2008-01-02
Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008How’s everyone doing this week? I have been spending my time really getting to know my world better and hitting those details with Michael. The story, history and personalities of Ethereal are coming together very well. For the first time ever I am seeing something personal develop into a believable piece of entertainment. Not to mention that this page is the last of the 1st issue. Michael and are going to do a print version soon. We want to redo a few pages though.
We have been working hard and I am certain it will begin to really show. The world map and the historical areas have been coming together. Personalities are beginning to open up and a lets not forget the art. I am getting more confident everyday and growing as an artist. ^^
This has been a hard gig, but now its all coming together and becoming real… Kinda cool, at least to me 
And a special Thanks to Kskillz and Dragonaur for the great gift art! Go check it out! Click the link at the top of the page ^^
See you all soon and thanks for reading!
January 2nd, 2008 at 9:18 pm
Man, turn your back for a few minutes and typos creep in - and one of my major pet peeves is used TWICE! “It’s” not “its” when it’s a contraction not possessive, and “let’s” not “lets” as well! Bad Kris! No Glendronach for you!
j/k
This is a really fun process, and if I could take off the rest of this week like SOMEONE I know, I’d be getting in lots more work on the project as well instead of trying to catch up at work. Then again I spent most of last week in sunny Ft Lauderdale (average daytime temp, 78f), drinking my father-in-law’s booze and eating too much. Life just ain’t fair, is it
January 2nd, 2008 at 9:23 pm
yeah, yeah, yeah… I know but I just draw the pretty pictures.
January 3rd, 2008 at 12:49 am
Haha sweet last page guys. I’d say that’s one heck of a way to end the first comic, and the art look awesome here. When’s the print planned and how much will it be? You can count me in for a copy by the way.
Degs
January 3rd, 2008 at 5:34 pm
Guys, fantastic work. I am a web comic junkie, and keep adding to my list of bookmarks as I read through story arcs. I stumbled onto your story and instantly added the first page to ‘the list’.
Your art is amazing, I’m lucky to pull off a reasonable stick-man in photoshop. The story and characters have fleshed out nicely over the last 5-6 postings, since you got a bit of aid (I’d nail his feet to the floor and keep him fed with fonts and pictures to put type to.)
Hmmm… o.k., if I blow anymore sunshine I’m gonna vomit, just wanted you to know I’m a huge fan… before I criticize
Kinda the velvet glove pat on the head then the lead pipe knee-capping!
Seriously though, I was raised that if you are going to be critical of something you have to offer a suggestion on how to make it better. This doesn’t mean I have to be RIGHT, it just means I have to think I can support my argument. I’ve read the comic from first to last page, so I’m going to ramble a bit while it’s still fresh in my head.
That being said… here goes.
Nudity & violence -
I see more implied sluttyness and gratuitous sexuality flipping past Spike, Mtv, E!, and all those ‘Girls gone wild’ commercials than I get from this comic. The only complaint I normally have about nudity in any medium is that there be some reason for it. I think the nudity in this strip is well done.
I don’t expect celestial beings and elves in a fantasy epic to have the same hang-ups about clothing as ‘we’ do. Thats one kind of thing that sets them apart from the ‘regular’ folks, makes them alien and interesting. My only complaint would be more to wonder if it would be to much to ask for some magical breast reduction? Gigantic breasts on every female character just gets… ehh boring. (starts deflecting the stones and cabbages from the 14-25 crowd)
On the minus side - Body language / expression.
o.k., I understand you are trying to convey a lot of things with a frozen moment from a fluid series of events, each panel being only a segment of the action… and you’re never going to please everyone… but it seems like Una has a kinda ‘blow-up doll’ expression on her face a lot… eyes wide, mouth open, doesn’t look like there is a thought in her pweddy liddow hewd
Shifting her eyebrows or turning down the corner of her mouth on some of the panels where you get a frontal view of her face could help express a better range of emotion I think.
It also seems as if some of the poses in the panel are ‘trying to hard’ to make the characters seem sexy or alluring
I’d suggest starting with the general positioning of the characters, then ruling out any pose you might find in a penthouse, playboy, hustler centerfold.
phew! I hope I managed to explain my position without coming off like a dick, and hopefully I’m shown you a little about MY perspective now so you can at least understand how one of your fans views your work.
Hang in there guys, this strip has huge potential!
Ken C.
January 3rd, 2008 at 8:09 pm
A challenge!
First, I take personal umbrage at anyone posting a more wordy and rambling message than I do. I spent too many hard years in English and Latin classes (OK, only one year in Latin, but it FELT like more than that) learning how to properly drag out a sentence to epic proportions using commas, ellipsis and dashes, to be shown up by some upstart. You probably don’t even REMEMBER the arrival and none-too-soon departure of wide collars and polyester-satin dance shirts! OK, that was something of a non-sequitur, but then I am (according to my daughter) something over 5000 years old and subject to lapses of coherence.
That said, Kris and I are definitely addressing most of the topics you mention (have not specifically talked about breast SIZE, but you can be sure breasts in general figure prominently [hah, a parenthetical pun!] in our discussions). Kris has already started some costume/general appearance re-design on many of the characters, and only the lack of a Time-Turner-like technology (apologies to JK Rowling and/or her lawyers) prevents him from posting those all immediately. That and not wanting to drive any faster than he is towards that early grave.
I do appreciate your input (and input from everyone!), because it shows you recognize what is good and are trying to help us make it better. Also we hope to make obscene amounts of money selling merchandising rights to Mattel or whomever as soon as humanly (Elvishly?) possible, and we’ll take whatever push along that path we can get.
Enough for now, I have four bottles of scotch waiting in my liquor cabinet, all of which are older than my daughter (she’s 14). Choices, choices…
MRJ
p.s. - in a purely self-satisfied manner, and dreading people pointing out when my dyslexia overwhelms my spell-checker, I feel obliged to point out that just like in Kris’ original post, yours had SEVERAL typos and grammatical errors. No Highland Park 18yr for YOU, either!
January 3rd, 2008 at 10:05 pm
Riposte! Parry! Thrust!
Alright, so I’m not an english major
I tend to use the comma like I am putting sprinkles on a cup cake (More is better) and the rest of the punctuation tends to be haphazard. I picked up that nasty habit of sticking dashes in places they aren’t needed from my wife, I place the blame squarely on her shoulders for that one!
I do in fact remember the arrival of the tab collared shirt, and I watched with great glee at the slow and painful demise of Disco, if I had been old enough to purchase explosives at the time I would have done away with the Beegee’s at LEAST 3 years before they realized nobody wanted to listen to them anymore.
Just for reference the first president I remember was Gerald Ford, and I still own a pristine 6-pak of ‘Billy Beer’ My favorite person from History is Benjamin Franklin (I was an American History / Cultural Anthropology major/minor) and I’m old enough to realize that naked women all look the same in the dark (Or as ‘ ol Ben would say “Frankly my dear boy, at night, all cats are gray.”)
I am done apologizing to JK Rowling, her lawyers, and especially the Wizards of the West Coast (they patented the ‘D20′ system… how do you patent that for petes sake) Better watch out, or they will have a lawsuit on you for using the word ‘Elf’
I know that this has absolutely NOTHING to do wit the comic. The comic will only suffer from any further meddling on my part, I just figured I’d kill 5 minutes rambling, introducing myself and enjoying the witty reply when it comes! *hehehehe*
You guys take care, I’m enjoying everything you do here and it’s refreshing to see that nobody is taking themselves too seriously!
Ken C.
p.s. I have a daughter 22, one 21, a son 9, one 8, and another daughter 6. just to one (4)-up you on the kid count
January 4th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
*throws a rotten tomato at Ken C.* Well I’m almost 30 and I like the breats LOL ;). I’ve rambled on enough in previous posts, so that’s all I really had to say…yeah and to throw rotten vegetables haha.
Degs
January 4th, 2008 at 7:21 pm
I am heading to 30 and I love the breasts. I must say, this webcomic will hit my rounds, and not just for the breasts. The artwork is great and who doesn’t like a well written fantasy storyline. Breasts do help though…
January 7th, 2008 at 9:33 am
Thanks a lot Ken C ^^ Your comments and praise have been taken to heart and really help. Tha was a really cool post! Thanks
Degs, stop throwing rotten produce
January 7th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
Anyone else notice that Arcane typed 42 words, and 3 of them were ‘Breasts’ ?
thats 1/14th of your post man, good thing we weren’t counting though!
disclaimer :
What made me think of this was a conversation I just had with my 21 year old daughter, she said 45 words, and 19 of them were ‘Like’ 12 were ‘ya know?’ and 7 of them were ‘whatever’
Ken C.
January 7th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
Great Cthulhu save me from “like”. My wife and I went to Russia on an “educational trip” several (exact number redacted per request from security services) years ago, and one of the young students used the word “like” so many times per sentence that we nicknamed her Like. She was an example of the worst that breed has to offer - scraggy hair because she wanted to look “bohemian”, vegetarian because she wanted to lose weight not because she cared a whit about animals (and smoked like a chimney for the same “dietary” reasons), and made all her own clothes which looked like Goodwill rejects. The worst thing I remember was riding down the elevator one morning to breakfast with her and she steps to the mirror on the back wall (probably still bugged by KGB in those days) and sticks out her tongue (visions of a female Gene Simmons sprang to mind) to examine the multiple tongue piercings she had. Mind you, this was in a day when piercings other than your ear were pretty rare. Regardless, I must say my appetite for breakfast was severely reduced at that point. Blech.
January 7th, 2008 at 11:39 pm
All I could think about when I was reading about that girl was that she probably had nasty pit hair and bad B.O. too.
A friend of mine and I were talking tonight and he commented on the recent mall shootings and stuff, my friend is NOT a mean person, nor does he normally go off on tirades. I was rather shocked to hear him say “You know, not that I think random shootings are right, or that that guy in particular did anything noble at all, but sadly society has progressed to the point where randomly killing people in a crowd has a pretty good chance of actually improving the species.”
His comment, and your story seem to mesh together for me for some reason…
Ken C.
September 8th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
Sweet Dominique Nude
September 8th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Drunk Porn
September 8th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Knocked Up
September 8th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
Naughty Friends
September 8th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
Free Creampies
September 8th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Hot Milf Sex
September 8th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
San Diego Latinas
September 8th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
Lesbian Sex Slave
September 8th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Gay Ass Fuck
September 8th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Young Girl Porn