Lanschilandia comic page: Borderline Chaos, pg. 1

Tails of Lanschilandia! Here's the page!

It's been a while, but here's the beginning of the next story for my webcomic! I am moderately excited about this, though I doubt that will be enough to keep me working at full power, so don't expect any noticeable increase in update frequency. The story will focus more on the characters that didn't really get to contribute much to the previous storyline, so this should be interesting; especially with a major change in art style.

As you could probably tell, the art looks very different than it did on previous pages; this is because I am now drawing the pages at a higher resolution in Photoshop and shrinking them down for the website, which allows me to more easily add details and results in much more slender linework (which remains the only thing slender about Hayfa the cow). I am also experimenting with shading, though I won't make that too elaborate as I don't want to slow down the page creation process even further (to achieve this shading style, I am drawing black spots on a semi-transparent layer, which is squeezed between the linework and the colour layers).

Not quite as noticeably, I am now semi-consistently sketching panels and characters before I "ink" them, which helps a lot and the result may actually begin to not look like scribbles from a preschooler anymore. It's a strange process to get used to, but I have some faith that it will be worth it and I might even be able to draw non-crooked limbs and hands eventually (gasp!).

Enjoy the comic page!

Got it Covered? Think Again

"Don't judge a book by its cover" — so goes the common saying. A good piece of advice that most people have heard of and many strive to learn from, but which almost no one follows in the non-metaphorical sense. Especially in a chiefly text-based medium like literature, the cover is often the first and potentially only "visual" impression anyone gets of a book, and a lot of the time, the attempt to win the interest of the curious reader is promptly bungled by a badly designed cover. But is it really true that the cover sells the book? Not always, but it certainly can make a notable contribution. At the very least, it attracts attention. From personal experience, I can say that an eye-catching cover is more likely to make me look twice and make the book remain in my memory. So what makes a cover "eye-catching"? Hard to say, and certainly dependant on the genre as well as the time and place of publication. An eye-catching cover is a cover that stands out from the masses, and in order to do that, it needs to differ from the masses.

Looking at a great amount of book covers especially for indie Fantasy, I have been noticing two trends in particular: stock art (especially photography) and generic designs that don't say anything about the book (or a combination of both!). Good as they may look in any other context, these require a lot of creativity to turn into unique and memorable covers. That skull or sword on the cover may have some relation to the book and that random woman on her best way to catching a cold if she doesn't put on some clothes may even be a depiction of the main character, but they do nothing to set the book apart from the hundreds of others using a different version of the same motif.

So, what should be done? I'm certainly no expert on covers (though I may have to become one), but here are some fairly obvious suggestions (specifically for Fantasy covers) that still tend to be ignored:

1. Don't use photos. Photos are exact captures of real life images and without a lot of digital enhancement, they are rarely ever going to exhibit any style unique enough to be eye-catching to the layperson. Take advantage of the many traditional and digital ways there are to create art. If you can't do it yourself, find someone who can.
   1. Don't force a run-of-the-mill Fantasy style on the cover; it does not need to look "realistic", and the more quirky it looks, the better. You are not creating art for a gallery; people most likely will not stand idly and gawk in awe at your cover, even if you get a Dutch master to paint it (though that would certainly be something to enhance your advertising campaign!). The cover is an ad for the book, and it will need to stand out by being individual, not by demonstrating how well it can follow conventions of painting.
2. Think about something unique in your book's story; a "highlight", which is recognisable as belonging to that specific book your wrote. Use that as the cover. (Many of the Harry Potter books generally use interesting cover scenes (that are easily associated with the books) in a number of of their publications; for instance, the German release of Philosopher's Stone shows the well-known "wizard's chess" trial.) Don't go metaphorical unless you actually have an interesting metaphor to present. Skulls, swords and random things on fire are not interesting metaphors for anything and have been used a quadrillion times. Even if they fit, no one would think of associating them with your particular book.
3. For something really unique, do something with the text! For the vast majority of book covers, the convention tends to be to stick plain, uninteresting text on top of the cover art as an afterthought. If you are publishing indie, you should be in full control of what your cover looks like; there is nothing that prevents you from making the text interesting in itself. You can go further and make it express something about your book or its feel; going even further still, you can incorporate the text into the very cover art! Conventions are made to be broken if you wish to stand out. Just ensure it's still easy to read!

So, what were the considerations I made when designing the cover for Ssalia and the Dragons of Avienot? Not many, sadly. Had I been quite aware of the importance of covers in book publishing (especially indie), I probably would have invested more thought into it. Even so, I made the effort to make my own digital painting, use a motif that connects to the book (a (hypothetical) painting inside the jade tower, itself showing the snake girl Ssalia and a dragon in silhouette) and at least apply some text effects (though I wish I had gone all the way with it to make it truly unique). It's not ideal, but I feel that even such minimal effort can make the cover stand out from the generic masses of stock photography.

The conclusion? Think about the cover, its relation to your book and how to make it stick out. Especially with no professional advertising, it really does matter.

Lanschilandia comic page: A Spoony Experience, pg. 14

Tails of Lanschilandia! Here's the page!

So it seems I am announcing these here as they are put up. Updates to the comic are happening rarely enough these days anyway to not be obtrusive. Here's the 14th page of "A Spoony Experience" and the first major milestone in my webcomic's history: the final page of the first story! So, with one complete story, where's the comic going to go from here? Well, to the next story. As mentioned in the last Lanschilandia post, I would like to try a better art style for that one, namely drawing the pages at a higher resolution so it becomes less annoying pixel work and I can more easily add details to the pages (the final display size on the site will remain the same, as I think this is about as big as I can make them while keeping them convenient to read in most screen resolutions).

The colouring on this page took almost as long as the linework. Can't say if I'm happy with how it turned out, but I believe the art has come a long way throughout the first story (especially in terms of backgrounds) and I am satisfied with some of the drawings at least. This is one of the first times I have actually bothered to sketch some of the panels/character poses before drawing them properly, and those have turned out better than the rest, so I may be taking this idea further. These are also the first detailed drawings of Parsley I have made since her panel on the introduction page, and the latter was pretty much directly copied from her concept art. It took me a while to get used to drawing her, which is probably evident in how her looks change slightly across the page. I am not quite sure where to go with her personality yet, but that will probably work itself out as I use her in more significant roles. The red book on her table is "Haley Topper", which sadly isn't fully visible.

As another first, the page marks the debut of Prof. Manatide and is the first time I have drawn him apart from a quick design sketch. He's sort of Doc Brown- and Ludwig von Drake-inspired and I'm pretty happy with how he turned out. His design is fairly complex, but as he is a minor character (and will remain one), I won't have to draw him often. I do have some things in mind for him, but that's for a later story to be told at a later time.

Well, what more can I say. Enjoy the comic page and see you when the next adventure begins!

The Conquest

Behind horizons, hills and dells
Hidden well
Tales oft tell
Is found a fort where no one dwells
A fortune in its shell

A path is plagued by stalwart storms
Curved as strait
Cursèd fate
The only path to thither forms
But ne'er does grip the gate

A wall as tall as mountain looms
Strong as stone
Hard as bone
A journey from the outset dooms
To settle seeker's throne

A thousand bowmen never miss
Sure in mark
Safe in arc
Each eye itself an arrow is
To pierce protective dark

A thousand horsemen full gallop
Steeds of state
Skins of plate
Infaust invaders swift to stop
A-routing out the gate

A thousand demons at the rear
Ghastly gaze
Breath of blaze
Entwine the shrine by sneer and jeer
And heal it in a haze

Enshrined inside: a mythic good
Most beseech
Few to reach
So seldom seen, oft understood
As "happiness" in speech

Just a poem to sum up my feelings as of late... I'm relieved I can still at least get those right, to a degree.

Stop, Exposition Time?

Fairly recently, I read a chapter in a book (not going to name it here) that quite literally consisted entirely of exposition delivered by a character in direct speech; it was not very short either, but rather trailed on an on page after page. Although it made sense for the character to be doing this, the whole thing felt dull and artificial, interrupting the action (which, up to that point, had been building up to something a lot more exciting) in favour of a monologue. But how does one handle such a situation properly anyway? Is there even a way to do that? Opinions likely differ, as on all story-telling devices, and I won't consider myself an "expert" on them, but here's what I feel is some decent advice about exposition.

As the old writing advice goes, "show, don't tell". Evidently, the most obvious way to handle exposition well is to not have it. If there is any way to demonstrate the information through events and "natural" dialogue instead of just blatantly spelling it out, then that usually works a whole lot better, as it does not interrupt the flow and leaves something for the reader to figure out and "work" to comprehend as a whole. "Time skips" to the past can be useful for this if the important event happened prior to the story's present, but care must be taken not to confuse the reader (unless you are deliberately trying to do so, which is rarely a good idea unless there's a very good reason for it); containing the past sequence within its own chapter may help, as it clearly separates it as a self-contained instance

Sometimes, however, there's just no practical way to show all the information that the reader requires. What is to be done when something absolutely needs to be delivered by a character? The most important thing to remember here is that such a segment is not you (the author) explaining things to the reader. What you have on your hands is a character who is talking in-story, likely to other characters. Let them talk as the character they are and let others react to what they are saying where applicable. Make sure lengthy exposition does not interrupt the flow of the story. No monologue is important enough to stop time, and if something else should be going on during it, make sure it does go on! Having the exposition interrupt an interesting scene completely is a surefire way of making the reader wish it were finally over or, in the worst cases, just skim through it in order to return to the action.

In monologues, do not forget to take advantage of the speaker's personality (if possible) to make what they are saying entertaining to read. Some people are good at semi-improvised story-telling; perhaps your character can wrap the information in an exciting tale in its own right (if they cannot do it by themselves, maybe they can read from a book-within-your-book that does a better job at dramatising the events in question), perhaps they can spice it up with their own remarks and humour. Whatever they do to make the explanations more bearable, make sure it fits the character and "sounds" like something that would realistically come out of their mouth. Never talk through your character as if you were mind-controlling them.

All in all, exposition is a tricky thing to do. However you decide to handle it, don't forget its primary purpose of helping the reader understand your story better; do not let boatloads of background knowledge overtake said story.

Ssalia and the Trailer of Avienot

As one might figure from the title, I made a trailer for Ssalia and the Dragons of Avienot! This has actually been sitting on a shelf for a while, but I finally finished it up and uploaded it today. Pictures say more than a thousand words and videos consist of a lot of pictures, so without further ado, here it is:

This is a YouTube short url. No, really.

Almost every part of it was made by me, though some public domain samples were also used. Hope everyone enjoys, and if you'd like to support me and/or the book, please consider sharing the video!

Book Review: "Campaign of the Gods" by Mike Evers

I somewhat recently finished reading The Hopfield Tales: Campaign of the Gods by Mike Evers, having picked it up alongside several other (digital) books during a SmashWords promotion, so I thought I'd use the opportunity to write a quick review of it to share on my blog (in its core, I also put it on the book's SW page; this one is a bit more elaborate, but may contain minor spoilers). Though listed as children's Fantasy, the book promises time-travelling vikings and a battle against the forces of Hel, but can it live up to the expectations inspired by such concepts?

To a degree, it certainly can. While perhaps not the most epic of Fantasy stories, Campaign of the Gods is definitely one of a kind. Using wit, humour and action (as far as one can get away with it in a children's book and perhaps a little bit further), the author forges a unique blend of a viking myth and mundane modern Britain that does not take itself too seriously. The characters are likable enough and opportunities for portraying the absurdity of vikings in the modern day "Kingdom of York" are cheerfully seized, and the interactions of the Norse deities in the frame story were a welcome addition (but could have come into play a bit more). Sadly, I felt that the initially very promising plot began to stagger towards the end - not to the point of becoming entirely unenjoyable, but a slight decline in quality was apparent and the action seemed to lose focus a bit. Once the premise is set up, the book does not offer many new surprises, further hampered by an ending that feels like not much was really accomplished. Another thing that bothers me is the wolf Fenrir, who, after his dramatic introduction, seems to spend the entirety of the book not really doing much. More could and should have been done with the setup at the end, but I felt that the book ran out of steam towards the climax, which is a shame.

Something to be noted is the book's educational aspect; every chapter begins with one or two appropriately concise paragraphs about a historical or mythical concept or personage related to vikings, and a few other things are explained in the text itself. While there isn't much new to learn for someone moderately versed in viking lore and some liberties were taken with the in-story norsemen (notably the infamous horned helmets, which are popularly connected with vikings, but were probably never worn by them; it's a shame because the book could have taken the opportunity to clear up this common misconception), it does make for an interesting gateway to the viking world.

(If you missed the initial link and don't want to scroll up, this book can be found on SmashWords here.)