Comic for Monday, May 8th
May08
You know, I think the last time we saw Biana was page 8. That is 329 pages ago. Holy crap. I mean, technically that wasn’t even in person.
Man. That’s a lot of pages. I think I am going into page-shock.
I think we might wrap up before we hit 1,000? Preeetty sure we’ll wrap up before we get to 1,000. We better. Of course. I’m not sure I wouldn’t just start the Further Side of Utopia, but hey, we’ll see. That’s a ways off.
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“I play a game called Risen. It is a great game about killing Titans. In the second you get the ability to kill someone while talking to them. I would like to do that here.” These were part of my chain of thoughts while Biana was being stupid. I still love and want to read more, so please don’t end is too soon.
You want to try killing Peter? Because Arron can’t arrest him?
….*snrrk*
Good luck. (As if it would help.)
His “inability” to arrest Peter is because Peter’s very good at what he does. (Though I suspect his particular wording in answer to the question “So what is it specifically you do?” would change….probably weekly. Oh! And Peter would probably also be perturbed about Kally getting removed from the board with excessive force. So….really. Good luck. (And tread carefully.))
Funny how both think Peter’s interference is minor compared to the problem of the other person. (Probably about even, actually, except Peter just didn’t see a need to, or maybe just didn’t have time to, pull anything bigger……..though maybe I overestimate him. (Feels safer to overestimate him though.))
To be fair, arresting someone usually, and in this case definitely, involves taking them alive, and doing so in a legal manner.
Simply killing someone is usually going to be much easier, especially if one doesn’t care about not getting connected to the act and/or are indifferent to collateral damage, which does seem to be the case with Biana, and her faction.
High explosives or a chemical attack on the train that Peter takes to/from the school or snipers while he’s outside, etc.
That’s not necessarily saying that would work, but it is substantially easier than finding sufficient evidence to get Peter arrested and extradited for something specific. Unless Peter for some reason decides to get arrested and extradited.
They tried blowing up his place of residence. He seemed almost indifferent on the matter.
They tried shooting Naomi. She was having fun up until that point, and got away without excessive difficulty.
They tried killing Miko. Who made it look like she glared her problem into nonexistence when Mium helped out. (And her only comment on the matter was “how annoying, Peter was right about a teleporter”.
And Mium can and has dodged a Kor’s World platform attack.
Assassinating Peter might sound easier than arresting him, but he might find being arrested helps his plans, and thus let it happen, while I doubt getting killed ever would help his plans. Easiest thing would probably be to just leave Peter alone and try not crossing him.
I agree with Delta-v. At the rate you’re writing, you won’t hit 1000 pages until 2022 or 2023, and at that point you MIGHT be half-way through the story.
Some might call this “epic”, some might say the pace is “leisurely”, or “meandering”. Others might call it “glacial”. Your mileage may vary.
I say, “Gimme, gimme, gimme more, more, MORE!” 😉
Oh, and some advice to Biana regarding Peter:
“Mess with the best…die like the rest.”
Stupid people die in stupid ways…I can’t wait to see.
I wasn’t commenting on the pace, just the sheer size of the story. 🙂
I wasn’t commenting on the pace, either. The story pacing is actually quite good. And, I’m one who would describe the sweep of the story as “epic”. The release, however…It’s just hard to wait for each installment when the story’s this good!
I like to think of it as “a leisurely meander through epic glaciers”, thank you… 🙂
I was bummed when we dropped to twice a week, but the thought of doing 3 a week at this point is borderline impossible. I can’t quite make 2 updates a week, really, right now (I know people aren’t complaining! just explaining!)
I would like to shift more time to drawing/writing, but I did not spend my life-skill-points correctly to make that a sustainable career. I think it’s possible that in the future I’ll have gotten enough skill-points to do it at least semi-professional for more time then I can put against now, but I’m not quite sure the path between those two points (life does not like people that try to split their careers between different skill set in my experience).
While people are amazingly patient, it’s definitely a slower pace than I would prefer too. Comic Drawing > Work 🙂
A hazard I’ve found is that once [funtime activity] becomes “work,” it loses some of its luster. I would say you can no longer say “comic drawing > work” when it becomes your job, but that’s technically tautologically true, so it’s not a useful statement. ^^;
To really make a living at it, you’d probably need a small staff and to use that staff to greatly increase production speed, and figure out a way to shift it to a higher profit model. Patreon does fun stuff, but it’s rare to see it really get that strong. So you’re probably wise to prioritize as you have been.
you’ve probably mentioned elsewhere, but I don’t know where that is: what do you do for your primary living, if that’s not too personal a question? I ask mainly because you mentioned it being a different skill set than that involved in comic-making.
I’m a software engineer – I work in enterprise (1,000-10,000+ seat) software currently. What I do is once a client buys a software, they typically want it rewritten more or less entirely making you wonder why they bought in it in the first place. I’m the guy that rewrites the software for them – it’s a bulk code job, not the most complex (performance matters, but not like it does in games), but tons of unique cases, hyper critical code (since lots of this ties directly into their finance and sales), a thousand monkeys to try to break your code before you’ve even finished, and a lot of demos with people who are important but have their head shoved in up their arse (CTOs are the worst).
Related to your other point, I used to work in the video game industry (as QA for a year or two, then as a software engineer after I learned how to program) so I’m familiar with that concept of working in a hobby being less fun then hobbying in a hobby 😛
That said, I like drawing and writing more than programming, though I realize the… different needs of economy when it comes to those two roles 😀 ; and frankly at this point I’ve invested far more hours into being good at programming than writing or drawing… that’s the magic of doing something 40-50+ hours a week for years.
I don’t know that I will ever leave software engineering, but maybe someday it’d make sense for me to do it contracting and have more time to for other stuff, maybe someday it’ll make sense to treat this more like work where I actually block out time rather than it competing for time in the death pit that is “free time”; I don’t know, really. Either way, it’s a hobby I enjoy for now, and I don’t see that changing. If I see a good way to do more of it, I’ll do that. Otherwise it’ll march on as is 🙂
PS: Sorry, if you can’t tell by the first bit, you caught me in a sort of ranty mood about the job :p
Oof, that’s a branch of software engineering I stay away from. I’m not a great coder, and I don’t enjoy it. (I do algorithms work for R&D purposes.) I wish you luck in finding the ideal way(s) to advance your career down whatever path you ultimately choose. Selfishly, I hope it might one day include doing The Far Side of Utopia professionally, but that’s because I like the story.
With the kind of work ethic it takes to do this as a hobby alongside a 40+ hour a week job, I’m sure you can find a way to do whatever you want to do.
I wasn’t a great coder once, but then, necessity… 🙂 Getting work in programming is a lot easier than most fields, and I found that the philosophy degree I graduated with was not a ticket to great success 😛
Well, Biana seems to have an unjustifiably high opinion of herself. ><
"…I will kill him" [Peter] HA, haha, hahahahaha! Her don't know him very well, do her (think Tweety Bird just before an anvil lands on Sylvester). ^^
And she's underestimating Aaron, to boot…… Fun times. 🙂
I hate to burst your bubble, @PastUtopia, but it's going to take 1000 pages to resolve just ONE strand of the web you’re weaving here. ^^
This might finish in 1000 pages if the web starts getting pulled tighter SOON. But given that it still seems to be spinning out, I doubt that will happen.
It can all be wrapped up in one page.
Kors world attacks, sweeping up all resistance.
IDS has to really commit its forces.
Then a giant meteor wipes out them all.
But, where’s the fun in that? ^_^
Haha, we’ll see. It’s a bit tricky, because it’s as much about a world/setting as a single story in someways, the the world/story doesn’t really have an ending. That said the story has a few points where I think would make good endings and I do have an ending I want to get to in mind… where we go from there remains to be seen 🙂
While there is an outline, how that translates to pages is something I am notoriously bad a predicting sometimes. It’s sort of like draw distance. The closer we get to something, the more details pop and need to be plotted and fleshed out and given their pages… hey, I never said I was a disciplined writer. I have no editor to rule over what I can and can’t do! 😛
I’ve mentioned before that I might end up splitting the story into Book 1 -> Book 2, etc. At this point the archives are steep point of entry to the comic; while that’s fine, it’s only going to get worse over time. It’s only something I will do if it makes sense though, as the story progression is more important then marketability or whatnot.
Still a long ways out from that though.
for some reason the warning about old age and treachery comes to mind.
and if anything happens to arron or kally… well peter, much less kyle, have no reason to hold back.
and speaking of peter, as noone else seems to know what or why hes doing what ever it is. and now im not wondering if its because of biana. and of course finding peter, well there he is… getting him is another story.