April 16th, 2010
What? What’s wrong with my name?
My transition between page 40 and 41 was rough, too rough. I thought to jump into another scene, but sometimes I forget to be nice about it. Complaints have been registered, heard, and agreed about. To remedy this, I’m not going to do anything immediate, but when issue 1 is done, there is going to be some additional pages in the book versus what’s on the web. These pages will provide a better transition in parts of the story that need it. In addition the pages will provide additional bonus content for those of you who purchase the book.
Page 41 features the crew after they’ve moved into the place. Kevin is coming back from checking in on Darwin and Steve. Although he didn’t find them, he did find all the equipment already setup and ready to go. When he get’s back Kendra and Allison are arguing, Hot Dog an innocent victim of their wrath. Wanting to try to straighten things out Kevin approached them, but when he realized they were arguing about him, he quickly turned around and headed outside to smoke.
This week I’ve scheduled my appointment to tour the Savannah College of Art and Design and reserved my hotel rooms. I’m super excited about it, but nervous. It would be an enormous transition for me, and not just geographical but an internal change to who I am. For the first time I’d be going to school to train my artistic and storytelling skills instead of my technical skills. It’s a big change from how I lived my life for the past 12 years. Part of me fears it’s a useless endeavor and I’ll never succeed, while the other part is thrilled and excited just to try.
-Dave
With the history of Kalisoma revealed, the intrepid, yet dysfunctional, adventurers have returned to the dreaded Springs to risk their lives picking up where Invicitus and his group left off. We see in this page where Allison has tricked Kendra into carrying her things. It wasn’t hard, not like Kendra needed much more than a slight nudge that somehow carrying the packages would make Kevin happy. The always charming Kevin is, in some ways, to blame since he is one of the reasons for the friction between Allison and Kendra. You’ll have to stay tuned in to see how things played, and what impact it may have on the group as a whole as they investigate a Springs where hundreds of people have been sacrificed to an ancient beast.
A good friend of mine loses his DnD virginity this Monday, it’s an exciting event and one that I’m looking forward to, especially since I can be a player for a bit instead of a storyteller. My friend and I talked some about the battlemat, and I mentioned one of my primary issues with using it is that water erasable markers seem to only come in 8 different colors. This is mainly due to their primary purpose which is for marking up transparencies. It depresses me when I have to use the same red for drawing the demon lord’s hot tub full of blood versus the red flames decorating his thrown. Researching it out a bit, we found a thing called “washable markers”, that would come off both clothes and children when washed. They seemed exactly like the type of thing we were looking for. Deciding to try them out, we marked up a corner of the battlemat and waited for them to dry. They worked well enough, in the capacity that they would easily erase from the battlemat. Unfortunately they erased too easily, not even requiring water. It was very depressing, my obsession for color was again crushed, so until I have a multi-touch table for DnD I guess I’ll just have to stay with using the same dreary 8 colors over and over again.
There are people who dream, and then there are people who dream of stories.
One of the strangest dreams I’ve had this week was inspired by H.P. Lovecraft. I’m a big fan of the author’s work and of the Arkham Horror games. Nothing holds my attention quite so well as a story that successfully mixes horror and madness, it’s those little shifts in reality, the ones that can’t exist but do, that can be the scariest of all.
Below I try to re-capture what occurred in the dream, normally I’m successful at remembering a bit of every dream I have.
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Caught, I was held upside down by a trip snare. My two cats, Yoshi and Lilly mewed at my feet. Somehow the tabby’s had failed to warn me about the trap, some friends they were. I struggled to get free, but was unable to do so, no way I could stretch up high enough to get to the knot around my leg. Urgency filled me, feelings of being chased by something, I had to get out.
Luckily a stranger passed by, although no name was given, he fit what I imagined Lovecraft to look like. Helping me down, he scolded me, as if we were long lost friends and he had the right to.
“This is a dangerous place.” He said. “You know better than to be out here by myself.”
I shrugged, telling him I’d been at the temple of Bast, getting a blessing on my feline friends. Although a very uncommon thing to do, I’d wanted to make sure they they’d be protected if they ever were lost or hurt.
“You know better than to put your faith in the Gods.” He said.
I explained to him how Bast was born from the Old Gods, but not one of them, she wanted to protect the world against the Old Gods, not deliver it to them.
He didn’t seem to buy my excuse, and I stood under his penetrating gaze for some time before he turned and lead the way through the forest.
While traveling through the woods, I kept my cats in a carrier slung over my shoulder. I couldn’t help but worry they’d run away and I’d never be able to find them again. It was a foolish concern but one that filled me with anxiety.
Although Lovecraft warned me about the line, the not-so-subtle string that ran through the entire forest and up to the tip of the distant ‘Mountains of Madness’, I still tripped over it. I considered it no fault of my own, I’d been on the look out for the string, but it was as if my foot gravitated towards it. A warning bell, deep and thunderous peeled out over the world.
It wasn’t until I noticed the look of horror upon Lovecraft’s face that I’d realized what I had done.
“You’ve warned them.” He told me. “You’ve warned them we’re here.”
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My cats in the real world work me up before the dream could proceed any further.
Dr. Inviticus’s is such a party animal! Knowing what he did, he STILL went to Kalisoma Springs. Remember the first entry in the Doctor’s journal, the one Darwin read through on page 28? It spelled doom for the Doctor, heralded by the arrival of the Feasting Worm. What ever occurred while he and his friends were at Kalisoma, it kept him from updating his journal any farther, his ultimate fate a mystery.
Script Frenzy starts April 1st. It’s a writing challenge to complete 100 pages of script in 31 days. I’m Foobar_Zen on the site if anyone wants to add me as a writing buddy. Script Frenzy is the time of year I work on developing the Altsad scripts. It’s as much fun as a person can have without getting a Tetanus shot.
For those of you who read my blog posts, I have a special bonus for you, the world premier of the title for issue 2 of Altsad; “The House on the Fault Line” . The release of this issue will be different than from Issue 1, I plan on having a primary cover as well as several alternative covers, each one should be poster worthy. There may also be other bonuses as time allows. As the script is finalized and Issue 1 gets closer to the end, I’ll post a small blurb about it’s plot, followed by as many teasers as I can.
Until next bloggings,
-Dave
This isn’t about butter, I’m sorry. I wish I could say it was about bacon, but that’s not true either. However the taste of this post, may leave you with a healthy after glow.
More about Kalisoma Springs unfolds in this week’s comic. We now see how it came to be built, nestled over the canyon that the Feasting Worm lives in. The worm’s psychic energies fueling all sorts of madcap entities and paranormal happenings. The story isn’t done yet though, there is still a bit about what Dr. Inviticus and his crew found as they explored the house. You’ll have to tune in Monday to find that tidbit out.
Last Friday I posted the first of many The Malarkey Brother’s comics. It was a full spread, where normally I’m hoping to keep them in a 3 panel format. I hope you enjoyed it, I have plans for many more of them. As a beginner artist I’m hoping it gives me the opportunity to explore making comics in black and white.
You may have noticed the lack of verbal posts lately, life’s been very busy. Friends, life tasks, and calamities, are all I can use as excuses for my tardiness, I won’t bore you with further details on those issues, but I do want to share that I’ve been researching attending Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) in Savannah, Georgia. They offer a Master’s of Fine Arts with a specialization in Sequential Art. Going to be traveling down there in a few months to check out the University as well as to attend their first comic convention. The tuition is quite expensive, so I may end up waiting and applying for a job with them and then transferring down, that way I can take a class a quarter for free and skip taking more school loans. It’s the same thing I did to get my MS in Computer Science, and it works well, although it takes longer to get through school. I much prefer to lose that time over accumulating debt, especially in some place warm year round. I’ll keep everyone updated as things develop.
Until next week’s postings,
-Dave
The first black & white Brother’s Malarkey is finally here! Not sure how this format will work out, please let me know if you like it. Click on the image below for a larger version!
*FOR EYES ONLY*
I’m writing this for my own safety. A dedicated record of the beings who will probably in some way bring about my downfall. There are three listed here, in descending order of potentially causing my doom. They are the villains to my super-barbarianism.
- Darwin
Name: Allison Skancel
Aliases: Darwin’s Public Enemy Number 1, Kevin’s Roadie, and sometimes aliases starting with either the letter ‘B’ or ‘S’.
Bio: A wealthy heiress, who enjoys buying people and shoes, she became one of Kevin’s roommates just so she could get into his panties. Hatred of her may be the one thing that could possibly bind Kendra and Darwin together.
Super Powers: Banshee Death Talk, Mass of Cleavage, and The Ability to Afford Assassins.
Name: Ronny “Hotdog” Fiveo
Aliases: Hotdog, Rumble-Belly
Bio: A big-city transplant who won the local hotdog eating championship, he loves puppies, Allison’s boobs, and long conversations about fictional martial art moves. Kind of heart and gullible, he is often taken advantage of by both people and literature, and may be the only man alive to have read all 24 parts of the handbook: “How to Be A Ninja and Fight Crime”.
Super Powers: Lifting Heavy Objects and Destroying Logic
Name: Steve
Aliases: Creepy
Bio: Having suddenly appeared one day without anyone really knowing where he came from, he is the most mysterious of all of Kevin’s roommates. He rarely speaks, and when he does it’s as short as possible. Oddly enough, sounds of a dog barking can often be heard coming from his room late at night.
Super Powers: Vanishing Into Thin Air, Looking As If He Could Kill Someone, and Making All The Peanut Butter Disappear.
When was the last time you’ve read a gaming book in public? Never? Well change that right now. It’s Read a Gaming Book in Public Week. Find your closest geek friend and beg, borrow, or buy a gaming book from them and then go out to your nearest public place and revel in your geekiness. Remember the people staring at you are just envious, they wish they were reading that book too.
