Life in a Northern Town

KISMET IS BACK!

It's back, it's back, it's baaaaack! \o/

New pages will update every Monday!

And now I am funding the comic through Patreon! You do not have to donate to read the comic. You do not have to feel guilty for not donating! But if you want to donate, you can pledge as little as $1 per month and get a variety of goodies, ranging from sneak peeks ahead and the ability to vote on upcoming side comics, to books and other swag at higher donation levels.

»» GO TO PATREON FOR ALL THE INFO!

Or read the comic. That’s great too! I will be announcing page updates here and also on the Kismetcity Tumblr.

... in all its 340-page glory. \o/

http://www.kismetcity.com/huntersmoon/hmchapterindex.shtml

It's not linked from the main page yet; I'm still figuring out what that end of things is going to look like. (I think that I want a single front page for all the Kismet graphic novels, which then links to each novel's individual page. So I still need to build that.) And I might add another layer of menus at the bottom of each comic page with links to the main page and whatnot. But basically, this was today's project and I GOT IT DONE. I think this calls for a glass of wine. *pours*

Things I have learned today:

1. Internet Explorer is DEMONSPAWN. (Well, okay, I already knew that, but I got to the point where I was so baffled at how to get some of my div tags to be compatible with IE that I just broke down and used tables. Shhh, don't tell anyone.)
2. Linux shell scripting, on the other hand, is awesome. Once I got my page template and CSS in nice working order, the entire 340-page archive was generated using a single while loop (in batches, so that I could swap out different SSI menus).
3. The Mac has tools to do a batch filename find-replace! How did I never know this before?

I've wanted to get the HM archive on my own domain for a long time, and now it's there -- ad-free, bare-bones, safe and permanent as long as I pay my web hosting bill. I don't know how to do a lot of fancy pro-quality things with HTML, and my general website design aesthetic is still stuck in 2002 -- but I can do basic functional web design and I'm pretty happy with it.

The rest of my July website To Do list, not necessarily in order:

• Portal page for the Kismet graphic novels.
• Locally hosted Sun-Cutter archive (probably based on the HM page template, except with a white background).
• Finish getting Sun-Cutter up on Tumblr.
• Downloadable versions of Hunter's Moon (PDF and HTML).
• Some sort of gallery.

I'd like to start having more interesting, non-comics content on this blog, so here is a question for you. Since attempts to publish a "Hunter's Moon" book via traditional publishing keep falling through, I'm going to stop procrastinating this year (REALLY, I MEAN IT THIS TIME) and put together a downloadable version (probably also with a POD print version through Lulu.com or someplace like that). The whole comic is available online for free anyway, but I think a nice downloadable PDF or HTML archive (or both) would be a nice value-added feature.

What I'm not sure about is whether to charge for it. I'd definitely charge for the POD book, since there is a cost to ME to print it; but I'm on the fence about charging for the download. What do you think? It wouldn't be very expensive, more on the order of an ebook than a graphic novel.



As I see it, there isn't a "right" and a "wrong" answer here -- I mean, voting for the free option doesn't mean that you don't want me to be compensated for my work or anything of that nature. The thing about Kismet is that I would love to monetize it somehow, and I'm tossing around various options for accomplishing that - I should note that none of these options includes shutting off access to the archives, which will ALWAYS be free online no matter what direction I go. At the moment I'm weighing the benefit of what small profit I might make for a pay-per-download PDF versus the benefit of having the PDF out there and freely available.

And the thing about webcomics is that they don't lend themselves to ereaders very well at ALL. I would have no compunctions whatsoever about charging for an ebook version of a novel I'd put online for free, because it is a nice versatile product that people would appreciate and use. A PDF of a comic, though, is mostly useful in the same venue as reading the comic online: you can read it on your computer, but not much else. And I feel a bit odd about charging for it.

Thoughts?

(This poll also exists on LJ.)

Kismet: Sun-Cutter is now updating on Mondays. \o/

This is a slightly awkward place for new readers to jump in, because we're right in the middle of a dialogue-heavy exposition scene (which is actually one reason why I stalled out on drawing it for as long as I did). But it's important to the plot later on, so I didn't want to drop it. Once we plow through this, things pick up a bit. :D

For new readers, it's recommended that you begin at the beginning (we're only on page 16; there isn't much to catch up on!). Sun-Cutter is a sequel/parallel story to Hunter's Moon; it doesn't pick up directly where HM leaves off (actually, the timelines of the two stories are more or less concurrent), but HM provides a lot of backstory for the events that will happen in SC, and some of the HM characters will be appearing later on. Sun-Cutter can also be found on its own page at WebcomicsNation, where you may find it more comfortable to follow than on LJ/DW. There is an LJ feed for it, kismet_feed, that someone kindly set up for me a long time ago. I will attempt to get a Dreamwidth feed up and running at some point, though I haven't done that before, so it may take me a bit to figure out how.

And without further ado, on to the comic!

( Sun-Cutter page 16 )

Quick note: If you're reading this on LJ, the next/previous page links go to the Dreamwidth versions of the pages. I started out in the beginning trying to code it differently on each site, but quickly realized that this was way more trouble than it was worth! DW is ad-free for non-members, so I thought it would be a more pleasant browsing experience if I had to pick just one (as opposed to LJ, which uses ads on non-member and free journal pages). I apologize if this is inconvenient for anyone; you can also read the archive on WebcomicsNation if that's easier.

Projects? Projects! I have projects!

• I'm currently working on the second draft of an urban fantasy novel (two more in the series are already plotted out). I really think I might be able to get an agent to take a look at this one. I'll talk more about it soon, but I'm always kind of weird and superstitious when I'm working on a novel, as if saying anything about it will torpedo my ability to finish it. And I'm very much in "cling to the novel tightly" mode rather than "tell the world about it" mode right now. But soon?

• I'm working on Kismet again! The problem is ... er. I'd probably get a lot farther if I could settle down and work on just one Kismet story, but that doesn't seem to be what's happening.

The process went like this: first, I did a few more pages of Sun-Cutter, but I couldn't really get into it. Eventually I came to the conclusion that the reason why my enthusiasm is flagging isn't anything inherent in the story itself (which I quite like) but more that it's not dealing with my favorite set of characters (Fleetwood, et al). So I figured that I'd shelve it for a little while -- not forever -- and switch to a different story to get my Kismet enthusiasm back. So I switched to Kismet: Eidolon, which would have been the next project after Sun-Cutter anyway -- it picks up almost immediately where Hunter's Moon leaves off. I completed a few pages of that, and started to run into a wall caused by having plotted it out back sometime around 2001-2002. Things have changed since then! Most importantly, I've changed, and the plot that I had envisioned in 2002 no longer really works for me. (This doesn't mean the story is dead, by any means, just that some of the gender stuff in the story as originally plotted seems a bit icky to me now, and I'd like to fix it.)

So then I went, hmm. Perhaps I need to just shelve the long stories completely for a while, and do some of the shorter Kismet stories which have been rattling around in my brain for years. That way, I can get a good grasp on the characters and character dynamics, since I haven't worked with them in any great depth since I finished HM back in 2006. I started working on Memories of Snow, a story I've had in mind for ages that takes place some 13 years before the present day, with young Frank, Fleetwood and Colette. Now I have a few pages of that finished and ... here we are. *g* I was hoping to get this one done and ready to post in time for Christmas, since it takes place around Christmastime, but I have a lot of things to do between now and then, so I can't promise anything. Early 2012 is probably more realistic.

Kismet is a priority right now, though, so between the three projects currently underway, I'm bound and determined to get at least ONE Kismet series up and running in 2012.

(I know, we've all heard that before.)

• I've been involved with Torn World for a few months now - a shared-world fiction & art project spearheaded by ellenmillion. I've contributed some art (not a whole lot) and have been serving on the canon board (copy-editing, canon-editing and approving new stories/art) ... though admittedly I have been slacking somewhat kind of a lot lately, and need to get myself back in gear. Still, there is something really heady about being involved with a group of people all pulling together on a creative project, the same sort of free-floating creative energy that I get from being involved in fandom. And I'm having fun.

Mmmm ... and that's pretty much it, I think! How are all of you?

Okay, so ... the Sun-Cutter graphic novel deals pretty heavily with the Tertia-Secuba conflict in the Kismetverse. As I'm working on today's page, I realized that I'm going to need some slang that both sides use for each other. The only thing that came up in Hunter's Moon was some of the Secubans calling the Tertians "terties", which is really just my half-assed "damn it, I need a slur here, what can I use in a hurry?" On this page, I need something kinda similar for the Tertians soldiers to use to refer to Secubans they're not fond of, and this got me thinking about my desperate need for fake-offensive but not actually offensive slang in the Kismetverse.

So I'll throw it out to you -- do you have any suggestions for slurs that the Tertians and Secubans could use for each other, preferably terms that aren't particularly offensive or politically loaded in our world?

Some salient points:

- Secuba is a clement, roughly Earth-sized waterworld; Tertia has a climate similar to Venus, though it's bigger with gravity about twice Earth's.

- Since the two groups diverged only about 150-100 years ago, there aren't any physical/racial/phenotype differences between them to speak of (as a population, I mean; not as individuals, obviously). Both planets were settled by North Americans and the majority of them are white.

- Secubans gain a tattoo on their arm when they reach the age of majority. Tertians seem to have kept the fondness for tattoos (since we've seen that both Signy and Sagan have tattoos) but don't attach any particular cultural significance to them.

Tertia's "hive" mentality is the thing that it strikes me the Secubans would be most likely to use against them, while the Tertians are equally appalled at the Secubans' loose political structure and lack of respect for authority. (Especially if the authority happens to be them.)

Ideas?

New ultrasound cuff can stop internal bleeding on the battlefield.

I am SO using this idea in Kismet. Of course, they'll probably be so far beyond that in 2752 that it'll be like applying magnets for "internal troubles", but I've conveniently ignored this fact of technological evolution in every other aspect of their technology, so why stop with medicine? :D They could have a handheld version -- a non-invasive clotting gun, basically. Jamie should have one!