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Tuesday, January 1st, 2008
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5:23 pm - Lina, pg. 1
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Some may ask, why did it take eighteen months to post a new page? Answer: Life!
There are some goals we have for 2008, which include working on Aether Tales throughout, and completing a third edition of Continuum in the first half. Goals, not promises. Now get out of my damn way, Furies.
Lina introduces Awa's Christian Church, and also the Elre, a subterranean elven matriarchy of suitably pale-skinned people, and the challenges they face finding acceptance in contemporary surface society. And why not begin with one of the most challenging situations of all, a very preliminary and unofficial embassy to the Church, which also happens to govern Greece? Archbishop Mattias asks: Where has that hand been?
The primary delay we foresee with posting page 2, if any, is that we need to design still another language font. Our premiere Elre, whose name is Ebet, may speak Greek, but she has her own thoughts, which are not Greek at all. Aiming for this Friday or Saturday to get it up there.
current mood: goal-oriented midlife crisis
current music: Midnight Oil: "Shakers & Movers", but only in my head
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| Tuesday, June 6th, 2006
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10:34 pm - The Fugitive Mother ppg. 3-5
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Some may ask, why did it take five months to post a new page? The simple answer is that both of us were struck with flu in January, and catching up with life while keeping Yamara updated eclipsed our powers in keeping Aether Tales publishing on a regular basis. Our apologies for that, and for not better informing our visitors of what was happening.
A computer crash in May caused far far less havoc than it might have; the fonts Awan English Modern and the most recent version of Awan German Modern were the only important elements lost, but the English is easily restored and the German has a very close version saved, and can be recreated fairly quickly. Also, "Fugitive" pg. 5 had already had its text created in January, and we won't be seeing German again for several pages.
And finally, last week we noticed a link to Aether Tales from Ben Riley's The Midlands. It's even at the top of his links page declaring, "This comic has just barely started, but it's already crazy good. Frankly, the user interface alone was enough to hook me. :)"
We felt like we were giving a letdown to such devoted fandom, by not updating for months. So since 'Devil Day' (6/6/06) was nigh, we decided to finish and post the fifth page of "Fugitive". Inasmuch as any page of Aether Tales is dedicated to an individual, this one goes out to Ben.
We have declared the distant date of July 15, 2006 for the first page of "Lina"-- this is a realistic target, as much of Yamara's site, including its merchandizing via the crossover character Kirilianti, has to be built out over the next month. Additionally, a new font will have to be created for pg. 2 of "Lina", though its primary language, Awan Greek Modern, already exists (and has survived the crash). Aether Tales remains our lifework, so we will be adding to it whenever we can.
As of this writing, there are a couple small fixes needed to page 5: The "Careful, Harry" speech balloon in the first panel shouldn't be confusingly pointed toward Harry himself, and Herr Traube's tie in the last panel should be dark. And we'll definately have to write an entry for the Christian Church for the Encyclopaedia. Something else to do between now and July...
current mood: exhausted by all the deviltry
current music: Buck Tick: Jupiter on "pause"
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| Wednesday, December 21st, 2005
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2:21 pm - The Progress of the Work
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At the top of the site is a mostly empty page.
There are a few links, mainly to Aether Tales' chapter index, and to our other comics.
However, there is a resource, to put it generously, that will help anxious readers with what's going on with production.
A small table titled "The Progress of the Work" is in the lower left of the site's top page. It's fairly self-explanatory, but we're going to explain it anyway.
The Date - This is when the Progress table (and hence the toip page) was updated. Bet that's news to you, huh.
Total - The total number of pages currently stands at somewhere over one thousand. Aether Tales is what we'll be doing for awhile. If we ever discover its final page length, we'll tell you.
Written - As you can see, we've been writing a lot, and we've plotted an awful lot more. We've written more than is listed there, but this is a good estimate of the pages we're going to use. Revisions, additions and subtractions from this category will occur, but you'd have to be awfully attentive to notice the changes, at least at this point.
Drawn - This means that all of the elements to create the visuals of the page are complete. It's all drawn, pal.
Lettered - A somewhat loosely-timed category since we usually use fonts instead of handlettering. Text entry is often accomplished before drawing, and speech balloons are often added last in mastering. However, since (at this writing) we have many more pages drawn than posted, and these are spread out over the first several chapters, this category is the one which gives the readiest "heads up" that a new page is in the offing. If it's one or two numbers ahead of the next two categories, a page should be coming shortly.
Mastered - This means the page has been assembled and completed. We'd have to be way, way ahead of schedule for this category to not match the following one–
Posted - Which means, of course, that you should go read it. It's free.
The chapter index page also mentions the "Est. post date" of the next page, but it's not a guarantee, hence the "Estimated" part. The Progress of the Work is your best guide to what's coming.
current mood: counting down
current music: helicopters, followed by no traffic. again.
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| Monday, December 19th, 2005
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7:45 pm - The Fugitive Mother, ppg. 1 & 2
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Most of Aether Tales is set in the world of Awa. Welcome.
The Fugitive Mother (ppg. 1 & 2) introduces the reader to an integral part of Awan European society in the 28th Century: the International Guild of Mages.
Some structural notes. We tweak and/or design fonts to represent languages spoken. We've wanted to do that since the eighties, and we think it's a clearer symbol than the "brackets" now standard in many comics.
A few fonts are barely altered, like the "Awan English Modern" which is a font called Rheingold with some the capital "A" and "I" retooled. (Harald and his mentor Gareth are speaking this in the first two panels of page 1.)
German on Awa was more influenced by that world's Greek than its cousin English, hence we sought a unique set of modifications to represent it.
Our Awan German Modern looks and reads great... on our master files. Currently the jpegs pixelate the font just enough to make its legibility... irritating. We're working on that, since Germany is where much of the action takes place early on. Happily, dialogue and text replacement is easy in the nearby Magic World of Computers.
What worked when the printing press was new is the polar opposite of what works with pixels; and yet, we need to marry them both. This will mean a combination of our patience and you, the reader's, stamina. Or vice versa.
current mood: still edgy, but a little less
current music: Buck Tick: Kyandi, on "pause"
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7:25 pm - The Golden Key
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This one-page chapter is a kind of introduction to the larger work.
Don't expect any of the actions or characters to affect or appear in the wider plot. Even the scene is set in a world apart. It's... an evocation, shall we say.
The fonts in use are Hoefler, representing Terran Modern English, and an iteration of Copperplate, representing the contemporary native language of Iramon. Iramon might well have a more appropriate font, but we are unsure of the nature or styling of its written culture.
current mood: edgy
current music: Buck Tick: Kyandi, on "pause"
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| Friday, December 9th, 2005
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12:08 pm - Supplemental Notes.
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I've signed us up for a LiveJournal mainly so that we can post on all these other LiveJournals that won't accept "anonymity"-- even if that anonymity is immediately defied by announcing ourselves on a particular LJ.
We have a rarely-updated blog, a set of forums and even a wiki in the works; it seems unlikely that we need, or will find time for, one of these.
And yet, there is one element to Aether Tales that a venue like this can help. A place to vent. This seems obvious to any webcomic devotee, but Aether Tales has been designed as a kind of narrative puzzle: It simply won't do to have real-world news or a shoutbox alongside it. Even its navigation is specialized to serve the method in which we tell the story.
So any behind-the-scenes information that is not "inside" the story may be showing up here. Most of our attention will be on creating and posting the story and background of the world of Awa itself, so don't hold your breath.
You may, of course, comment and vent here yourself.
Have a good time.
Chris Adams
current mood: world-weary
current music: antique refrigerator in need of defrosting
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