In case you were wondering, I haven’t given up on The Urthona Revolution. I am currently just trying to decide where the comic will be hosted. When I’ve decided that, the story will continue with one update per week – though perhaps with more pages per update than before.
Meanwhile, have you read A Stray to Botaram?
I don’t have enough time or strength for a long blog post – today’s been a hard day – but Verena recently published the newest part of The Twilight Experiment. Go read it, for it is funny.
More about my too many creative endeavours tomorrow.
(Did I mention you should vote for Echoes and Awakening on YouTube? And share it? Come on, people! It only takes a few seconds, and lives depend on you. OK, maybe not lives, but… well… important things. Yes. Trust me on this. Just go.)
I’m quite happy with the first few instalments of The Urthona Revolution, but I’m definitely going to move it away from WebComicsNation – either to a different host, or to a subsection of my own site. Since we’re going to be in Greece for the next three weeks (we’re leaving tomorrow), comic updates are going to resume in August.
The blog will keep being updated, though.
One of the biggest problems art is facing today is the definition of art in people’s minds. Too many people have been misled into believing that truly good art must consist of ambiguous abstractions that are somehow “timeless” – that art must be exclusively introspective, lacking context, and dedicated solely to celebrating the inability to come to any kind of conclusion. Good films are those that “apolitical” (i.e. lacking courage), whereas any film that attempts to find or portray truth is “message-heavy” and more propaganda than art.
Truth, after all, has been declared to be relative, at least when it’s convenient, and not the business of the artist. Good art, we are told, pretends that people exist in a vacuum and the world doesn’t change; or if the world changes, it does so in ways that are beyond our ability to comprehend. (Perhaps we should leave it to our leaders? They may do bad things, but really they’re just people with daddy issues, and a government of the people by the people for the people will be the same as a plutocracy, because all people are the same, driven by Human Nature. Right?)
That’s the going definition of art: self-important, intentionally myopic bullshit pumped out by cowards and apologizers who justify their lack of vision as belief in “the small things” and their lack of courage as “not wanting to preach.” But it’s not a coincidence that theatre evolved from religious rites; art is about the truth, and always has been: about seeking it, about finding it, about questioning it. It’s about humanity, about God, about the nature of the universe and the nature of society. It’s about justice, and truth, and love; fuck that, it’s about Justice and Truth and Love.
Art is about the fire, not about rearranging the motherfucking matches.
The Urthona Revolution: God is Light
The third instalment of The Urthona Revolution is out.
The next part of The Urthona Revolution is out.
Click on the image to read it.
Say, didn’t you have this story lying around called The Urthona Revolution?
Yes… it was a good story, but for a number of reasons never turned into a game.
And didn’t you keep complaining about wanting to do some kind of episodic storytelling?
Yes, because I felt it would do me good to have the kind of project that actually allows me to release stuff regularly. A kind of creative pressure valve, if you will. Something I can work on every now and then, once or twice a week, to take my mind off of my bigger projects (without becoming a monster project itself).
Where is this going?
And didn’t you really enjoy making those collages for The Museum of Broken Memories?
Yes, that was-
And didn’t you just read this amazing webcomic called A Stray to Botaram which reminded you of the potential of the medium?
Yes, but I really don’t see where this is going. What could I possibly do with-
Oh.
Now there’s an interesting idea. You mean like this?
(That’s a link, by the way.)
Yes, Jonas. That’s exactly what I mean. Granted, this is only a short teaser, but every story has to start somewhere… and this is where this one starts.
Who exactly are you, by the way?
I am the voice of Sky Cat. Here, Evil Roda took a photo of me.
Jesus Christ!
No, not really. I could kill Jesus Christ with a tray.
Or with your laser eyes.
This is true.
And if people don’t like the comic, they can stare at your photo and go into a trance.
They are already doing that. And so are you. That’s why you think you’re reading this.
What? No! No! Aaaaaaaaargh!
And now, a selection of musical cues from The Twilight Zone…
Oddly enough, occasional donations have started coming in. Not many (I think there were four so far) – I don’t want you to imagine that I’m starting to making a profit off this website – but still more than in the last ten years.
And I appreciate these very, very much. I’m trying to keep this from sounding too emotional. But it really means a lot to me. It makes my life and my work easier.
Anyway, people who donate can be in my next game, so I send them emails asking how they would like to appear. So far, the responses have all been quite delightful: a silly book title, a great photo, a character from an upcoming game, and… A Stray to Botaram.
A Stray to Botaram is a webcomic about two creatures living in a very strange world, about their meeting and their common journey of discovery. When I first followed the link, I didn’t understand much – it leads to the last (current) part of the story, and the art style seemed rather confusing. What was I looking at here? Sure, this person had donated, but what exactly was this? Then I went to the beginning, and started reading.
More than three hundred pages later, I arrived at the last panel so far, and realized I had spent my entire morning reading instead of working. Even worse, now I was hopelessly enthralled by this story and its setting and would obsessively follow it from now on. The art style wasn’t confusing, it was beautiful and evocative and made perfect sense; the characters were loveable and complex; and the setting was unique and utterly fascinating. And the writing was great: alternately sarcastic, lyrical, funny and touching.
So I sent the creator an angry letter for taking up all my time.
Well, not exactly.
If you enjoy my work, I strongly recommend A Stray to Botaram. Read the story from the beginning and keep going. Don’t expect punchlines or self-contained stories; expect a long and fascinating journey towards… well, towards Botaram. And hopefully some kind of enlightenment.
Haven’t uploaded the patch yet, mostly because today was a confusing day and I haven’t had enough time yet. Also, we’re going to go see Prince of Persia in a few minutes, so I won’t be home for a few hours. But I did fix everything, and will upload the patch when we’re back.
For now, you could read about Verena’s delightful adventures in The Twilight Experiment: Day One and Day Two.
It would appear Phenomenon 32 has one last problem, though it’s a rare one. On some people’s computers (and this is likely to be hardware-specific), in some levels the player’s ship falls through the ground in the first few milliseconds of loading. So most of you can play the game without issues, but I’m working on one last patch. And then I will really promote the game, and ask for your help in doing so.
And again, let me say thanks to everyone for their feedback. Testing games is incredibly hard when you don’t have the resources. Even though I tested Phenomenon 32 on several computers, these issues still slipped through, and I wouldn’t have been able to fix them without your help.
In completely different news, the short story I’ve been submitting has been rejected yet again, and I’m once more on the hunt for a good venue for it. It’s tricky and frustrating, because it’s really a good story, and I’d love to get it out there, but its mixture of elements seems to be just wrong for most magazines/journals.
Edit: Another bug was just reported, which potentially makes the game unfinishable. Thankfully, I’ve already figured out what was going on, an a patch is on the way.
