Previously on Marooned…

If you are a new reader, you have jumped in at the perfect time. We’ve just begun a brand new story in Marooned. All you need to know is that Captain John (the spaceman) and Asimov (the robot) have been stranded on Mars. Ugo the Martian (the green guy) has put them up in the Martian underground city Vita, and they live there now. There are other various Martians you’ll meet along the way. Sit back and enjoy the story!

If you want to be fully informed, you can start reading from the beginning.

You can also read Episodes in full-screen mode without digging through the archive!

Good question. First it must be noted that I’m hardly the only one who rereads LOTR. For Tolkien fans, reading the series over and over is a tradition and a ritual. I used to do it once a year. I believe I first read it when I was in sixth grade, something like 1978 or so.

I guess it’s like watching a movie you like again. The book is just so good you want to experience it again. In the case of LOTR, well, it’s pretty special. Often voted one of the greatest literary works of the 20th century. It’s just a story I need to revisit on occasion, because it’s so enjoyable to experience. (And as good a job as Peter Jackson did with the movies, nothing compares to the books.)

I’ve found though, that it’s not just the Tolkien books I do this with. I’ve got a small (but maybe growing) group of books I periodically revisit just because I want to read the stories again, because they were so good. Here’s a few in no particular order.

The Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever series by Stephen R. Donaldson. Nearly on par with Tolkien’s works, Donaldson is a master storyteller and worldbuilder. His characters are deep and real. His world feels real like Tolkien, and instead of a hero, we get an anti-hero. Donaldon is currently finishing up the third series of books, having come back to it after something like 20 years. There are two books left. I think I’ve read this one something like 4 times, the first time in high school in the 80s.

There’s a handful of C.J. Cherryh books in the Company Wars series that I’ve read a number of times, including Downbelow Station, Rimrunners and especially Heavy Time and Hellburner. These are some of the best sci-fi books around, especially if you really want to feel like you are on some ship in space. Cherryh is a master at writing characters and keeping you in suspense. There’s no doubt I’ll revisit the series again. (In fact, I just recently read Rimrunners and Downbelow again.)

I’ve mentioned James P. Hogan before. Another author whose writing style I love, and he writes believable science fiction. The “Giants” series is wonderful in the first 3 books, and Inherit the Stars is a great mystery. But the two I’ve really enjoyed are Realtime Interrupt and The Multiplex Man (one of my favorite sci-fi books). I’ve dived into both of those books probably 3-4 times each.

I love the Hitchhiker novels by Douglas Adams, but I really like the Dirk Gently novels the best. I’ve read Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul a number of times. I revisit those on occasion (again, most recently early this year.)

The Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny. A big one (and darn, another one I just read this year… it’s been a re-read year) but very enjoyable. And another one that begins with the protagonist not knowing who he is. I love that. First read that one in the 80s, too. Been through it a few times.

I know there are more, but those are the main ones. This year I’ve read a couple new books that may well get added to the list. Particularly John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War series which I really enjoyed, will certainly get read again. And Michael Rubens’s The Sheriff of Yrnameer was so incredibly enjoyable I may read it again this year, even though I just read it in the spring.

Circling back to Tolkien, it was those books that always stirred my creative juices. I always wanted to write my own great fantasy epic. I had a whole folder full of stuff I wrote in high school (and a bit after) that I kept for years. Hundreds of pages, notes, maps, drawings and all that. At one point I looked at and simply realized that it was all just a ripoff of Tolkien’s work in some manner, so I tossed the lot of it!

I still have some of those things in my head. But most of it was junk. I’m a sucker for the histories of Middle Earth and all the backstory stuff to a point. When Unfinished Tales came out, I immediately got that from the book club and devoured it (again this is the 80s). Many don’t like the Silmarillion, but I love it. I’ve read a few of the books Christopher Tolkien has edited, but I’ve found much of it to be repetitive. Although I did recently enjoy The Children of Hurin.

So when I’m writing for Marooned, I often get involved in these deeper stories/histories. Why did Ugofandian do what he did? How did Mars end up so and so and what’s the story behind this guy Inglenar, and the different colors of the Anfald and on and on. I’ve have pages of stuff written for Marooned that will likely never see the light of day because it’s too much exposition and not enough real story, I suppose. It’s my version of The Silmarillion I guess (although of course not nearly that much is written.) But I enjoy doing it, and I think it helps me write the characters.

But I always felt at some point that I would write my own epic fantasy story. Maybe that’s why I keep rereading this stories I love, because they inspire me. This week I’ve had something of a breakthrough in a story I’ve been thinking about for some time. It actually started with an idea I had for a comic right before Marooned, involving of all things a Jackalope who kicked butt with a staff. (My daughters don’t believe Jackalopes are real, the poor dears. I keep telling them they are.)

The point is, as I lay in bed this week thinking about that story, I began to run with other ideas I had in my head and it morphed into something completely different (where there is no Jackalope at all, sadly) but something that I’m actually excited about pursuing. It might actually be a mix of fantasy and science fiction. I’ve got a little bit of it chunked out, and I’ve been thinking a lot about it this week.

It’s still very early, but it’s something I hope to eventually write. If I do, I’ll definitely share some tidbits with you folks. Now back to more important things. Like, how will Thorin and Company ever get into that secret side door?

“True fan” as relating to this article, if you’re interested.

Previously on Marooned…

If you are a new reader, you have jumped in at the perfect time. We’ve just begun a brand new story in Marooned. All you need to know is that Captain John (the spaceman) and Asimov (the robot) have been stranded on Mars. Ugo the Martian (the green guy) has put them up in the Martian underground city Vita, and they live there now. There are other various Martians you’ll meet along the way. Sit back and enjoy the story!

If you want to be fully informed, you can start reading from the beginning.

You can also read Episodes in full-screen mode without digging through the archive!

It’s not going to be restricted to the shorter, older comics. It can be nearly any comic in the archive. What I need to know is which comics do you, the reader, think are interesting or cool enough to have as pieces of original art. I’m guessing the prices would range from $25-$50, depending on the strip. There will be certain strips off limits, like probably #1 and there will be certain strips that won’t actually make good pieces because the original was altered digitally or changed.

So having said all that, please let me know what your favorite strips are that you would think would be good pieces to bring out. You don’t have to know the number or title if you just explain what happened in it, but the number/title is good too. Thanks!

I’m pleased to announce that you can now read Marooned on your iPhone. In conjunction with Oxicomics, you can now download Marooned collections and read them on your iPhone (or even your iPad I believe). I’ve been working with Morten Thomson of Oxicomics for months now on various ideas on getting Marooned out onto different devices. Morten is a great guy who loves comics (and is a fan of Marooned, too) and he really wants to bring great comic reading experiences to readers.

Basically you’ll download the collection and read it using Oxicomics’ reader application. It has lots of nice features, and you can read whole collections at once without messing with the archive.

The Gooble short story and Collection 1 are available for FREE, so go grab your copy. Collections 2 and 3 will be available for .99 cents (if I remember correctly). Please rate them 5 stars if you like them

And also, please tell me what you think about the reader, and how interested you are (or not) in reading comics on mobile devices and tablets like the iPad. I’m working with Morten on other ideas, too – including translating Marooned into Norwegian!

Rice Boy is the hero of this epic, the little white fellow on the right. The interesting Machine Man he is speaking to is The One Electronic, or T-O-E for short. TOE is one of my favorite comic characters I’ve seen in any webcomic. TOE is a searcher, he’s been choosing “fulfillers” for millenia, trying to find the right person who will fulfill an ages long prophecy and restore the balance to Overside, the world in which Rice Boy resides.

TOE is beginning to lose faith in his mission, and the selection of Rice Boy doesn’t really help, especially since Rice Boy initially doesn’t accept the role. I don’t want to give too much away here, so I’m not going to go into a lot of detail. Suffice it to say that Rice Boy eventually does end up questing as the fulfiller – with evil folks after him (including the son of the last fulfiller, Spatch, who turned out to be self serving and power hungry) and the simple danger of Overside all around him.

Meanwhile TOE is having his own problems, and the two stories – as well as the stories of some other interesting characters – weave together, all to come together at the end. Will Rice Boy ultimately complete the job of the fulfiller and restore the balance of Overside? Or will the descendants of Spatch dispatch of the fulfiller first?

It’s a rousing story that keeps you turning pages and wanting to know more. In addition, the artwork is just beautiful.

Evan uses clear and simple color palettes with great effectiveness, which compliments his unique and interesting linework without obliterating it. His color choices are smart. We get lighter, happier hues when the situations call for it, and when we enter darker parts of the story or dangerous lands, the colors shift appropriately. His simple way of rendering light is extremely effective and gives his panel depths and life.

Mixed in with the great color are wonderful and imaginative creature designs.

Evan has populated the world of Overside with a great many races that seem to really fit in the stories. His world is vast and you can see how he’ll be able to tell stories there all his life, if he should so wish. The combination of a great story, engaging visuals and wonderful character design make Rice Boy a must read.

Evan was kind enough to answer a few questions regarding the Rice Boy book, now in it’s second printing (Questions by me in bold):

You mention in the book that when you posted Rice Boy online, you didn’t know if it would go beyond those first batch of pages. But then the response you got was so positive you moved ahead. How did you handle writing the overall story at that point? Was it all in your head or did you write as you go?

Rice Boy had been a character I’d been drawing for a while, and I had an idea that it would be interesting to put him in a big high-fantasy adventure story. A few key points and a vague idea of an ending were
pretty much all I was going on, and I did most of the writing as I went along.

Was there a message you wanted to get across with Rice Boy, or was it simply a desire to tell an epic story in a world which you created? Maybe it was both, or something else…

The story is always most important; if there’s a “message” it’s always secondary to the story to me. I didn’t have any specific messages I wanted to convey in Rice Boy or Order of Tales, though I think that
some of my own notions of how the world works spill over into them.

To me one of the most amazing things about the world of Overside is the vast amount of wonderfully designed creatures. They come in every size, shape and color, and they are all very creative and unique. What’s your process for designing creatures?

Thank you. I don’t really know. I start with a vague idea of how something should look, and I doodle until it looks right. I look for ideas for this sort of thing all the time. I have trained my brain to funnel my observation of the world into what I’m doing creatively. I am obsessed.

Rice Boy appears very non-threatening in his design – benign and almost helpess. Yet he gets picked for this important role as the fulfiller. He seems physically unable to complete the hero’s journey, much less get started. He even lacks arms and legs. Yet clearly this is a conscious design decision. Can you explain your thoughts behind Rice Boy’s design?

He started as something I drew in high school; just a simple little person. Putting him in this sort of story seems to suggest an incongruously passive, meek character, and I liked how he contradicted the large scope of the story. It wasn’t that conscious, I guess; I just liked doing as much as I could with a severely visually limiting character. T-O-E has ended up being a similar exercise in limiting my
own narrative tools, as he has no face.

The color work in Rice Boy is amazing. Without overusing color, you give us feeling of depth, light and dark and mood that many artist struggle to approach. Can you talk a little about your approach in working with color?

Color is the area I’ve been least confident in, I think. In Rice Boy I tried to work simply, keeping everything in a scene to a unified color scheme, and not overpowering the linework. I feel like I have some actual technical drawing skill, but my coloring is pretty much just made up as I go along.

It’s been a few years now since Rice Boy was completed, and the book is now in its second printing. Many times as artists and writers, we look back on our work and only see the bad things. Rice Boy has been roundly appreciated as a wonderful work in sequential art and storytelling. It really is a wonderful work. Looking back on it yourself now, how do you feel it about it today?

Every time I look at it I see more problems! It was a good start and it will continue to be the basis on which I make all of my stuff set in Overside, but Order of Tales is better in every way that I care about; I think I am getting better. People still like Rice Boy though, and that is something I am completely fine with.

Your black and white work in Order of Tales is wonderful. As an artist, I can appreciate how hard it is to work in simple black and white. Yet we live in a color world, and in some ways people expect color in their comics. It appears you’ve decided to return to color work with your new story Vattu. (And your recent short stories are in color as well.) Can you talk a little about what went into that decision after spending so long working in black and white with Order of Tales?

I think it’s a combination of getting tired of black and white, and planning a story that would work better in color. When I was planning Order of Tales, I had it in mind as a black and white story from the start, and I’ve tried to play to those strengths and I think it works better that way: it’s straightforward, limited in focus, and dealing visually more in drama than in pretty scenery. Vattu is something I’ve been doing preliminary work on for several months, and it definitely suggests to me a more colorful format… I don’t know how to explain that, I guess. There’s a lot going on in it, and color is a tool that will be useful to me.

I take issue with the notion that people expect comics to be color, though… In the way comics are usually made, color is something that is added to a black-and-white substrate. Sometimes the addition of color helps the content, and sometimes it distracts. It’s a tool that we have a choice to use or not; it should be used sensibly if at all, and sometimes it serves the content better not to be there at all.

Are we ever going to have any stories from you that deal with Underside?

Right now I’m pretty uninterested in Underside; the whole history of Overside is getting more and more developed and keeps suggesting interesting new things to me.

Two of my favorite characters are The One Electronic and Calabash. We got to see some more of TOE in Order of Tales. Have we seen the last of them?

I definitely want to return to them; not sure in what context, yet.

What can you tell us about your next epic, Vattu?

It’s different from what I’ve been doing. It will be pretty involved and pretty heavy and I’m very excited to be finally started.

Many thanks to Evan for being kind enough to answer a few questions. Evan also just completed his second epic story, Order of Tales, which was also extremely enjoyable (and has a little bit of TOE in it as well.)

I can’t urge you enough to get yourself of copy of Rice Boy, and even of Order of Tales. If you can’t afford the book, at least read it online. (Note: I’d consider Rice Boy appropriate for ages 12+ due to some cartoon violence and one suggestive scene.)

You can buy your copy of Rice Boy here.

You can get the Order of Tales books and other goodies, like prints, at Evan’s store page.

Lastly, Evan’s next story that takes place in the world of Overside is Vattu, which starts next week, July 26th! Get in at the beginning, you’re sure to enjoy it.

Auction for Asimov #2 is on!

Custom Asimov Plush #2 of 4 is now live on eBay. There a bit more than a day left on this special guy. In addition to the plush, you get the certificate, Rag the Viking and Tale of Two Robots. The certificate is signed and will have an Asimov sketch. These are truly one of a kind, so don’t miss your chance. Below is a pic of the actual one being auctioned.

I’m pretty sure I’m going to hang on to the other two for a bit before letting them go. Not sure how long, so for now, this will be the last chance for a bit to get one of these.

Previously on Marooned…

If you are a new reader, you have jumped in at the perfect time. We’ve just begun a brand new story in Marooned. All you need to know is that Captain John (the spaceman) and Asimov (the robot) have been stranded on Mars. Ugo the Martian (the green guy) has put them up in the Martian underground city Vita, and they live there now. There are other various Martians you’ll meet along the way. Sit back and enjoy the story!

If you want to be fully informed, you can start reading from the beginning.

You can also read Episodes in full-screen mode without digging through the archive!