Colour Prep is Done!

Every day, we're getting closer to finished pages.

Colour prep (flatting) for Chapter One is finished. That went quicker than I anticipated. So let's look at what's next for DD4:

• Layout the Patron Credits pages. Thank you to everyone who's filled out this form already. There's still plenty of time before it goes live, and I will be reminding everyone again before then. If you haven't completed the form yet, please take a quick minute to stick your nose over there.
• Build new pages for the DD4 section of DelilahDirk.com. Time to re-learn CSS! The last time I touched DD dot com's "code" was a decade ago, and a lot has changed since then. I want to do is display pages of DD4 in a more modern fashion that may not necessarily look different from what I have right now, but which will be better-adapted to the improvements in screen technology that have happened since I started posting DD online. We've got hi-res screens now! And iPads! These things have all happened since I started making DD.
  I also want to avoid things like WordPress, because once I post these pages I want to never have to worry about them ever again, and the original DD.com was hit by a malware attack that gave me more stress than I need. And I still have never seen a webcomic presentation that I like, with all the ads down the side and the clutter of comments beneath. That's not a relaxing reading experience. I'm also stripping out the Google Analytics, because I never look at them, so it's an annoying piece of tracking that benefits no one except, maybe somehow, Google.
  So the new goal is to build pages from a locally-compiled HTML template, and style everything using developments in CSS that have emerged since I first learned CSS. For example, we've got FLEX blocks now! That's new! And @media queries. Theoretically, that will make it possible for the DD display pages to adapt to different screen sizes in a way the old ones did not.
  I hate this part of making comics on the internet. And most people may not even read DD4 on those web pages; I've mentioned this comic might make its way to WebToon or a similar service. Still: it's important to me to have an uncluttered, pleasing place to display these comic book pages, so it's worth the effort. Theoretically, it should be a quick process, but I'm definitely spinning up a lot of mental machinery that has rusted over.
• Prepare an Arts Council Canada grant application. Speaking of things I hate, it's grant application season! I'll need a few days to write up an application for arts grant funding. If I'm successful, the grant could offer up to $25,000 towards the making of this project. That's a big "if," though. I have only once been successful with a national arts grant, for DD3, and I've been applying almost every year since 2012.
  However, a factor working in my favour is that I'll be applying with work-in-progress pages to show. I'll be able to show work I've already done on DD4 (thanks to your support, Dear Patron). With many of my applications, the timing has worked out so that I've been applying with pitch documents and work samples drawn from similar projects, but no actual pages-in-progress. My understanding is that this is a big differentiation.
  Besides all the guesswork (what do the adjudicators want to see and hear?) and risk of sunk time involved in this process, I won't hear the results of my application until February of next year, at the earliest. Still, it is, of course, worth the effort.
• Colour! Finally! I think of it as my reward for taking care of all that website work and the "am I doing this right?" agony of applying for a grant. Soon afterwards, you'll be seeing finished pages here, and soon after that, they'll be going out into the wild.

BUBBLE, the graphic novel!

In other news, the graphic novel I spent last year working on is finally out on store shelves! It is written by Jordan Morris and Sarah Morgan, based on Jordan's podcast of the same name, and was illustrated by myself with colour by Natalie Riess.

It's about young adults living in a corporate-controlled "Bubble" on an alien planet. But there's a hole in the bubble, and alien monsters are invading and threatening its human inhabitants, so the corporation comes up with a novel solution: Huntr™, a gig-economy app to encourage the populace to embrace their inner monster-slayer.

I should mention it is extremely not child-friendly. There are swears and innuendo and gore and monsters and monster gore. Though, I guess if you wanted to radicalize your child against unchecked corporate control, it might tip them in that direction. Otherwise, it is a funny, genuine, action-packed adventure featuring four good friends fighting their way to a life of security and honesty. I'm very proud of the work, and it was a delight to work with everyone involved. I learned a lot, and I think we've made a good book.

If a funny sci-fi adventure sounds appealing to you, pick up a copy today!

Coming up.

To promote BUBBLE, I did a lot of podcast recording with Jordan Morris and Sarah Morgan, and I should compile links to those shows. Most recently, I recorded an episode of the show "Cult Classic Callback," and we talked about notorious mid-Nineties pirate adventure movie/Hollywood disaster CUTTHROAT ISLAND.

As the author of books about a swashbuckling lady hero, you can imagine why a movie about a swashbuckling lady hero might be meaningful to me. Note: I am not saying it is a good movie. I would never say that. But it is important. That podcast episode won't be up til August, but I think it's worth talking about CUTTHROAT ISLAND, considering how pirate-centric is DD4. It is a topic of great curiosity to me, how a movie can have so many promising elements and yet end up being not merely bad, but forgettable, which is even worse. It feels like there are at least a few important lessons to learn, so maybe I'll dive into that in the next update and see what we can take away from this shambles of an old-fashioned pirate adventure.