Lynn's comments (member since Aug 27, 2007)

Lynn's comments from the On Reading Graphic Novels group.

This has been a long awaited day for me. With the help of my friend & artist, Clarissa Filice, Ra’s Warrior & the Talismans of Time is now available for your reading pleasure. I’m proud & humbled to introduce to you Ra’s Warrior & the Talismans of Time. In the beginning we will post 1 new page a week, but it will be bumped up to 2 pages a week in the near future.

Blurb:
Enshrouded by the winds of time and the sands of mainstream Egyptology is the Ancients’ secret. Twins, Andrea and Elise Regal, are about to brush away the grains concealing their destinies. Summoned by primeval gods and the Talisman of Time, Andrea traverses time to the court of King Khufu where she not only finds love but also becomes skilled in the arts of magic and war. Tormented by visions and her sister’s voice breaking the threshold of time, Elise becomes a pawn in a god’s game of Senet. Unaware she is the catalyst to thwart Aapep’s evil scheme, Elise must find and master the remaining talisman before time proves fatal for all humanity.

From the dazzling temples along the Nile to the unfathomable depths of the Duat join Andrea & Elise on a mystical journey through modern & ancient Egypt in Ra’s Warrior & the Talismans of Time. Meet the Pharaoh Khufu, ride with Ra through the skies of ancient Men-Nefer, walk through the Field of Reeds with Wesir(Osiris) & Auset(Isis), battle demons with Anpu (Anubis) & Bastet, and slither through the Egyptian underworld with Aapep, the God of Chaos.

Visit Ra's Warrior & the Talismans of Time to read the serialized Graphic Novel online for Free!

I should tag them as comics too, but I use graphic novel for the longer works. Haven't tagged any comics yet, but I've read some.

Glad everyone is enjoying this thread. :)
Here is a new site I found and it's massive!!!

http://www.hotwebcomics.com/thelist.php

Qiana,
No problem. I should have posted Zuda, but I'm not a huge fan of it. I'm always running across new comic sites and webcomic sites since I am in the market for a publisher. :)
Besides, it always nice to share. :D

I've come across some good webcomics lately and thought it'd be nice to share with everyone some of the best places to find them. If you're tired of DC & Marvel and the formulaic crap they pump out now, take a look at some of these places. There are tons of webcomics out there that are breaking the comic book mold.
So, if you have a webcomic you'd like to share, let us know about it too.

1. http://www.drunkduck.com/
2. http://www.thewebcomiclist.com/
3. http://topwebcomics.com/
4. http://www.buzzcomix.net/index.php
5. http://www.digitalstrips.com/
6. http://www.onlinecomics.net/pages/
7. For all you lovers of romance: http://www.genkigirl.com/romancetop100/
8. My friend Greg Carter has a vampire story posted that is starting to shape up nicely here: http://www.abandoncomic.com/
9. http://www.ambrosiapublishing.com/

Not a webcomic list, but a great place to find Independant comic book creators.
http://www.indyplanet.com/catalog/


Last, but saved with great pleasure, is a preview of a webcomic coming soon to a monitor near you: Ra's Warrior & the Talismans of Time written by me & drawn by Clarissa Filice from DeviantArt. The comic story pages are being fleshed out now, but there is a prose version available for free, an Egyptian glossary, some proto-sketches posted.

Happy Reading!
Lynn

I've never been one for the Superhero genre. Although I did enjoy Transformers, X Men, and a few others in my youth. Now I find myself buying them for my 7 year old and wondering why I ever read them in the first place. My taste in comics have matured over the years too. Now that I've gotten back into reading comics, I read stuff like 300, Witchblade, Lost Girls, & larger graphic novels instead of the superhero genre. What led me back to comics was the fact that I started turning my prose novel into a graphic novel. I was not happy with prose writing as it was a very strict form, but writing comics has so much more freedom. It's helped refresh my memory on panel construction and the various effects of different layouts.

The problem with the big 2 is they have become too formulaic with their story lines and are starting to rehash old crap especially in the theaters. It's like they're afraid of try something new. New writers have a hard time even getting their foot in the door and a lot of them are turning to smaller Indy presses or they're self-publishing like me. I find the best comics and stories are on the web and some of them are free. Hmmm, maybe I should go post a new thread listing some of the places to find good comics on the net...

Lynn

That's a good idea. Irish mythology is also under appreciated & not done often. I have a hard time writing short stories, but strangely enough not a hard time writing short comics. :-)
Having finished the first issue of Ra's Warrior & the Talismans of Time and sent it off to my artist, I'm pretty proud of myself. I started on issue 2 yesterday and am finishing it off today. I'm amazed how quick & easy it is to convert a prose novel into a 22-30 page comic book. Sure there are things that have to be tweaked to fit a comic, but it's not as involved as writing prose. I've already got 4 issue laid out, but have to convert them to a Word script before sending them to Clarissa to draw.
Lynn

Hi Bob,
That's exactly why I wrote this story. There are only 2, yes 2, Egyptian webcomics on the Internet, not including mine and NONE in comic book stores in the US. THAT is about to change. There are non-fiction graphic novels exploring their myths, but as far as fiction is concerned, it's uncharted territory. I think the main reason for the lack of stories is because of the massive amounts of research that's involved. Not to mention the level of detail required for the artwork. Lucky for me Clarissa can draw in her sleep. lol I've been in love with Ancient Egypt since I was a child & as I grew up, I taught myself about it. For me it's a labor of love.
Thanks for the luck, too. I've a marketing plan set up, places to advertise that are affordable, and have already started doing soft hypes in several comic book forums. When the webcomic is ready to go live, I'm hoping to be inundated with traffic.
Hope to see you there!
Lynn

Almost 20 days later and I have pictures coming out of my ears! I'm very excited & proud to be posting preliminary images of Ra's Warrior & the Talismans of Time.
I hope you all join in their journey through time when the webcomic goes live!

Khufu


Duo- Andrea & Khufu

Page 1 Thumbnail sketch.


Blessings,
Lynn

Ah, photos are so forth coming. I have some, but am holding out for the drawings of the pharaoh & others since we have already decided on the MC and her twin. We are getting geared up to start a website for the story now and are buying the name in a day or two so it's really getting moving now. We'll post pictures and other stuff once the site is up and going. The next step is to compile a list of interested folks and my signature on various boards are giving me some repeat traffic. I'm also learning about some marketing techniques in use by people who are gradually building their stories as web-comics. It's a learning experience, and I'm enjoying every minute.
Keeping you updated!
Lynn

My cousin didn't work out and it was a nightmare for a while there. I just realized (looking at the date I posted the original thread) it's been almost a year already. I should have done this sooner.

But I'm not one to give up. I posted an ad at Deviant Art and now I'm doing a little dance - Whoooohoooooooo! I found the perfect artist to draw Ra's Warrior and she is sssssssssmmmoking!!! Inside 10 days she's done 3 concept sketches and nailed my character the first time around. I'm very excited because something tells me this artist won't waste my time. She's read most of the prose version, can already see the scenes in her head, she's already published children's books, and only works as a freelance artist so there's no normal job to distract her. You can see the sketches here: http://fallingsarah.deviantart.com/

Anyway, I have to prepare some stuff to send over to her so I must take my leave for now.
Have a terrific day!
Lynn

Alright, I'm sorry this is really late in posting the deadline is Jan. 31st, so you may have enough time to submit something. I've only found out recently myself and I'm submitting my pitch today.

http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.ph...

Good luck to those who enter & wish me luck!

Blessings,
Lynn

Has anyone here picked up a copy of Cairo by G. Willow Wilson yet? I've heard some 'not so good' reviews & was wondering if others here have read it yet. It's only been out a few days though.
Blessed Be,
Lynn

Terrific, Poet-I-Am!!!

It's funny, just this morning I received a reply at the Critique site of which I've been a member for 6 years and the poster said: "This is a great idea. It suits your story perfectly." She's been following the story through every draft. My prose wasn't the greatest in the beginning, but I've learned a lot these last few years and the story as well as my writing style have drastically evolved.

I'm hoping Ra's Warrior will be completed by the end of next year. I'm not certain how accurate that deadline may be, because I'm just the writer and am pretty clueless as to how long it will take Renee to draw all those pages. I have noticed, though, that about 1-1/2 to 2 pages seems to convert to 1 page with a default 6 panels per page. The only things really staying as far as narration goes are my dialogue and some very brief captions. Those mostly tell the reader what time frame they're reading about--a necessary evil when writing time travel stories. I'm sure there will be some narration captions, but with Jason's wonderful advice I know to keep them minimal.

And I agree also Darcy. Must check out Black Hole to see what you're talking about.

Blessed be,
Lynn

Hi Alien,

Love the pic by the way. :) It's hard to tell from the quickie blurb, but the twins are adults and the story is definately for mature audiences. I've met plenty of adults who love Egyptian stories and searched the net over. I've yet to find more than a handful of webcomics, graphic novels, and hard copy comics geared towards adults with an Ancient Egyptian theme. Lots of prose novels out there, but it's uncharted territory in the comic/graphic novel world.

Blessed be,
Lynn

Thank you Jason. Nice to hear from someone in the field. I've read a graphic novel that does exactly what you're talking about. Too much extraneous narration bogged me down. The settings, characters, and readers had no time to live and breathe for me. It is something I'll strive to avoid because the story didn't hold my interest.

I've picked up a few different comics and graphic novels the last week or two since all this came about and picked up McCloud's book. I'm one to do my homework. My aim is to let the pictures do more talking than narration. After all it is a Graphic Novel, not prose. :-) In my mind, I've always seen this story in anime; I tried writing with those options in mind.

I'm using Comic Life to do the layouts, opposed to writing it in script form, for my artist, Renee. I've made my descriptions for art in Captions with Blue lettering and things like dialogue and regular Captions that will stay in black. This method helps us distinguish what stays in the final draft and Renee can work dialogue bubbles/caption boxes into the art, making them unobtrusive.

If you wouldn't mind me asking, what's your view on two page spreads for graphic novels? Is it accepted normally or frowned upon by editors? What makes you snatch up a graphic novel and read it?

I've samples to my writing here as well, but it's tough being the new kid on the block. lol My beast is vastly different than "Cairo", but it's nice to know who you're competing against. I'll be grabbing a copy for certain because it sounds like something I'd like.

I so appreciate advice you've already given.

Blessed be,
Lynn

Rocking! A new forum for me to test the waters in! Thanks Jason! I wonder if the pros will like my Egyptian graphic novel idea? I can't seem to get any response from readers on whether or not they'd be interested in that type of story because there isn't another one like it anywhere (not even in the world of Prose)! I was reading McCloud's book and was pleasantly surprised as well as encouraged when he said: "This is why I don't think there's a TYPE of story that's RIGHT for comics and why it's a mistake to limit the kinds of stories we tell in an attempt to squeeze ourselves onto someone else's shelf space. Nobody knows what will work until they TRY it. Some of comics' biggest success stories in recent years have been explored subjects that NO ONE was writing at the time. Stories no one had any reason to think WOULD succeed."

I don't necessarily think they are two separate beasts though Poet. They must work in complete harmony words/art. I'm ahead of the game because the artist I'm collaborating with is a. family and b. has read the Prose version of my story from front to back. The pictures in her mind are well formed because of it, she said. Being family, we think a lot alike and have both been interested in "Egyptology" for years.

McCloud has a website as well: http://www.scottmccloud.com/ Take a look at his site. You may find some useful information there too.

Blessed be,
Lynn

Hi Poet-I-Am,

LOL. Yes I've just begun that journey myself, but I luckily I already have a good graphic artist who is heavily into comic books. I'm very excited about converting my prose into graphic format. It's not too difficult, really. But with graphic novels, the rules are somewhat looser than going prose. You still need all the fun things like queries, scripts, etc. However, there are places that publish comics/graphic novels that are prefinished by teams of independant collaborators. Marvel and DC will only take on writers, artists, colorists, etc independantly so unless you want to get stuck writing fan-fiction I suggest submitting to Image Comics or a small indy.

There is a nifty little program called Comic Life. Right now, the Windows version is in Beta Testing, but a Mac version is available. Normally I wouldn't recommend softwares, but this program rocks and is easy for beginners. You can find it here: http://plasq.com/component/option,com_jo...

There are many places you can go to and post a 'help wanted' sign of sorts. Here's a few places to find prospective collaborators.
http://forums.comicbookresources.com/ind...
http://www.animotions.com/forums.html
http://www.illustratorworld.com/forum/in...

Hope these help you. :)

Lynn

Road to Perdition, Heroes, Ghost World, Blade, History of Violence, & the Covenant, were also graphic novels turned movie. Here's a link to a list of them: http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/series...

300 ROCKS!!! I was so happy when they turned it into a movie. All those hard bodies .... oh la-la!

Keep on writing,
Lynn

Hi all,

I’m new to your group and pretty new to this type of media. Granted I read comic books when I was younger, but have recently rediscovered my love for comics and just discovered it for more mature graphic novels. I have a prose novel in the last draft stage, and my cousin (a graphic designer) has expressed an interest in helping me turn the idea into a graphic story. Well I was wondering if there would be an audience for it.

Here’s a general blurb about the story. It is heavily rooted with controversial theory, mythology, adult themes (violence, sex, war), and time traveling. I’d appreciated any thoughts and possible interest in this type of story.

Buried by the winds of time and the sands of mainstream Egyptology is an ancient secret. Twins, Andrea and Elise Regal, are about to brush away the grains concealing their destines. The twins become unwilling pawns in the Gods’ game of Senet. Can they master the talimans before time proves fatal for all humanity?

A synopsis and chapters 1-5 are posted on my writing page.

Thanks for your input,
C. L. Easterwood