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Continue reading “Directory”Song of the Week
Kate Rusby, “Sir Eglamore” (traditional)
Good afternoon!
The day has kind of gotten away from me, but baby is napping directly on my chest, so I have some time to provide the customary weekly update.
I have completed 41 of 90 pages of Last Watch Before Dawn, Vol 1! That means I’ve finished the first two (very short) chapters and almost finished the third (much longer) chapter. I’ll be back on Friday with another update.
This Saturday is What the Hex: The Moon! 3-9pm at Dresden Castle on Underwood, Cudahy, WI. I’ll be there with Brooke, who will have some new cards! I’ve got the same books, but if you haven’t grabbed a Last Watch bookmark yet, be sure to get one before they run out. Also grab a book while you’re at it!
Brooke has also very generously painted a beautiful cover image for the comic, and I’m excited to show it to you once I have it formatted. That will be after edits are done.
My email is pretty low on petitions this week, so instead of that, I’ll encourage you to check your voter registration. myvote.wi.gov has everything Wisconsinites need, and I’d imagine other states have similar sites.
Thanks for being here! Stop by again soon, and I hope to see you at What the Hex!
Last Watch Before Dawn Update: 30 pages!
Things are moving along! I am officially 1/3 of the way through the draft!
I’m trying to keep a pace of four pages a day. Some of these pages will slow me down (like if I need to redraw entire panels), but I’m sticking with it as best I can. At this rate, I should finish before the end of October, and spend the last week or so of the month on front and back material, like concept art and a map!
I’ll update you again next week. Thanks for reading!
Song of the Week
First Aid Kit, “Winter Is All Over You”
Good morning!
I am happy to report that I have completed edits on sixteen pages! I’m hoping to be done before the end of the month, and release Volume 1 in mid-November.
On October 17, I’ll be at What the Hex: The Moon, and on October 31, I’ll be at Studio Moonfall’s Bookoween. More on those as we get closer, but in the meantime, mark your calendars!
A couple of petitions for today:
Via Faithful America: End child detention
Via The Workers Circle: Protect Haitian TPS
Via IMEU Policy Project: Stop land theft in the West Bank
Thanks for being here! I’ll be back Friday with another update. Have an excellent week.
Last Watch Before Dawn Update: Printer ink woes
But first, new fonts! Check them out!
So, if you’re familiar with printing, you probably know all this already and can laugh at me, but I am not familiar with printing. I can barely get a wireless printer to connect long enough to print a single page. As it turns out, when you’re dealing with CMYK colors, basically any saturated color (including black) tells the printer to just layer on SO MUCH INK that it can cause the ink to bleed and smudge. You have to go through a lot of silliness to get Photoshop to just make a normal color with a normal amount of ink. The best part is, the visual difference between 300% CMYK (the value of all the black areas on all my images before I started doing this) and 240% (IngramSpark’s maximum) is NOTHING. IT LOOKS EXACTLY THE SAME.
Okay. Rant over. I have, hopefully, figured out how to make this work and finished seven pages of the new draft. I kept having to go back and redo all the pages I thought I had already completed. I expect my pace will pick up as I move forward.
In the meantime, if you’d like to tell me how much you did or didn’t enjoy the comic in its initial run, or if you have a word of encouragement as I learn new, fascinating things about printing, comments are open. Or if you just want to say hi. I appreciate you!
Song of the Week
Sam Brookes, “Black Feathers”
Good morning!
I have spent all weekend wrestling with formatting, and it looks like I’m going to have to do it myself instead of relying on IngramSpark’s automatic tools. I’ve always used them before for my books, but full-page images are proving to be too much for them.
I’ll be working on the newsletter today, and it will go out on Wednesday at noon my time (US Central Daylight). If you’re not signed up and would like to be, put your email in the box at this link. It will then send a confirmation to your inbox.
After I’m done with that, it’s time for editing! I’ll be working on that for what will feel like forever, but I might have an idea of when I’ll be done by the end of the week. In any case, I’ll be back Friday with another update. In the meantime, feel free to keep leaving comments! I appreciate them all, and your input will help guide me as I get Last Watch Before Dawn into publishing shape.
A couple of petitions for this week:
Via Just Foreign Policy: Stop war with Cuba
Via Win Without War: Block the bombs
Via Arsenal Pac: Demand medical associations publicly report on conditions in detention camps
That’s what I’ve got for you today. See you again soon!
Last Watch Before Dawn update
Hello!
Since I was here last, I have completed two readthroughs of the draft, one for my many, many art errors and one for pacing. The pacing wasn’t bad! I think you and I are going to have a genuine comic book on our hands very soon.
I’ve been getting some comments on the pages hosted here, and I appreciate them! Keep them coming! Any thoughts you have will be helpful to me as I get the draft into shape.
I’ve touched up a couple pages to start with, and you can see a bit of one of them above. The skull looks much more menacing with some more shading on it. Today, I’m going to see if I can fit these touched up pages into IngramSpark’s book builder. Their website says they publish comics, but gives no hints as to how to format them, so I’ll be figuring it out as I go.
Starting next week, I’ll be doing edits, and this will continue until they are done. I’m hoping for a late October release date, but that might be a vain hope, so I’m going to guess mid to late November. I’ll have a better idea once I’ve done a few days of edits.
Thanks for being here! I’ll be back next week with more updates. I’ll also be talking about potential new projects soon.
Song of the Week
The Paper Kites, “Willow Tree March”
Good morning!
In case you missed it, Last Watch Before Dawn, Volume 1 is complete! You can now read it all the way through. Start here or visit the table of contents here. I’m working on taking notes on a printed copy for editing, so now’s the perfect time for you, dear reader, to let me know what you think about it. Comments are open on each post, including this one, but you can also reach me on Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky, or by email (madeline @ spacewhalespress . com).
A note on email: if you are instead intending to send me yet another AI-written proposal asking me for money so that your book club that definitely exists will read one of my books, I’m not going to read it and I am going to put some sort of curse on you.
I’ll be back on Friday with a progress update. In the meantime, here are some petitions:
Via Win Without War: Block the bombs
Via Campaign for a New Myanmar: Restore TPS for Burmese refugees
Via Save the Children: Resume lifesaving aid for children
Thanks for being here, and have an excellent week.
Last Watch Before Dawn: Volume 1, Page 85
This is it! The last page!
I have so much more work to do to get it ready for publication, starting with giving the library an unreasonable amount of money to print the whole thing out so I can take editing notes, but for now, join me in celebrating! I drew a whole comic! Twelve-year-old me with her collection of drawing books (it was the era before YouTube tutorials) would be so proud.
I’ll be working on editing for probably the next month or two. After that, I’m starting a new book (more on that later) and planning Volume 2. Thanks for sticking with me until the end, and I hope you continue to do so! I have lots more of this story that I’m excited to show you.
Full page below:
Continue reading “Last Watch Before Dawn: Volume 1, Page 85”Last Watch Before Dawn: Volume 1, Page 84
Here it is, the penultimate page! It’s a dense one. Stop by tomorrow for the conclusion of this volume.
There’s some violence implied, but not shown. Full page below:
Continue reading “Last Watch Before Dawn: Volume 1, Page 84”Song of the Week
Kamelot, “Beneath the Moon (Tunglið)”
Good morning!
This is the last week of Last Watch Before Dawn! The last two pages will be up Tuesday and Friday. If you’ve been following along, I appreciate you taking the time, and I welcome your feedback! Comments are open on each post, including this one. Let me know your thoughts, like if someone’s arms look wonky, or if you have a favorite character you want to see more of in the next volume, or anything else that comes to mind.
After these last pages are finished, I’ll be printing out the draft to start taking notes. Once I start editing in the next week or so, I’ll have a better idea of when it will be ready for publication, so stay tuned!
A couple of petitions for today:
Via Daily Kos: Close cruel detention centers
Via MPower Action: Stop settler violence in the West Bank
Via Just Foreign Policy: End the illegal blockade of Cuba
That’s all for today. Take care, and stop by again soon.
