In which the Doctor and young Penelope discuss some of the finer points of causality and advanced grammar.
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342 comics.
In which young Penelope realizes she would rather be face to face with a Dalek.
In which the Doctor expresses extreme disapproval of Penelope’s rather direct manner.
In which the Doctor takes his leave, hopefully in time to avoid terrible repercussions.
In which young Penelope hears the sound of the universe, and an older version of her finally learns how she can breathe in space.
In which, on the second anniversary of the strip, pHil seeks to address some issues, and so does Penelope.
In which pHil makes a promise he hopes to keep, and Penny makes a monitor beep.
In which Penny does not appear, but her first strip is shown to be somewhat prophetic by recent events.
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. 😉
And we’re off!! Today’s strip may arguably be a bit of a slow start, but it is after all a preface. The journey over the next few months will take Penny down a road of self-discovery to a few (I hope) interesting places, encountering some interesting characters along the way – first among these appearing Friday! And where she goes, I will either go or have been of late, so I’m looking forward to the ride, at least.
Provided I can get that darn strip buffer built up! I fully expect to keep the “every Tuesday and Friday” schedule for the duration, but a few distractions have kept me from being several weeks ahead into production by launch, as I’d hoped to be.
What distractions? Well, some good, some bad as one would expect. Among them:
- New work customer – very busy few months on some good, meaningful work (good – a refreshing thing after my last gig).
- Adventures in autoimmune disorders, both common and ultra-rare (ungood).
- Tussles with insurance as a result (double plus ungood).
- Family vacation in Florida (double plus good!).
- And… A brand new computer and updated software to do the strip on – Quadruple Plus Good! (If there’s no such thing, I hereby trademark the term, and its corollary abbreviation, “QPG”.)
Computer in question is one I’ve wanted forever (before they even made it), and was my Father’s Day gift this past weekend – how great is that? The Wacom Cintiq Companion – the ultimate portable artist studio. I’ve used a wide range of Wacom drawing tablets in the 15 years since my first Intuos, but always dreamed of a Cintiq – or what it could do. Other tablet PCs never seemed to do the trick to fill that void, and my wife finally got sick of hearing me say so, I guess. 🙂 It’s gonna change everything! Maybe I can even find some aspects of the experience that might lead to a meaningful, fresh review – look for a lengthy post some time soon.
Enough rambling – I gotta make some new strips! Talk to y’all soon – I’m back!!! 😀
Oh – and happy birthday, B3!