I’m like, so sick to my stomach at the moment. So, instead of working on mapping out Issue 6, I’ve been sitting about like a useless lump all weekend. It’s rather depressing. Since the new issues will start in around five hours or so, I thought we could maybe go over a few things now. I hope you all – especially everyone on the Main side – are reading the news instead of just ignoring it because otherwise, you’ll be a bit confused in the next few days. Why? Here’s what’s going on…

Lack of color…
Remember how way back in September we told you the comic would be switching to an inked/toned look due to time and printing costs? You don’t? Well we did. So far this has met with approval from the Supporters. As for myself, while I like the color, I do enjoy the toned look. It reminds me of the indy comics I loved so much. It also seems to give the comic a grittier feel which is perfect for the current storyline and my ink-work seems to be improving, which is a nice side bonus.

The lack of color also means we can drop the cost of the printed books down to $3.00. So, while there will be some disappointment over the loss of the color, we hope you’re all still willing to come along for the ride. And yes, the covers will still remain in full color.

What about the archives…?
The archives will be getting a makeover soon. A friend of ours, Joanna of Illuminated Editing, has taken on the scary job of being our proofreader. Issue 5 has been proofread, the corrections made and will be on its way to the printers this week. Over the next month or so, we’ll be asking Joanna to look over the previous issues so we can make corrections. While making the corrections, we will also be converting Issues 1-4 to the new grayscale layout we’ll need for a trade paperback book. These new, edited pages will be moved into the archives.

The original plan was to leave the full color 1-4s in the main archive and just have the grayscale versions in the trade paperback book. But, the more we thought about it, the more we worried that could seem confusing and misleading to people – they’re colored online, so why not in the book? This is something we’d really like to avoid. The Prologue (Issues 0.1-0.3) will not be grayscaled since the color pencil does not survive the color removal well. “Tales From RCSI” will also not be grayscaled down. Only Issues 1 and up will be converted to grayscale – mainly because these issues will be kept in print whereas once the remaining issues of 0.1-0.3 are sold out, we won’t be doing reprints.

We’re hoping to have this all finished by January of next year, but the conversion has to be done by hand so… it may take some time. We want to make things the best we possibly can for the trade and the net so we’re going to take our time. Thanks for understanding and putting up with our mess.

Lord Midaugh to Lord Saeran…?
While fixing the errors in Issue 5, Matt and I realized something… lords and ladies are usually referred to by their title and first name. While we were doing things right with Lord Cedric, we’ve been referring to Lord Saeran Midaugh by his last name. Oops! As a result, all cased of Lord Midaugh in Issue 5 have been changed to Lord Saeran. Issues 1-4 will be checked for this error when we do the conversion to grayscale. I think this happened because when we first wrote Midaugh in, he was a bit character who was only meant to show up once. As such, he didn’t have a name aside from Midaugh. But, the more we worked with him, the more we began to feel he was too good a character to just toss aside. Ambassador James Gerrig needs someone to offer support in Astoria and Lord Saeran seems a good candidate. So Lord Saeran / Lord Midaugh are the same person. That was our flub. Sorry about that. *blush*

Issue 6 guest cover…
The cover to Issue 6 is the first of our guest covers. In each big arc we’d like to have one of the issue covers done by another artists. Why? Because it’s fun and what better reason is there in life than that? The cover to Issue 6 (which is being seen by the Supporters starting Monday, Oct 20th) is by Rusty Haller, creator of ‘Ace and Queenie’. I’m constantly amazed by Rusty’s work. I have the original piece in a frame over my desk and every time I look at it I’m blown away by how dynamic it is. I still squee over it. You can see more of Rusty’s art at his FurAffinity account.

And, at the moment I think that’s about it. I’m sure I’ll think of something else later on, but for now I’ve babbled on long enough. I should try to get some work done on laying out Issue 6. I need to get going on those pages starting tomorrow.

Thanks again for reading and take care all!

“Madame, all stories, if continued far enough, end in death, and he is no true-story teller who would keep that from you.”
– Ernest Hemingway