Last week I commented about how cool Der-shing was for linking to reMIND from his cool comic, The Meek. Someone was kind enough to point out that Der-shing is a ‘she’, not a ‘he’. Wow, Sorry ’bout that Dar-shing. I’m totally embarrassed.
Another reader pointed out that some of my RSS feeds have been going out to the feed readers before the publish date, like Trent’s interview for example. Looks like it was showing up on Google’s Reader almost 5 days ahead of time, unfinished too. What’s up with that Google? Has anyone else been getting half written posts? I can’t imagine the pain it must have caused to read my hack job without an ending.
Can we talk about something that isn’t embarrassing to me now? I’m going to need a comfortable leather couch if we continue this pattern.
Anyway, here’s the new pages.
Okay, I want to warn you now, we are getting to pages that haven’t had as much special attention to the dialogue. You see, I just sent off all the pages of the first 3 chapters to my editor/writer friend, Jeremy Barlow. He’s been an editor at Dark Horse for years and written quite a few of the Star Wars comics too. I was planning on getting all this to him earlier, but I got caught up in the art and kept pushing it to the side. Jeremy is going to be adding his golden touch to the project to help bring my writing up a notch. I’m not sure how soon I’ll be able to update the pages to the new improved editing, in fact, I might just save that for the print edition, but none the less, just know that everything you are reading could dramatically change. It will be the same story obviously, just written better once Jeremy blesses it with his magical writing powers.
One of the things I’ve been toying with is the way I should spell Victuals’ name. I used to call him Vittles which is easier to read but I changed it to Victuals fearing Purina would launch a full scale attack on my no-name comic, obliterating any signs of life. I’m still not sure if it would really matter, but I figured I’d play the safer bet and use Victuals even though it’s harder to read. By the way, it is still pronounced “Vittles”.
I’ve been told by some that they LOVE the name. One person even wants to name their next cat Victuals. However, I’ve heard a fair share of negative opinions as well. I figure I still have time to make a final decision before the printing press, in which case it’s final. I started a poll on the left hand side to see what, you, the readers think. I’d love to get your opinion if you have a second. I’m not saying this will be the deciding factor, but it very well might sway my opinion.
Many of you might have heard me talk about how much I love Axe Cop, a webcomic drawn by a 29 year old and written by his 6 year old brother. Well, I’m happy to announce that this week you will be able to see an Axe Cop guest post by yours truly. Yep, I drew an Axe Cop comic and it was SUPER FUN! Looks like it went live today. I warn you though, it’s nothing like reMIND. Here is the question and a direct link.
Thanks for all your votes last week. We shot up to the top 50 now and have been hovering between 46 and 48. Because of this, people are starting to find reMIND without spending on advertising. The higher I can get on that list, the more free advertising I’ll be getting so please keep voting, it’s working! I’ll keep showing an example from the next weeks page every week as an incentive.
Also, I just added a reMIND wallpaper on the links page HERE if anyone wants to proudly display Victuals in all his glory to their coworkers.
That’s all for now. I’ll try to get the second installment of How I Color reMIND for Thursday. See you then.
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What’s wrong with Vittles? I love the name, but it’s better spelled that way I think – I’d have never guessed you meant Victuals to be pronounced Vittles.
Yeah my wife showed me in the dictionary that it’s pronounced just like vittles. (Vit-l) Here’s a link that even has a voice saying the correct pronunciation. I mainly just want the separation from the cat food, Tender Vittles, even though this was the original reason for the name. Perhaps I should explain the correct pronunciation at the start of the comic on that welcome page.
Oops, I never knew there was a cat food brand by that name, now I get your hesitation!
RE: the early sneak peek of your feeds, I had that happen a few times and it always seemed to be because of drafts and/or my own dumbness of posting it early on accident. The feed basically takes what it gets and there’s no turning back. The best way to fix that is to not upload your post until it’s finished by creating it in a text file or something. If it helps, I don’t think I got any of your feeds earlier than intended.
Yeah, it must be something I was doing. Although it seemed like it was only Google’s reader that was picking it up early. I’m gonna have to be careful from now on. About half the time I write my articles on a word processor and then copy it in to WordPress so you’re probably right that I should do it that way. It would be the safest bet.
I’m all for Victuals/Vittles name to be spelled phonetically. I’ve been reading it as “vik-tu-els”, which turns out, isn’t correct. Just my vote though.
Yeah, I think everyone has been reading it that way. It’s a tough decision.
What? Oh, jeez… I also thought Der-shing was male and wrote about her as such. No one corrected me. Crap. Well, knowing half the battle. The other half is desperately pouring through your archives and wondering what else you messed up.
Love the new pages, too. :)
- E.D.
Haha! If you look hard enough I’m sure you’ll find a massive list of things you could point out that I messed up. This whole “writing a blog” thing is pretty scary. It’s like raising your hand in class and saying the wrong answer.
Everyone is laughing at me! Should I raise my hand again?
Hey thanks for posting a link to my Axe Cop guest post!
It was my favorite of the guest spots so far. Love the axe-hairs! Malachai would like it, I think. :)
Even though I consciously know that victuals is pronounced vittles the voice in my head that reads your comic to me (I’m illiterate, sad but true, thank god for that voice in my head.) insists on pronouncing it phonetically. The thing is, I like victuals pronounced phonetically better then vittles no matter how it’s spelled. Victuals (phonetically) has a vaguely mysterious/ mystical vibe to it that (In my opinion) fits with the world that you’ve created. My vote would be to keep it written as Victuals and pronounce it Victuals, it’s your world after all.
Also I’ve been reading “Sonja” as though it is pronounced “Brumhilda”, is this correct?
I liked seeing something so stylistically different from you with the Axe Cop guest page. Did you write it too or was it written by Malachai. Were there panel descriptions or just the captions to work with?
Brumhilda! Hahah Correct!
Victuals phonetically is definitely a interesting and unique name. I have to admit that I don’t mind it phonetically at all. I’ve just always said it the other way. It seems like the votes are heavy towards Victuals too and I’m sure people are reading it phonetically when they vote.
As far as Axe Cop, I wrote and drew it but I had to examine the way Malachai would say things to make it sound similar to what he might have done. I also studied the style as I drew to keep it similar in look and feel. I’m glad people are responding well to it because some of the guest posts got ripped apart last week by comments.
I dunno, when I looked up der-Shing’s DeviantART site, it says male? So now I am confused because I thought Der-Shing was a dude!
BTW, both The Meek and The Phoenix Requiem sent me here and boy, am I glad I found your comic. It’s so gorgeous and the story is quite intriguing. I especially appreciate your tutorials. Thank you so much for taking the time to make those!
Glad you like the tutorials. Okay, I don’t know the answer to the gender question and now I’m am a bit confused again. I suppose it doesn’t matter in the end. But it’s funny that it’s actually a debate now. haha
Actually I’m less interested in how you spell it than how he got that name. Sure, you are what you eat, but nobody calls me Chicken. (wait…)
Originally I planned on Victuals being a stray cat that Sonja fed the cat food, Tender Vittles, in order to befriend it. She just adopted that name unsure if anyone would ever come looking for him but nobody has and so the name stuck.
Eventually I was going to write something like that for a character bio.
Honest I’d probably prefer Vittles because it’s awkward to read Victuals phonetically, and then have to translate it to the correct thing in my head… kinda yanks me out of the reader experience. But man, do whichever. :)
To be honest, I don’t really mind which way people pronounce it. If you could pronounce it phonetically, would it still bother you as much?