Author: Madeline Crane

Fantasy writer, tabletop gamer, wearer of hats.

Song of the Week

Clannad, “I Will Find You”

Good morning! (Pretty sure it’s still morning.)

I had a lovely time at What the Hex! Hello to everyone I met there, as well as old friends. I think I still have enough books to take to Bookoween in Kenosha on the 31st.

I didn’t get as much work on Last Watch Before Dawn done over the weekend as I had hoped, between the market and having to draw three new panels (and make room for them on the page), but I’ve finished 61 of 90 pages and should be nearly done by this time next week.

A couple of petitions for today:

Via Action Corps: The people want peace with Iran

Via Oxfam: Gaza’s reconstruction must be led by Palestinians

Via National Campaign for Justice: Children must have lawyers in immigration court

I’ll be back with an update on Friday. In the meantime, have an excellent week.

What the Hex Tomorrow + Last Watch Update

The shadow of an airship passes over a snowy pine forest.

Tomorrow (Saturday, October 17), I’ll be at What the Hex: The Moon! Doors are open from 3 until 9 PM at Dresden Castle on Underwood, Cudahy, WI. Here’s the Facebook event. I will have books, as per usual, and Brooke has some new cards. There will also be more magical creators and artists, workshops, and crafts! Hope to see you there!

As of this writing, I’ve finished 57 out of 90 pages of Last Watch Before Dawn, Volume 1. I’m well past the halfway point! Above, you can see a preview of the new cover for chapter IV.

Thanks for sticking with me, and I’m looking forward to seeing you tomorrow.

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!

A man in an antlered helmet, his face mostly in shadow, looks out with a sort of grim smugness. A partial speech bubble is also present.

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

Thumbnail of two black-and-white comic book panels. One depicts industrial tubing hanging from the ceiling of a hallway. A man in robes with more tubing on his head walks to a slightly open door that lets a beam of light into the hall. The other depicts four men descending a set of stairs under more industrial tubing. Three are robed and masked, the fourth is much taller and wears a tunic and carries a staff. The tubing has the sound effect "HUMMMM" inscribed beside it, and a caption on the first panel reads, "It is at the start of this inauspicious year that I am summoned before the emperor's holy presence,"

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

The skull of something humanoid with three eyes, prominent lower canines, and curved horns like a goat's sits atop a stack of books on a desk. Two scrolls lie nearby, and part of someone's bare arm can also be seen.

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

Thumbnail of Panel 2, described below.

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” →