In the Goodies section, I just uploaded a number of different link banners for this site. Please feel free to use them if you feel inclined to link to www.runnersuniverse.com and help spread the word.
So I’m trying to check out more webcomic series whenever I get the free time (which isn’t very often). As I do, I’ll try to spotlight them here.
First up is a great sci-fi comic called Sunset Grill by Kat Feete, which revolves around the many, MANY characters who are patrons of the Sunset Grill, a “bar on the shady side of town in the run-down and corrupt city of Kieselburg.” In its 200+ pages (so far), the series has explored many different stories and featured a great number of recurring characters, from bar employees to police officers to gang members to aliens.
It’s done in a rendered CG art style, which I know may not be everyone’s cup of tea. But even if it’s not your visual thing, the stories themselves are well worth the read! It’s a great piece of very cool sci-fi world-building, with the author explaining background info in notes below some of the comics.
The comic itself is well written, with a hefty amount of comedic dialog and some vey funny moments throughout the series mixed in with a good amount of drama to boot. So there’s a bit of something for everyone. Plus gangsters, low lifes, and thugs. And given that’s pretty much what RUNNERS is about, how could I not like this series?
Check out Sunset Grill.
I was falling behind there for a while, so it was time to start cranking out the pages. I penciled all 24 pages of “The Big Snow Job” #4 in December, and I’m starting the inks today!
Over the next week or so, I’ll be trying something new: inking 18 pages simultaneously, which isn’t quite as impressive as it sounds. Sadly, it does not involve Dr Octopus arms. It just means inking the same character on all 18 pages, then the next character on all the pages, etc, instead of completely finishing 2 full pages each day.
Basically, there are some new characters that show up in issues #3 and 4, and since their designs are pretty complicated, I figured it might be easier to ink each character on all the pages at once. That way, the design details will be fresh in my mind and I won’t have to dig out the sketches and reference every time I need to ink that character on a new page.
So that’s the plan. We’ll see how it goes. Somehow I don’t think it will feel quite as satisfying as completely finishing 2 pages every day. But towards the end, where I finish 10 or so pages in the same day, that’ll probably be awesome.
Looks like Girl Genius won “Best Webcomic” in the 2009 Broken Frontier Awards. Congrats, Girl Genius!
And thanks to everyone who voted for Runners! As cliched as it may sound, it really was an honor to be one of the four nominees in the “Best Webcomic” category, especially it being only my first year as a webcomic and all.
As you probably know, I’m pretty new to the whole webcomic thing, so I’m currently having a bit of a dilemma. Unlike a lot of webcomics, which are strip-oriented, my series is long-form and thus requires a lot of up-front development time in scripting each new story arc in its entirety and concepting new characters, locations, and objects. And then, each page of penciled, inked, colored, and lettered sequential art takes a good deal more time to create than your average 4-panel webcomic strip. So obviously, I won’t be able to sustain a 2-page-a-week update indefinitely. I can do it through the remainder of this current arc, “The Big Snow Job,” but I won’t be able to follow that up immediately with arc 3.
As readers, would you prefer to get only 1 update a week starting with issue #3 or a break in between arcs? If I reduce the weekly update from 2 pages to 1, it will take longer for the story to post, but that would give me time to get ahead on the next one. There could then (potentially) be an uninterrupted transition from arc 2 to arc 3. Or I could continue posting 2 pages a week, in which case the story will post faster than I can get ahead on the next one, so there will be a break of several months before the next arc can start posting.
I initially wanted 2 pages a week since I thought 1 page a week might be too slow. But then, that’s me. Maybe more seasoned webcomic readers are accustomed to that kind of schedule for long-form stories. I also thought a hiatus between arcs would be okay since it wouldn’t be that different from titles like, say, Hellboy. Back in the day, Mignola would put out a miniseries as he was working on it, and once that finished, there would be a long stretch of time before the next one since he obviously couldn’t keep them coming out non-stop. So I figured comic readers would be used to breaks between arcs. But again, webcomic readers may view things differently and not want an interruption in routine. Plus, I worry about losing regular readers if the site goes on hiatus. Of course it wouldn’t be totally on hiatus since I’d do regular updates of blog posts and work in progress, but the story continuation itself would not post for a long while.
So my poll to you readers is this: Which would you prefer and think will be best for the long-term success of the site?
Vote either:
1) One page a week starting with “Snow Job” issue #3, with no break between story arcs, or
2) Two pages a week for the current arc, with a long break (potentially 6 months or even more) between arcs
I’d like to get as much feedback as possible so please use the Comment area to cast your vote, as well as any additional thoughts. Even if you don’t normally post Comments on regular pages, if you’re a regular reader at all, this may affect you, so please cast a vote so I can get as good a cross-section as possible to help me determine the course of action.
Thanks everybody! And as always, thanks for supporting RUNNERS!
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