The Death of John Hancock

If you were planning on acquiring signed copies of Dreamkeepers in the near future, be sure to read on.

The good news:  I'm booking on Volume 4, shading a page a day.   "Descent to the Archives" is half done, and rolling towards completion.

The bad news:  Hitting that quota is kneecapping my online upkeep.  E-mails and art account notes tend to languish.  Apologies to anyone awaiting reply- I will get on top of things, eventually.  But for now- colors.

The fact is, there's increasingly more to do as Dreamkeepers and Vivid grow.  To stay on task with creating content, I've got to start delegating.

First on the list:  Order fulfillment.

When people buy Dreamkeepers books I log their info, package the book, and jog off to the post office to mail it.  I do customer service relating to orders, tackling any stray delivery snafu that may arise.

Over the years we have hand-packaged literally thousands of books, to dozens of nations around the globe, working individually with hundreds of customers.

That's fulfilling on a deep level- seeing my work through from pencil, to print, to the post office, where I personally mail it to another excited reader.

But as we grow, packaging is eating more and more of my time.

So Vivid will begin selling its books through Amazon.  More time for me to create, faster delivery to readers- what's not to like?

Well, the downside is we'll no longer be offering personalized orders.  The option to buy a sharpie-signed and doodled graphic novel will vanish.

Signed copies are currently for sale in our store here:  http://www.dreamkeeperscomic.com/store.htm

If you have your heart set on one, the time to snag it is now.  The Paypal buttons are scheduled to expire in February, when we finalize the switch to Amazon.

We'll still offer signed editions during pre-orders / Kickstarters for new book releases- possibly including earlier titles.  But between Kickstarter releases, conventions will be the only other place to acquire signed books.  

Ye have been warned!    Now I must return to my sparkles- I'll break to make a new V4 Sneak Peek once I finish another scene...

Ornaments 2014- Lilith and Mace

Happy holidays!  Now that Christmas is past, we’re posting auctions here:

http://www.ebay.com/sch/dreamkeeperauctions/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_ipg=&_from=

It’s for the leftover ornaments from the batch we made at Midwest Furfest. They went over well, so we plan to create more next year- but at present, these are the only two available.

I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas this year!

Christmas Ornaments Auction

Season's Greetings!  May hot chocolate grace the cups of all, and little marshmallows bring tidings of joy and diabetes.

First off, I want to thank everyone from Midwest Furfest this year.  Without going into detail, Liz and I have so much to be grateful for.  The generosity and kindness given us was flat out incredible- thank you!

Totally makes up for the whole chlorine gas thing.

We tried out something new at MWFF this year.  No, not terrorism- Liz made the mistake of putting blank ornaments and metallic sharpie markers in my general area- and we discovered that we can create custom decorations.  Out of our experimental eight-pack, we sold all but one:

We'll auction off the surviving ornament, along with its friend that we created to test shiny surfaces.



I didn't want to dump something unexpected and tempting on people right in the middle of their gift budgeting, so we'll launch the auction after Christmas.  Catch our newsletter for the announcement:  http://www.dreamkeeperscomic.com/Newsletter.htm

We'll likely create another round of ornaments for next year's Midwest Furfest, especially since we can customize them on site for people.  Additionally, Liz has discovered a method for making sharpie artwork permanent, even washable, on ceramic mugs- so we might bring those around next year too.

Thanks for reading- I hope your holidays are fantastic!  Watch out for Krampus, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Festivus maximus, and Dies Natalis Solis Invicti to all.  

Myriad Quest: Ten Thousand Worlds

Sanguine Games is fulfilling the fruits of their latest Kickstarter, "Myriad Quest."  I got my copy at Anthrocon, and wanted to share what I found between the covers.

My foremost note:  This is a black and white comic- and it's a visual feast.  It's evident enough I love color, but sometimes black and white can be mastered in such a way that it surpasses the need for chroma.  Matt Howarth's artistry accomplishes that here.

Two words for the images:  Bold and rich.  Stark shadows and silhouettes catch the eye, large pools of black contrasting with lightness, and everywhere texture.  A galaxy of texture:  Hatching, cross hatching, stippling, stroking, scaling, fading, textures they haven't even made words for.  Portraying asteroids, molten rock, swirling black holes and stellar phenomenon- combined with the sharply stylized figures, the effect is utterly distinctive.   It's retro, reminiscent of R. Crumb combined with an angular Soviet propaganda poster.  Mix it with sci-fi, and the style is the culmination of a unique artistic perspective honed over years.

The art was the primary appeal for me, as I didn't find myself growing attached to the characters.  The cold-as-steel soldier, paired with a selfish aristocrat, didn't do much to pull on my heartstrings.  But that's a personal preference, as sci-fi is typically a vehicle for exploring concepts and ideas.  Which Myriad Quest has in spades- from animated sentient molds to lost caches of exo-spatial technology to the seedy underbelly of the galactic black market.

Myriad Quest is in the setting of Sanguine's fully formed RPG, Myriad Song.  Check out the game and the comic here:  http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse.php?keywords=myriad+song&x=0&y=0&author=&artist=&pfrom=&pto=  

See you later, Space cowboy.

Character Secrets: Hooks, Gaps, and Caring

Here's the last tip I mentioned in "Be Clueless, Write Awesome:" 

If the reader doesn't care about the characters, he won't care what happens to them.  End of story.

It doesn't matter how many brilliant twists unfold in your masterpiece- all just more stuff nobody will read.  Unless your characters make an impression- fast.  Which begs the question.

How?

A few incredibly simple tools have worked wonders for me.

But first, one important distinction.  

I've seen this advice over and over- that readers must 'like' the protagonist, that having a relatable lead character is mandatory.

Wrong.  

Readers do not have to like your character.  They don't even have to relate to your character.

They only have to do one thing:  Care.  Be interested.  Burn to see what happens next.

You could write about a kindly old man walking his puppy to the grocer, and he could be the most likeable, relatable codger imaginable- but if he's boring pages will stop turning.  Would you be more inclined to read the biography of Grandpa Grocer, or Genghis Khan?  

  Interesting beats likeable- especially on page one.  

So if making a figure likeable isn't the key to snagging reader interest- what is?

I thought about this question before starting Dreamkeepers, and it took me underneath the stairs, to a pathetic crawlspace in the Dursley household.  One thing was drilled home in the opening of the Sorcerer's Stone, and it wasn't the finer points of Harry's personality, or the meticulous backstory that gradually emerged as the books continued.  We knew next to nothing about him, except one thing:

He was receiving bad treatment.  And he didn't deserve it.  

That one idea is what Rowling hammered home- and it worked.

Let's call it The Gap.

When you see something bad happening to a person- if they don't deserve it- you feel for them.

That hard-wired sympathetic reaction is the hook that causes a reader to care.  Introduce a character being unfairly hurt, and people have an instant desire to see them recover, and see their tormentor punished.  Because a gap has been introduced- a gap between how things are, and how they should be.  That gap sucks in reader emotion, and simmers with tension that needs to be resolved.  Pages start to turn- long enough for plot devices and deeper characterization to start building.

So that's it.  Throw The Gap at the reader early on, and it'll make them care.

It seems simple to the point of insipidity.  Just throwing some heavy-handed injustice out?  How could such an incredibly shallow tactic do anything but insult our intelligence?

It's usually the simple tools that work.  And while any tool can kill a story when wielded poorly, reflect on a few examples.  The Gap shows up everywhere- and it can get away with being surprisingly blatant:

*Harry Potter with the Dursleys.

*The murder of orphan Luke Skywalker's loving aunt and uncle.

*Ellen Ripley in Aliens showing affection to her cat, only to be hideously tormented by nightmarish fears.

*Paige being dunked by Randy.

*Mr. Incredible valiantly battling evil only to be sentenced to Cubicle Hell.

*Street Rat Aladdin chased by bloodthirsty guards merely because he needs to eat.

Odds are you didn't even notice these hooks being placed when you were viewing those stories- but these were key points where you started to care, these gaps between what the characters deserved, and what they got.

One cautionary note on The Gap:  You usually want the audience to pity the character more than the character pities herself.  If the character wallows in their unfair treatment we'll feel this self-centered fountain of misery kind of deserves their misfortune.  Nobody likes a whiner.  

Speaking of likeable- there’s a great tool to help with that.  Often deployed in or around the Gap, it’s called the Care Package.

A Care Package is when we see a character showing compassion and genuine concern for someone else.  

Just culling from the Gap examples above- there’s Luke Skywalker resolving to rescue Princess Leia, Ellen Ripley showing affection to her cat, Mace helping Paige out of the water, Mr. Incredible’s concern for the man being mugged outside the insurance offices, and Aladdin giving his hard-won bread to a pair of hungry kids.

The Care Package is another simple yet versatile tool.  You can drop a Care Package to round out a villain and show their human side- or give them an inverted Care Package, to showcase their cruelty.  

There are plenty of ways to snag reader interest in a character- but the Gap and the Care Package are two incredibly usable techniques to get the job done.  Simple?  Shallow?  Sure.  Is a fishhook a complicated mechanical device?  A satisfying story will, of course, have more to it than a hook.  Once you’ve made a down-payment on entertaining the reader, you win the wiggle room to develop deeper substance.

I didn’t have names for them, but I used the Gap and Care Packages when I started writing Dreamkeepers.  And there was one other thought in mind when developing the cast of Dreamkeepers;

Variety.

Sharply differentiated personalities.  We wanted them so distinctive that we could take one line entirely out of context, and it would be clear who spoke it. 

Different personalities seems like a no-brainer, but it’s ignored all the time.  Think of the last TV show or movie where every character was some minor variation of self-serious angst.  Sometimes it doesn’t even feel like the cast is comprised of different people- like it’s all just one writer, and a few faces get shuffled around to share the lines as they come out.  

When personalities are homogenous it’s like listening to a piano with one note.    

Much richer when there’s contrast between the personalities.  

If everyone is dark and brooding, blah.  But put a grim pouter next to a sunny chatterbox?  Suddenly there’s a dynamic at play, an interchange.  Differences make fertile grounds for conflict, negotiation, betrayal, interesting details of every stripe.    

Often the chemistry, the dynamic between personalities, is vastly more interesting than the characters taken in isolation.  Just something to keep in mind when building your cast.

Hopefully this, along with The Gap and Care Packages, can help hook readers into your story.

But if these tools ignite interest- what maintains it?

What about stories that capture our interest and then seem to go wobbly, deflate, or worse- just stop making sense?  

That’s where the similarities between a good story and a fun game come into focus, and shed some unexpected insight.

Review- Chinese Zodiac Furry

Awhile back Jilo agreed to post a review of Dreamkeepers Volume 3- and seeing as how he's recently completed a book of his own, I'm pleased to return the favor.

First off, a gentlemanly warning:

PORN AHOY!

The book is unapologetic erotica, so it (and links below) are NSFW.  ...Pretty sure that stands for "Nice to Show Fellow Workers."

Given it's an adult book, time for some Q&A.  What happens when a snake catches a frog, a goat summons a demon, and two chickens get in a fight?

...If your answer was 'sex,' congratulations.  You've made it to the next round.

For those who enjoy adult furry art, this book is a find.

The general idea is built upon the Chinese zodiac- there are twelve stories to correspond with the different symbolic animals, eleven text and one comic.  And the text stories are all accompanied with dynamic full-page illustrations.  You can see art samples from the book here:
http://furialatina.com.br/about-the-book/

The narratives cover a wide range of sexual tastes and scenarios- but they're all written in first person, as though narrated or transcribed by the character in question.  Admittedly the prose isn't flawless- the nitpicky editor in me wants to go in and bulldoze adjectives.   But considering the stories are being narrated by the characters, the casual tone ends up lending authenticity to the sultry tales.
Additionally, Jilo is from Rio de Janeiro, with English as a learned language.  And if you compare his aptitude for English against mine for Spanish, well...  No contest, he wins.

And shining through the stories is a pure sensual joy.  With so many puritanical witch hunts and shaming campaigns raging across the nets, it's surprisingly refreshing to come across something that celebrates esoteric erotic adventure without reservation.

The stories actually strike a difficult balance.  They manage to flesh out the porn with enough character and motive to give it substance- while never wandering so far that the narrative forgets its purpose and loses heat.  With a dozen stories and drawings to spare, there's a lot of content- clocking in at 160 pages.

If you'd like to see more, Jilo's art account can be found here:  http://www.furaffinity.net/user/jilo/

And his book can be purchased here:  http://www.lulu.com/us/en/shop/ronaldo-santana/chinese-zodiac-furry-by-jil%C3%B3/paperback/product-21763255.html

Just be sure to close the door behind you before cracking open the covers.

Because nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.

Wisp Knows Something

Clearly we need to make up captions for this one.   Have some fun, and sling 'em in the comments below!  Feel free to repost this art in your own account if you want to actually fill in the word balloon, that would be fun.

Volume 4 Sneak Peek art.  Don't miss the book release- sign up for the Newsletter:  http://www.dreamkeeperscomic.com/Newsletter.htm