Happy 4th of July, I guess. If you aren’t feeling it, I don’t blame you. Especially if you’re not an American citizen, and double-especially if you are and you’ve been feeling burnt out by everything. I get it. I don’t think I have actually done anything substantial for the 4th for years now. So we’ll just count the blog post today as my 4th of July celebration, in that case.
Project Updates
Some motion on a few fronts. Some bullet points:
- The first chapter of Cosmic Dash: The Swarm is out. Hopefully you’ve had a chance to check it out as there is a lot of cool stuff in it.
- RGBots continues to move along. I have also started posting the comics on r/comics which have done pretty well so far. I’m no Swords, but the work has not been downvoted into oblivion.
- I am handling an edit of The Errant Apprentice for my friend Kevin. I’m very excited about it.
- Last Sunday we recorded the last episode of Spooky Dice Bag of this campaign. As a group we’re looking at what is next.
- I am down to the wire writing this week’s Fang & Bone chapter. It’s almost done, but I’ll still need to make sure I do a second pass of it. It should be up on time tomorrow, but I still may delay it for some breathing room. A lot went on this week.
I also had at article go up at Video Game Town titled “From The Water Cooler To Subreddits: The Gamification Of Genre TV.” It was fun to write and I would like some more opportunities like this, so be sure to check it out. If the article does well it increases my chances at pitching more.
Livestreaming
The biggest development this week was most certainly HPKOMICS LIVE, yesterday. The plan is to do a weekly stream where I draw and chat with folks. It’s a good way to make sure I carve out time for work. If you missed the first stream, you can watch the replay on YouTube.
It turns out that I can simultaneously stream and record, meaning as long as I keep my YouTube account in good standing I can make an archive of these streams. This also may be my entry into creating forms of content for YouTube as well.
I am just moving into this area, so any comments or feedback would be very helpful.
Commissions
Commissions are still open. I am whittling down my queue. At this point I have seven pieces I am working on, but should be finished with six of them in the course of next week. So, if you want to commission me for anything, please do so.
Reading Log: The Inevitable Ruin by Matt Dinniman
I am about 3/4s of the way through Matt Dinniman’s The Inevitable Ruin, and I think this one feels stronger than The Eye of the Bedlam Bride. It’s been a lot more dire than Bedlam, largely due to the battlefield setting and an intense bleakness, where everything has escalated to the point that characters are now beginning to really drop off. Entire organizations, in fact, which seems to be pivoting the series to a Carl vs. AI conflict by the time we’re in the final book of the series.
Not to that The Inevitable Ruin doesn’t have issues with bloat. There is so much going on on so many fronts that it can be exhausting, so much so that even Carl feels exhausted. I do appreciate the limiting of the perspective to Carl to acknowledge he can’t be everywhere. Limiting some fronts to chat notices do a lot to create some sustained tension.
But the book is so full of subplots and characters I found myself not recognizing things because they hadn’t been addressed since previous books and we’re thrust into stories that have been forgotten due to the sheer density of the plotting and lack of regular updates.
Dungeon Crawler Carl has become the Iron Tangle itself. Still fun, though.
Work and Life
At the college, the summer session is going well, as we’re wrapping up our second week. Students mostly seem to be onboard and there have been the usual drops of students unprepared for the workload or just not able to make the class work in this condensed form. A lot of the work I’ve repurposed for the first two weeks of this class seems to have worked well, too. Again, the class is dense due to the need to mash 18 weeks of material into 6, but at least next week the pacing will slow a bit as we’ll only be dealing with a weekly reading.
Of course, I’ll still be breaking that reading down into exhaustive detail.
Speaking of next week, it will be the real test run of my new grading and feedback scheme. Wish me luck. This July is going to be very, very busy. The real challenge is going to be providing the feedback for the partner-based writing. I feel like it’s going to involve a lot of copy/pasting feedback.
Here is Shiny Toy Guns.
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