Christchurch Armageddon 2015 is over for another year…several months ago. Ugh, my updating of the site has never been that snappy. Some of that has to do with learning how to do it. Anyway, the show was wonderful, a new location, many people and I never got up from my drawing board. Honestly, it’s my favourite thing to do is to meet people and do a doodle for them.
By this time of year I would be gearing up for the Auckland show but sadly, this year we are unable to make the trip.
Photos of the Christchurch show will be forthcoming as soon as we find some.
Now, what’s new….
My Comic series Digital Butterfly is back in production. Part 3 is on it’s way and I’m happy with it’s progress.
The birth of Butterfly
For anyone who bought Digital Butterfly 2, you would have seen this:
Print Ad for Digital Butterfly part 3.
This was my homage to print ads that used to appear in magazines like Comics scene. I always wanted to do one. This was designed and drawn the night I finished the production work and features a new character. This scene was supposed to have appeared in issue 3…but that was almost a year ago. In the past year, Digital Butterfly has developed story wise, developments that have rendered this Ad inaccurate. This scene still happens, This new guy will appear (He’s an important fellow.) but we won’t see him until part 4.
The next development is that it’s no longer in Five parts. I see it being done in Eight. The reason for this is that when it came to the writing of part 3, there was so much in it and to continue with the format of 1 and 2 was unrealistic. Splitting 3 in half and creating 4 from that, short changed 5 and so on. so I reviewed my original plot and rewrote it, which leads me to…
The page format has changed. Parts 1 and 2 follows a 4X4 grid ( more or less ) like this:
The reason for this was for online presentation. Butterfly was originally going to appear on the web first and print later. Each page would be produced like above but be split in half for online presentation. For example the page above (Page 23) would be appear like this:
and this:
The re launch of Batman Beyond had done something similar, I thought it was a good plan but my sudden launch into the print world changed that. When we published the first edition of a collection of short stories in my first book VARIENT, I wanted to add something that was current. All the stories that were already done had been older work that didn’t reflect what I was currently doing so I pulled out the outline of Butterfly and did the first 4 pages as a preview. Butterfly went to print before she saw life on the web. I kept the format and I liked that I could add a lot of story in a single page.
On the advice of a professional comics retailer I decided to change the format to a more traditional 3X3 grid. Part 3 is being done this way and I like the results. Parts 1 and 2 for now will stay in the old grid. I don’t want to think about that right now. Also:
Digital Butterfly 3 and beyond will also appear on the web first. Parts 1 and 2 are on webcomics.co.nz right now (as with the Variant stories) Current print versions are still available. the future of issue by issue editions is still up in the air. When it’s all done, a collected edition is defiantly in the cards and that is my goal with the story. A book to hug and hold (or read if you prefer). One more development:
The print edition will be smaller. Parts 1 and 2 (or the “Pilot” episode as I think of it) were printed in A4. The result was more like a magazine than the traditional comics size. On the advice of the same retailer I decided to change it to something retailers would be used to.
I think that’s all the Digital Butterfly developments right now.
Next Episode will be about a Girl and her robot…in space.