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So Volume 3 of Twisted Mirrors (Chapter 15 through 22) has been sent off to Lulu and while I'm waiting for the proof copy to arrive to see if Lulu works out okay as a printer, I decided I get started on a project that's been needing my attention for some time now.
See, when I first started Twisted Mirrors, it was a side project and I never thought it'd be posted anywhere except online. I literally started it just because I wanted something other than FFC to draw. It was posting every other week instead of weekly when I started it too because I was worrying about overwhelming myself. It's kind of funny to think how much it's become the main thing, while FFC has slid more into the role of "pet project". That said, though, it meant I didn't really pay much attention to the quality of the pages at the start. They were web-only, what did it matter?
...well...anyone who's seen the version printed through comixpress knows what it mattered. The already poor-quality drawings are made so much worse by the web-level resolution.
I've been intending to fix this for a while now so that I can get a good quality version printed - for myself mainly.
The main reason it's taken so long is because I never saved the high-rez scans, so doing these pages in a higher resolution means literally re-scanning and redoing all the text on almost 150 pages. I started this project a while back, so more than half the pages have already been scanned. Now that I've started working on it in earnest it doesn't seem nearly as daunting as it might have. (I just tell myself every time I finish a page - "that's one less I have to do now!" Seems to be working.)
And all this brings me to the main reason I made this post. Since I have to re-type the text for all the pages anyway, I'm taking advantage of the opportunity to fix some problems I had with the earlier stuff. For one, the font on the narration in the beginning is being changed to be more in line with the font I use for narration later in the comic. Much more drastically, I'm actually changing the text on some of the pages to fit in better with the story. For the most part it's staying how I always intended it to be and just worded poorly in the original version, but there's a couple of moments that I've just always found stupid and wanted the opportunity to change.
As bad as it is, the art will not technically change, though my editing skills are better than they were the first time around, so when a page needs editing (if I mess something up in the inking, I note it in the margins to fix it on the computer) it might look a little different, but it's all going to be based on the same inks as redrawing it would take too long and would stick out like a sore thumb in contrast to the older stuff (and I kinda like the fact that I can watch my art evolve as I read through it).
Now the new print version of the book is going to have these changes. There's no questioning that. I think it'll read a lot better to new readers this way, it'll help the world building make more sense and will make the overall story flow a lot better. However, I know people can have a really adverse reaction to this type of ret-con (Star Wars remastered, anyone?) so I wanted to put it to people - should these changes extend to the online version as well? Should I replace the old, original pages on the website with the new versions?
Personally, I'm leaning towards "yes", for all the reasons stated above, I think it just makes the story better, but I do understand the arguments against it. That's the original version that people who do enjoy the story followed, updates might just 'ruin' it. It should be noted that I don't plan to get rid of the old versions entirely. They're saved safely in my archives in their own folder. I believe pretty strongly in keeping all my old mistakes, since I can learn from them too, so this isn't just to purge out my failures. I'm thinking of new readers here!
What do you think? Anyone have any strong opinions on this one way or another? If people are really against it, I'll leave the online archives alone. (I don't expect a lot of thoughts on it either way since I don't have a lot of readers, I just want to avoid any potential backlash, haha!)
See, when I first started Twisted Mirrors, it was a side project and I never thought it'd be posted anywhere except online. I literally started it just because I wanted something other than FFC to draw. It was posting every other week instead of weekly when I started it too because I was worrying about overwhelming myself. It's kind of funny to think how much it's become the main thing, while FFC has slid more into the role of "pet project". That said, though, it meant I didn't really pay much attention to the quality of the pages at the start. They were web-only, what did it matter?
...well...anyone who's seen the version printed through comixpress knows what it mattered. The already poor-quality drawings are made so much worse by the web-level resolution.
I've been intending to fix this for a while now so that I can get a good quality version printed - for myself mainly.

And all this brings me to the main reason I made this post. Since I have to re-type the text for all the pages anyway, I'm taking advantage of the opportunity to fix some problems I had with the earlier stuff. For one, the font on the narration in the beginning is being changed to be more in line with the font I use for narration later in the comic. Much more drastically, I'm actually changing the text on some of the pages to fit in better with the story. For the most part it's staying how I always intended it to be and just worded poorly in the original version, but there's a couple of moments that I've just always found stupid and wanted the opportunity to change.
As bad as it is, the art will not technically change, though my editing skills are better than they were the first time around, so when a page needs editing (if I mess something up in the inking, I note it in the margins to fix it on the computer) it might look a little different, but it's all going to be based on the same inks as redrawing it would take too long and would stick out like a sore thumb in contrast to the older stuff (and I kinda like the fact that I can watch my art evolve as I read through it).
Now the new print version of the book is going to have these changes. There's no questioning that. I think it'll read a lot better to new readers this way, it'll help the world building make more sense and will make the overall story flow a lot better. However, I know people can have a really adverse reaction to this type of ret-con (Star Wars remastered, anyone?) so I wanted to put it to people - should these changes extend to the online version as well? Should I replace the old, original pages on the website with the new versions?
Personally, I'm leaning towards "yes", for all the reasons stated above, I think it just makes the story better, but I do understand the arguments against it. That's the original version that people who do enjoy the story followed, updates might just 'ruin' it. It should be noted that I don't plan to get rid of the old versions entirely. They're saved safely in my archives in their own folder. I believe pretty strongly in keeping all my old mistakes, since I can learn from them too, so this isn't just to purge out my failures. I'm thinking of new readers here!
What do you think? Anyone have any strong opinions on this one way or another? If people are really against it, I'll leave the online archives alone. (I don't expect a lot of thoughts on it either way since I don't have a lot of readers, I just want to avoid any potential backlash, haha!)
Comic Website Down
My website for my comics is currently down. There seems to be some kind of back-end error with the PHP that I thought I fixed, but it doesn't seem to be changing anything. I'm not sure, I don't know much about websites or programming beyond very basic HTML, so it'll probably take me a little while to fix (if I even can). IN THE MEANTIME, I don't intend to slow down updating. All three comics will post on Monday as normal over at The Duck. So if you're looking for updates, they can currently be found at the links below: Sorry for the inconvenience. I'll try to figure it out, but yeah, the comics will continue to update as normal. Thanks for reading!
COMIC GIVEAWAY!
So I've decided to stop going to conventions, but this decision leaves me with a lot of leftover merchandise that is just taking up a lot of space. I spent money to have them made so I don't want to just throw them away. I thought about selling them through my sites, but I didn't think I would get rid of many that way. Then I thought about giving them away while asking for people to pay shipping, but that's still asking people to buy them in a way, and I still probably wouldn't be able to get rid of too many. So that leads to the obvious answer: I'm just going to give them away. Make a request of the available items and they're yours (1 copy of each item per person. Not to limit supply, but to lower the shipping costs on my end somewhat...I can't imagine anyone would want more than one anyway, haha! ^^; ) What do I have to give away? Well, there's Volumes 1 through 4 of the original Twisted Mirrors. It's a much older series with a lot of flaws. The main benefit of this one is
Looking for New Reads?
So, I like telling stories. I guess at the end of the day, that's all there is to it. I know I'm not very good at it, but it's what brings me joy, so I do it anyway. I suppose we've all had a bit of extra time over the past year, so I used mine to create some additional stories. And now I'm posting them online so if you're bored and looking for something to read I've got some options for you. Bear in mind that all of these stories were written by me, they're amateur stuff and this is all just for fun. :D The links to and descriptions of the stories are below. After each description, I'll babble a bit about each project, so if you just want to see a quick couple of lines on what each story is about, just read the first paragraph and skip the rest. (Also, my deepest apologies that I'm not very good at writing a synopsis.) CONSCRIPTED Conscripted on The Duck : 01 - "A Good Soldier" (theduckwebcomics.com) An army led by mysterious giants is traveling across the land and
DA or Wattpad?
So I finished the second draft of a story I've been working on today. There's still a lot that needs to be done, I need to go through it for a third draft and cleans up bits of it. Hell, the damn thing still need a title. But I don't foresee the third draft taking nearly as long as the second draft. I don't necessarily know the "proper" way to go about it, I'm not a writer, but to put it in drawing terms the first draft was a sketch, the second draft is the base drawing and the third draft will clean up the details, so I don't think it will take nearly as much as the first two rounds. So I'm starting to think about where I can possibly post it. I'm not very good, so I'm not interested in looking into anything professional. I just want to be able to share this silly fantasy adventure that I wrote. So my question (finally!) is where should I post it? I've been told Wattpad is good for posting prose stories, but I've also heard that in more recent years it's gone kinda to crap. Does
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Go for it, especially since you're leaning that way already!
And besides, new stuff back in the beginning means we get to reread the whole thing!! 

