To clear up the discussions resulting from last week’s “interim strip”, I wanted to give a brief overview of what I have coming up.
Rather than return immediately to the gag-a-day format the strip has followed so far, I’m going to indulge myself a bit. The first story arc, “The Ring of Five Books” as seen above, is a hero’s journey-type tale in which Penny gets to know herself a bit better. It will basically cover what she goes through internally while in the hospital during the long period of neglect. It’s a longer storyline, inspired by research I did some time ago while assisting my daughter with a college paper on the monomyth.
This is one of two bigger stories that I have in mind for Penny that depart from the “standard” format I’ve followed thus far. The other one (which I alluded to back in June 2013) is the big one that explains everything Penny is about. I consider that one my magnum opus, and I’ve had it in the cooker since I created Penny back in 1991. I’ve decided the world’s not ready for that story yet.
So – “The Ring of Five Books” is the order of the day. I am aiming for a June reboot of the strip, with strips on Tuesday and Friday until the series concludes. It will be a 2-strip schedule instead of 3 per week, because the pages will be formatted differently. The dimensions will be a more print-standard 6×9 ratio instead of the iPad-centric dimensions I’ve worked with so far. The page layouts will also be more complex that the usual 4-square design, and will follow the needs of the story, like a regular comic book. The story will follow a very different style of pacing than previous arcs, but will have the same feel. And the same corny humor, naturally.
I’m wrapping up the writing now, and I’ve finished the character design for most of the guest stars, so things are rolling along! There will likely be the occasional “filler” strip between now and then, and I’ll probably post status reports from time to time.
And, since it’ll be a Tuesday, I think I’ll arbitrarily pick June 23 as my launch date. 😉
