An Open Letter To Kim Jong-Un

This your time. Your people will follow you into the future. Truly make the People's Republic live up to its name and allow you people's voices to be heard. Open your country to the world. End the Stalinist purges. End your nuclear program. End the useless propaganda—no one buys it, not even your own people anymore with modern technology. Follow the example set by Burma and allow elections. Follow China and open your markets. You have no blood on your hands, giving you legitimacy to the eyes of the world. Do all of these things and truly become a Beloved and Great Leader, not the facades your forefathers propagated. It is true Juche to do these great things.

Tsar Vladi's Bad Week

So, apparently parading around doing burly, manly activities (including hosting an Us vs. Them Russian-American wrestling match) isn't enough to wrangle your party to a total victory in a rigged parliamentary election in these desperate days anymore, Vlad. Sorry to hear your and Dmitry's pre-arranged job swap isn't inflaming great love for your return, either. While I doubt your electorate will kick you out for good (something tells me you'll find some spare votes in a crevice) perhaps you should think twice and consider a few guys to the south who've disregarded their populace this past year. Your armed forces have a lot of time on their hands, too, and I hear they don't get paid that well, or often. Keep an open mind.

Where've the past two months gone? Anyway, I've been upgrading my slightly older computers, maxing out memory and hard-drive space for my future graphic endeavors. With luck I'll have some ideas to earn a little and save up to bankroll my publishing imprint. Plus, it's just been plain fun hacking my Macs for the first time ever.

Happy Halloween!

Late Summer

My reading list the last few months has consisted of new (old) comics and I'm quite enjoying the yellow old newsprint and funky comic smell. This keeps me in a good state of mind for my own comic project, which I've finally finished writing. Having begun designs for characters, I'll soon start roughing out the 135-page total for the entire seven-issue series. It's certainly a far cry from the olden days of drawing on folded notebook paper and then stapling them!

On The Third Beginning

The first rough chapter of Cloak ends up being better for Chapter 2, so it's back to the outline for some tweaks. Of course this seems to be a bit of a tradition for me as both Jaunt and Ether have neither of their original first chapters. It's interesting going back to the well once more with these characters for the final time, so I'm doubly certain to have to craft a fitting ending for JauntWorld as a series. The challenge lies in writing in originality and editing out anything that strikes as a retread of the other books. I'm setting myself up for a big payoff which I hope I can accomplish!

My other comic endeavor is going well—six scripts down, one to go. Then the real work begins.

And Now, More Free Stuff

I've had this kicking around my reference folder for awhile, having meant to post it for well over a year. It's the JauntWorld Political Map (Ether Global Edition).

Maybe I'll do a more detailed map some year....

Reduced Ebook Prices and Et Cetera

I've brought 'em down to 99 cents, less than a buck! The way the trends are going in ebook sales, the lower, the better. Maya continues to trickle a few sales on Amazon, while Jaunt was zilch—to say the least—so I decided to take what pennies I could. And don't forget, 2 Shorts (+1) is free—don't say I never did anything for ya!

I've read recently of the million-ebook sales club on Amazon consisting of the biggest names in publishing right now, and with that name recognition, they can charge more than the price point of a standard mass market. Well, we little guys cannot match that so we have to compete where we can, and that's in these lesser prices. Personally any price point over five dollars is just overreaching it, to be honest. Multimillion-dollar contracted authors really don't require $15 ebooks.

Okay, enough about that. I've been working on comics plots for the better part of two years, with a story arc running for a seven-issue series. I'm enormously private about works in progress, as I have minimal confidence in myself as the work is taking shape, but I can't help but post that I am indeed actually writing, just not in my usual manner and in the familiar sandbox of JauntWorld. Doing this comic work involves an extra degree of confidence that I'm not just fooling myself! I love comics, have since I was old enough to read, and they're my first literary love. But I just don't have anything I'm ready to show for my efforts—yet. When I do, this blog—even though its primary focus is on JauntWorld—will display it, and I hope everyone will see it as the labor of love (and love letter to comics) that it is.