Hey all, Courtney here.
I’ve been having some health problems of various kinds lately, as well as a general lack of energy that I hope is due to a problem with my pacemaker that I can get fixed by the end of the summer. All of this isn’t helped by staying up late and stressing about the comic every other day.
So, just like last summer, we’re going to reduce the comic updates to Monday and Friday until September. Back then, we did the encyclopedia entries, and those went over really well! However, at this point, there aren’t many detailed chunks of information about places, people or events in Idenau that we want to give away without exploring them in more detail in the comic itself. But we want to give you guys something on Wednesdays, and once again you’re going to help us decide!
We have a few ideas already. We were thinking perhaps a mailbag, where you can ask the characters questions and they will react. We don’t want to spoil anything we were planning to explain in the comic later, but I imagine we’d get the chance to explore some backstories and quirks that we don’t see as being truly relevant down the line. I like this idea because it would foster the spirit of reader interaction which is really important to us here.
Another idea is Idenau Facts, where we would come up with and simply illustrate a few random facts about our species or characters each week. Sort of like supplemental details that were left off the encyclopedia entries. That way you could learn more about our world without us having to give you a whole article about one thing.
Please tell us which of these you like better, as well as offering your own suggestions! Remember, it will have to be something fairly light on the art side, or it defeats the purpose. We might end up doing a mix of things on Wednesdays to keep things fresh.
I really hate to move the story along slower, but it is our hope that you will enjoy learning more about our world and its inhabitants, one way or the other. In fact, it might be nice for all of us to be able to visit somewhere or someone else in the middle of each week, instead of being stuck with one team or another in a certain spot for update after update.
Thanks for sticking with us, as always.
-Courtney
Ahh, It’s no trouble Courtney! You just need a break too…
…I like both ideas A LOT, actually. I’d love either one of them. Sorry I’m not much help. ^^;
…but if you plan on doing one for tomorrow, you might wanna start with Facts.
Get well soon!
Also, I’d prefer facts. But both are good!!
These are both really good ideas, but I think that the “ask a character” thing could provide more content in the lngrun. If the questions don’t come in fast enough/ get too spoilery, you can supplement that with the extra facts thing. You could also feature fan art or guest comics if you’re just too low energy.
As I recall, the last time you guys decided to do these “less work” updates, didn’t it actually end up being more work than normal? Hopefully that won’t happen again…:P
I have no real preference…no “real” preference, because while I think I prefer the idea of the character questions/comments, I’m not entirely sure if/what I would ask…and consequently, I feel like that invalidates my preference. So…uh…there you go.
Your health is always more important to than our entertainment, I will gladly accept two comics a week, maybe even one if you had to!
And yes, character question. I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS FOR ALL OF THE CHARACTERS YOU HAVE NO IDEA.
And hey, maybe you could also do more guest comics from time to time. *wink wink*
The thing is, I wish I could do three a week just as much as any of our readers could possibly wish to see them, because I’m always eager to move the story along and get to new places and exciting things. So I kept fighting this “downgrade”, but the truth is I mentally and physically can’t handle the normal schedule right now ;_;
Haha, sounds great! Hopefully we’ll be able to answer some of them now without giving too much away… and hopefully they’ll all get answered eventually!
Making comics is just rough. D:
Sometimes you gotta go on Haitus and make a big giant buffer to keep the schedule up and not have the stress of having to get it done the next day.
Correction: maybe you can OPEN UP guest comics. that would be silly to have you do guest comics for everyone else… silly typing.
I follow a comic that has slowed down to updating one page a month due to the artist being too busy.
I’ve gotten so used to that, I promise I won’t even notice if you guys take it down a notch.
Health is more important than keeping us amused!
I vote facts. Facts are awesome, and then we get to theorize in the comments.
You could even showcase guest submissions, like fanart. Just don’t push yourself too hard. Like I always say, less is better than none.
That’s true, if we happen to have gotten any good ones over the past week. We just don’t want to specifically ask for it, because that makes us feel self-important… and we would also hate to make those people with less artistic ability feel excluded. (Although you guys should send us fanfics. Seriously though)
Fanfics? Not sure where you are getting to there, but if my assumptions are in the right area, I just don’t like doing such things… I’m not saying that others won’t, though.
Well, I know fanfics have a reputation as being terrible and all about forcing characters into relationships and hook-ups… And understandably so because most of them are just made for wish-fulfillment on the part of the author, it seems… But there are some good ones out there. I was thinking, little stories about what our characters do in their downtime, or a side adventure we missed. But you know, Victor’s pretty protective about canon, so I don’t know how well that would fly in the end
uuummmmm…. I think i like the Ask A Character idea the best, and i Thought that each week could feature a new character, and you show fan art of that character… But any of these ideas are good
Hmm, that would be cool! Although it probably won’t be very predictable, as it will be based on what good questions we get that week that we can answer. If we have a hard time choosing which ones to answer, we’ll try to avoid doing the same characters over again. You guys can send a question to even the most minor of characters, if you want!
I like the “Idenau Facts” idea personally, fleshing out universes is always fun!
I hope you get your health concerns dealt with, I’ve had medical problems that left me dog-tired and I totally understand you needing to cut back your workload! Good luck!
I like the ask a character one, especially since you mentioned in the comments it could be to the most minor character because that just makes me think of asking things of people that might not even get back in the storyline (and even if they did it’d probably be not spoilery I hope).
If you did a mix of things instead of just one thing another possibility to add would be drawings from Lorelei.
Ohh, that’s a cute idea! Maybe I could do drawings from various characters. Do you read Gunnerkrigg Court? The author-artist has done some little hiatus things like that…
I’m really sorry to read of your health problems, but given them, I’m glad that you’ve decided to reduce your update schedule. :/
As for what to have on Wednesdays, I’m inclined to vote for the question-and-answer idea: I’ve seen it done before and very much enjoyed getting the perspectives of various characters, especially there is disagreement between them on a given answer, I believe.
Otherwise, perhaps you might have single-frame stills of interesting or pretty moments in Idenau: the princess and Blank interacting in a moment between kidnappings; sunset at the docks; a market in Crownskeep; Skärva’s castle as seen from a suitable nearby spot; etc.
It might not be suitable for every week, but you might perhaps have cycles of two Wednesdays of questions-and-answers followed by one scene, or some such schedule.
That does sound interesting, like backdrops or large views of the local scenery (like a full view of the Castle Skärva or one of the towns), but that might actually be more difficult and time consuming to make… I gotta admit, I am a sucker for high-res photos. Keep in mind, this is a suggestion for a much later time. Just try to take it easy and not push yourself.