The hard part is all the foreshadowing and setup, and that’s what the outline is for.
The other thing that’s hard, going through all my previous chapters, is trying to make spaces feel full. There’s a lot of empty Pokemon Centers and the like. Blank rooms which are all my aphantasia can give me for a given scene. Maybe I can train myself to put in the effort to compensate for my weaknesses. we’ll see.
Tangentially, I’ve been going through all of my old comics by posting them to the Duck! I first joined the site and started posting comics there back in 2007. But after looking around at options, I decided to host my stuff there once again. There’s cool stuff about all sorts of websites, but having a good place to read longform webcomics the way they’re designed to be read is important. And, also important, I don’t have to maintain it. So I’ve been bringing over all of my Rachael in Gameland comics, with a small word or two of commentary. Sometimes, I’ll fix a small mistake here and there. Nothing in the art. It’s mostly just clearing up text that is vague or wrong. But it’s been AMAZING reading through my old stuff. There were parts of it that I had absolutely forgotten. Some of the art is great, where you can tell I really put in the effort. (Some of it is very much NOT great). The story is solid. Reading through it has fanned the flames of the project again, and the iron is getting hot.
This is all, btw, like my first talking point of the last week. I’m not even out of talking Comic Lab yet.
My second big thought from CL is the idea of exorcising projects. I’ve always had a bit of a problem, rushing from project to project and never really sticking with one. But I think, after listening to their early episode with Ryan North, I think it’s okay to let my focus slip. Trying to laser into one project is not sustainable. My brain does what it does. However, the important thing is to have the baseline project to return to. The current big project. And it’s okay to take a quick break and chase my tail writing a page of notes about a new lit RPG story idea. It might not ever go anywhere, but letting the idea out of my head and trapping it on a page will help preserve my calm. So we’ll give that a try, see what happens.
In other comic news, I’ve been reading a Fantasitc Four run, and it’s been fun, and interesting. I never realized how much SPACE webcomics have. Not just on an individual page, but the number of pages I could dedicate to a chapter is massive. For a print comic, there’s so many constraints that you’re lucky to get twenty pages to tell your story. And it has to spend time recapping, and set up that week’s story and advance all the parts of the story you want, and have space for the cool visuals. I’m use to writing pages like:
Where i can dedicate a FULL STRIP to getting her handcuffs in front. What luxury of space. In comparison to this panel from Fantastic Four #33:
All we get for the idea of regaining control is that speech bubble. That’s all the space they had to dedicate to the idea.
Now, with that need to make the most out of their real estate, things they spend time/space on are highlighted much more than what webcomics choose to spend time on. Is what I focus on important? Or just a place I decided to waste time? It’s an interesting observation, and I’ll try to be more grateful of the wide area of time and space I can play in.
RPGs
Ravonn’s Tower is going well. One of my tables had their final sessions of the summer. I need to write a Magpie Arcanum article about that table, and I should probably do that soon. But my rules are feeling more and more solid. I built a “dungeon deck”, which is a fancy random number generator that uses cards that have a lot of answers to potential questions. Like directions, colors, creature and damage types. It’s not perfect, and as I use it, I’m hoping to refine it. When I get in the groove, though, it’s better than just rolling a d20 for a yes/no question. It’s certainly faster.
Also on RPGs, they’ve announced details for the next starter set. It sounds pretty cool, but I’m not happy about the price point. It sounds good to people like me, but as a person who works in a gamestore, I don’t know if in good conscious could sell it as a solution to a single mother who has no clue what this D&D thing is, other than her sons won’t stop asking about it. 100% a real scenario that I’ve dealt with. $50 is a steep entry point for something that should be an easy entry point. What happened to the first hit being free?? So I might have to write a thing.
Also, the starter set is going to drop like 4 days after the next RPG day I’m organizing. Because of course it is. I’ll probably spend the day running an Intro to D&D table. I think that we’ve been remiss as a store for not having such an experience available.
Life Stuff
Trying to make the gym a natural part of my schedule is still rough. I know I should easily have the 10ish hours available, but somehow, I feel like I don’t have as much time as I did. So that battle is still ongoing.
I do have a new appreciation for treadmills, though. They’re still boring, and there’s not the dynamics I’d like, but when I start the treadmill’s program, I’ve removed my agency. I can no longer stop when I get board, I can only stop when the timer has ticked down and the workout’s over. And that feels very very useful for me. Also, if I take off my glasses and use a treadmill in the back row, I can’t read the closed captioning on the TVs, so it’s harder to get sucked into them.
End
That’s all that was burning inside me, atm. I wish I had someone who could get excited as I do about a podcast that recontextualizes Patreon and other nerdy aspects of these hobbies I love.
Thanks for taking the time to get a glimpse into my head.
Ciao!