Hello world

[layla]

Sorry about the radio silence lately. Nothing much to report -- I've been just plugging away happily on my projects. I'm remastering the Kismet: Hunter's Moon pages and they look lovely. I've managed to stop myself from redrawing everything in the first few chapters -- limiting the actual redrawing to a few panels that I just hated -- and generally I think that most of the changes I'm making won't be jarring or even especially noticeable to most people ... but on a subconscious level it'll flow much better, without little artistic mistakes or awkward word balloon placement to break people out of the story. At least that's my hope. Since I'm out of town the first two weeks of September (sister visit! Yay!) and I want to get the remastered version beta'd before I put it online, I'm currently planning to have it up at the end of September. (It's going to be a big job putting it online, too, because I'm also going to revise the site navigation at the same time -- from "stacked" pages to forward-back buttons with only one page per navigational page. The idea of the stacked pages is great, but in actual practice, I have a lot of problems with it.)

Other near-future projects, more or less in order of priority: getting a comic updating again (I'm currently looking at a series of Kismet shorts, including ones drawn by people other than me, which I'm excited about), relaunching Midnight Sun, getting the Kismet:HM graphic novel ready to go to press, and putting up weekly content at icefallpress -- I know, I know, I've said that before, but this time I mean it! (Hmm, I need to revise my tags at the Icefall Press site to be more useful, too.) Oh, and website updates, the bane of my existence! I always put that off because hacking HTML is not my favorite thing...

On a personal level, I'm just ... happy. It's a gorgeous summer -- no major forest fires (which is a big deal, actually -- this is the first totally smoke-free summer since I moved back to Alaska); enough rain to keep things fresh and green and cool, but enough sun to keep me from getting tired of the rain. I got to show off the house to my mom a couple of weeks ago -- it's the first time she's been up here yet, and I was in happy tour-guide mode. This year has been awesome for berries; the raspberries are starting to get over the hill now, but for most of August I've been able to go out in the morning and pick a handful of berries from the wild bushes at the edge of the yard to put on my cereal.

We've taken the plunge and have been getting Izzy, the pound puppy's, heartworm treated. It's expensive and she has to have daily medication along with a few episodes of hospitalization at the vet's, but she's like a whole new dog: happy, bouncy and full of enough energy that it's difficult to keep her calm and quiet so that she doesn't stress her system while the insecticide injections do their work.

It's hard to believe that the summer is almost over. As usual, I have much less to show for it than I wanted. I put in a little flowerbed next to the door, and I love seeing the bright little pansies looking up at me. Need to get more garden beds in if I'm going to do that this year. In less than two weeks I'm leaving for Ithaca, and when I get back on Sept. 17, it'll be full-fledged fall with a side course of winter. Last year, I was dreading winter, but this year I really don't mind a bit ... it's been a fantastic summer, and I'm kind of looking forward to the short cold days to keep me inside and get me to focus on my projects rather than wandering around outside with the dogs.

Comments

[acoustic-rob.livejournal.com]

Reposting webcomics with Director's Commentary is all the rage these days (Queen of Wands, Narbonic), but it seems like a lot of work. And what if there isn't something interesting to say on every page? I'm enjoying the Narbonic reruns but there's a fair amount of filler in Shaenon's comments. Nevertheless, if you're really going to do it, I'll be reading.

So what's the timeline for the complete Hunter's Moon? I've been looking forward to this thing for a while. And I was wondering what you were going to do about the art in the first chapter...aside from general art improvement over the years, you started out with sort of a photocollage style that went away pretty quickly.

Uh, what else? Glad you've been having a good summer. (Ours has been alternating between too damn wet and too damn hot.) And you're off to Ithaca for two weeks? The one in New York, or is there an Ithaca, Alaska? Or you going to Greece?

[laylalawlor.livejournal.com]

Well, I really have no interest in annotating every single page -- basically, as you mention, because I don't have anything to SAY about every page and I would just end up repeating myself. I have a love-hate relationship with director's commentaries. I love the idea of them, and I really like getting behind-the-scenes tidbits of the "how did they do that?" variety. On the other hand, I have to be bored out of my SKULL to watch a movie with the director's commentary track turned on, and even then, there's only so much I can take of: "and now they're walking down the hallway, yeah, I remember when we shot the hallway scene, it was February, or was it January? anyway, Joe had a cold and called in sick so we had to shoot the scene twice, once with our key grip Bob standing in for Joe and ..." *snoorrrrrrrr* I suppose that what I'd like to offer my readers is more along the lines of a "making of" featurette than a true director's commentary.

Like I said, I'm stopping short of actually redrawing most of the early pages, except for the ones that I just can't stand. Most of the changes are minor and subtle. There are just a lot of them.

Itha, NY is where I'm going. My sister works for Cornell. We're doing a road trip around the Maine/NH/Vermont area for a few days, and otherwise just hanging out. Anywhere in particular I ought to try to check out while I'm there?

[acoustic-rob.livejournal.com]

Really? Go figure. Where exactly does she work?

Well, I could tell you about all the places I used to hang out, but how much do you really want to know about the Physics library in Clark Hall? If The Nines is still around they had really good pizza there--thicker than Papa Del's, if you can believe it. Taughannock Falls is worth a visit, and you have to cross the suspension footbridge at least once. Beyond that, your sister will have much more up-to-date advice--it's been a good fifteen years since I last visited.

(Is Orion going with you? Campus rumor says if a couple's crossing the suspension bridge and the man tries to kiss his date and she refuses, the bridge will collapse into the gorge!)

[laylalawlor.livejournal.com]

Oh, I just realized that I didn't actually answer your question ... heh. I'm going to get the revised version off to my beta-reader before I leave for Ithaca; when I get back, I'll do final corrections and then spend a couple of days getting it all online. I'm not planning on running it on a day-by-day basis; I'll just upload the revised version and let people read it at their leisure.