Author: mountainwashere

Nothing to see, move along.

Thrilling, engaging news!

That’s a lie.

I’ve been doing editing on my comic scripts. Important, but hardly thrilling. Cleaning up dialogue, plot loopholes, trying to reduce panel counts (especially in the earlier issue), ensuring continuity is stable: bleh.

Otherwise, I’ve about finished the second draft of Siegebeast’s rules. I just have some final tinkering to do, then it is time to prepare another prototype for this version. I’ve reduced the complexity a bit by getting rid of a number of unnecessary features,  including level restrictions on ability cards, and I’ve evened out the stat bonuses given by ability cards as well. (There are four stats: Armor, Speed, Attack, and Range. Armor and Range both start out at 0, Speed starts at 4, Attack starts at 1. Previously cards would give all sorts of bonuses to them, ranging from +1 or +2 to a single stat to giving bonuses to multiple stats. I’ve replaced this with having each card give +1 to each of two stats, along with whatever ability it grants normally.) I’m still having trouble with abilities for two of the factions, but I’m narrowing down the problems.

Mountain tries to cook real person food.

Photo Mar 10, 2 58 21 PM

Sorry for the low picture quality, thank my crappy iPhone. Anyhow, this three-egg omelette has avocado, tomato, shittake mushrooms, cheddar, parmesan, and black pepper. And… this is how it turned out:

Photo Mar 10, 3 07 03 PM

So remarkably better than usual. It only broke into five or so pieces. I think I’ve only made a successful omelette twice in my life. I’m really bad with eggs, but I keep trying.

Undertow

So poking around in my recent comics, I found one I wanted to mention to you guys:

 
Undertow #1

Image
Steve Orlando, Artyom Trakhanov, Thomas Mauer
Undertow is spectacular. The first issue just came out last week. It’s a comic about primordial Atlantis, while humans are still savages without language or any but the most rudimentary tools. Atlantis is an autocratic, almost fascist society, and the story follows a group of rebels and refugees looking for a better life. The writing is great, the art is spectacular, and if you can, grab the spectacular Simon Roy variant cover art. (I’m a huge fan of the current run of Prophet, so his variant art is what made me pick up Undertow in the first place). It sadly fails the Bechdel Test, but that’s hardly surprising, given how many comics do fail, and it doesn’t fail egregiously. Nothing that the Hawkeye Initiative would need to look at. Also, since the characters aren’t humans, it takes a second to figure out some of their genders anyhow (though some are much, much more obvious than others). Anyway: Great comic.

Current Project Tally

Hey, so here’s what I’m working on project-wise right now:

  • Siegebeast: Hex-grid-based strategy game. I’ve mentioned this one already, I’m aiming to do a Kickstarter come late spring. Lots of revisions, testing, and art to do.
  • Basilisk Street: 5 part comic book miniseries. I’ve got all five scripts complete, coming in around 130 pages. I’m currently editing the scripts and preparing to hire an artist to do the pitch (First 5 or so pages). Once that’s done, I’ll start submitting it to various comic book publishers. Basilisk Street and Siegebeast are the farthest along of my projects. The biggest remaining task here is finding an artist. Good artists are expensive, and usually have very little free time. (more…)

Weekly Pull Review #1

So I’ve decided to do a weekly feature on my blog where I review all the comics I get in my comic book pull and hold. I’m just going to do quick and dirty reviews, though I may do more in depth on special issues I think deserve it. I’m currently getting my comics from Excalibur Comics, and have loved the place so far. (I do still miss you, Astrokitty!) So, without further ado, let’s get started:
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