Sunday, February 13, 2011

Let's go on now!

The last 7 weeks were the craziest time I ever experienced in my whole life. When I launched the Wormworld Saga Online Graphic Novel on 25th December I had no idea what would follow. Sure, I anticipated to get some attention from the digital art community that I'm a member of  for 10 years now. And I also hoped for some feedback from the webcomics community that I entered at the beginning of 2010 in order to find out how webcomics were done these days. What I wasn't prepared for was the avalanche of positive feedback from all sorts of people from all around the world that literally floored me when it hit. And just when I thought that things couldn't possibly get more exciting, I had to drive my wife to the hospital because our son was going to be born.

The last weeks were a surreal mixture of answering emails, changing diapers, giving interviews, getting not enough sleep, sending out prints and getting even less sleep. The bottom line of all that is:

I'm thankful! 

I'm thankful for your encouraging feedback and the strength and support that it gave to me. I'm thankful for your active help in spreading the word about the Wormworld Saga and I'm thankful for your contributions to the project - your donations, your print orders and your fan translations. I'm thankful for the opportunities your ethusiasm opened up for me. And I'm thankful to be a father.

The Wormworld Saga Online Graphic Novel has now nearly reached 400.000 reads and since it's already mid-February it's time to work on the next chapter.

 
The first step towards the second chapter will be to create the preliminary version in greyscales. This is the step in which I'm laying out the plot and where I roughly define the staging and lighting of each panel. I'll try to polish the storytelling at this stage as far as possible so that essentially, when the preliminary version is finished, you already would be able to read the second chapter. Of course I won't let you. No, you have to wait until everything is nice and colorful.

Well, and that brings me directly to the single question that was the hardest to bear for me in the last few weeks:

"when will we be able to read the second chapter?"

Let me show you my generic schedule. I have it hanging in a prominent place in my studio:


Here's a closeup:


This is the schedule of a typical week. Here you can see, what I'm doing all day throughout the year. Blue fields are sleep (thanks to little Lucas this visualisation is highly idealized...), yellow fields are eating and household times. The big fat red block is my day job framed by the orange commute. The pink fields depict family time. As you can see, I'm reserving the weekends for that. Well, and last but not least, there are the green fields which are Wormworld Saga time. 10 hours a week. That's my schedule for 2011.

I worked after this schedule the last year and as you all know, and as is documented on this blog, the first chapter took me the whole year to finish. Looking at the schedule there shouldn't be any questions left why that was the case. It's only a fraction of my time that I can actually spend on the project and you can imagine that it's not easy for me to return to this schedule now that I know that so many of you are longing for the next chapter. But for the moment that's what it's going to be - another year of waiting for the second chapter.

However, I set myself a goal for this year. It's a high goal but I'm going to stick to it and do anything to make it happen:

This shall be the last time you'll have to wait a whole year for a new chapter!

I want to get this huge red block out of my schedule. Just imagine what it would mean for the Wormworld Saga if I could use all that time for its creation! I mentioned it on many occasions - if I'm able to generate my income through the Wormword Saga I would be able to create at least 4 chapters every year. That would mean that you would have to wait only three months for each new chapter. You wouldn't get a milestone update every one and a half months but every week!

To reach that point is my biggest dream right now. I have already taken the first steps to make this dream come true. When the time comes I will need your help. But after the last 7 weeks I have no fear that you will let me hanging. I strongly believe that together we can make it work!

24 comments:

  1. Daniel - absolutely: congratulations. I must say, though, that I was convinced that we'd have to wait until Chapter 1 had been translated to 20 other languages first. So...I'm glad you have roadmap for Chapter 2. I was this close to giving up and moving on.

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  2. Das klingt großartig! Ich bin sehr gespannt wie es weitergeht. Magst du nicht mal ein paar Deiner Arbeiten in höherer Auflösung bereitstellen? Die eignen sich wunderbar als Desktop-Hintergrund.

    Einen schönen Sonntag noch!

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  3. ah, but if you get the huge red block out of the schedule, the pink field should gain some before anything else.
    two or three chapters a year are probably enough :)

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  4. Thanks for the update Daniel, its good to know whats happening with this amazing project. I waited all last year for the first chapter, I can wait another, I have no doubt it will be worth it. Good luck getting rid of that day job, just make sure to let us know what you need help with :)

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  5. Dear Daniel,

    thrilling. And let me say one thing: You'll reach your goal!
    Why? because you are one of the greates artist I ever had the pleasure to work with and you are a good friend as well, a fountain of creativity and inspiring dialogues.

    It is so refreshing to read your open-minded lines. Not that polished PR-BS, but simply the truth about your feeelings, wishes, worries and visions.
    So, community, support this guy for having faith and power and sticking to artistical truth.

    And Daniel, go - get it, cowboy!;-)

    Michael

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  6. Hi Daniel, your own saga (heh!) to create WWS and take it to where it is now and where it is headed is a huge source of inspiration for those of us who are looking to reach a similar goal. I also have plans to further develop a comics property of mine but as it stands I'm also restricted to whatever free time isn't taken by my 12-hour day job and sleep. As you have no doubt discovered, creating a schedule matrix (yours is greatly cool) and sticking ruthlessly to it is the only way to get things like these done. You're way ahead on your goals already and I'm totally positive you will get what you want sooner than you think.

    I'm intrigued by what you say about creating the forthcoming WWS chapter in grayscale first. I think it makes a lot of sense while building the story since you don't want to bother with color issues at this point. Didn't think of that before - you get to learn something new every day.

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  7. Keep at it! I'm sure you'll make it :)

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  8. Hallo Daniel!
    Erst mal danke für das grandiose erste Kapitel!
    Ich denke auch, dass die rosaroten Bereiche in deinem Kalender dringend erweitert gehören. Auch wenn ich das zweite Kapitel lieber gestern als heute lesen würde :)

    mfG,
    a.

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  9. Hey,
    keep going! Your work is just awesome!!

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  10. You should really consider going on kickstarter.com to gain some funding, and do an ""Ask Me Anything" interview on reddit.com/r/IAmA/ to get some focused attention. Also, google "Pioneer One". It's a TV-series that relies completely on donations for funding, though kickstarter, and is released on torrent. Their business model could definitely work for you, too. :)

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  11. Hey, I liked that and I´ll wait to read more. What a beautiful world! So nice that the main character is a little boy (althought it could be also a girl sometimes...:) Congratulations for the baby!

    Outi from Finland

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  12. In einigen Wochen findet bei uns in Luzern an der Pädagogischen Hochschule eine Tagung zu Literalitiät statt. Ich werde dort mit einem Kollegen den Workshop "neue Formen des Lesens" anbieten und mit grösstem Vergnügen deine WWS als ein Beispiel vorstellen. Eine unglaubliche, beeindruckende und begeisternde Arbeit. Herzliche Grüsse aus der Zentralschweiz! Beat

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  13. Heya, I hope it'll work out too. It's a huge leap of faith, to remove the red blocks and fund yourself entirely from your webcomic. It's every webcomic artist's dream. But with your enthusiasm and your skills and your passion, I'm sure it will work out. I will definitely support you! =)

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  14. @ Bootie:

    The cool thing is, that if I could use the big red block for the Wormworld Saga I could turn the whole evening pink! :)

    @ Beto:

    Yes, you have to stick to the schedule and to the narrow time windows. It all boils down to discipline regarding that point.

    @ Frank:

    Kickstarter.com is an important part of my plans for the next few month. In fact, you all will find abolut this quite soon! Thanks for putting these infos together for me!

    @ Beat Kueng:

    Oh, wow! Das ist mir eine Ehre, vielen Dank!

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  15. I think it's great that you're going to stay dedicated to the story! It may seem like you have it easy, "having a whole year to work on a chapter" rather than updating a page once a week or such, but the reality is that it's difficult to work on something day after day that you know won't come to fruition for months and months. So, I'm impressed! =D I wish you lots of luck, and great times with your son!

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  16. Olá, quando teremos o prazer de ler este site no idioma português?

    Bjs

    Claudia

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  17. I love your story, drawing style, colouring style, everything just works so well! I can see why it takes so long, and that was before I saw your schedule. By the way, I also love the fact that you are so organized. I really should get me one of those!

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  18. Hallo Daniel!
    Ich habe schon viele Jahre keine Comics mehr gelesen. Mittlerweile bin ich 41 und ich habe sie in meiner Jugend verschlungen. Dann wurde ich durch viele andere Dinge vom lesen der Comics abgebracht. Durch den Hinweis in der GEE (Zeitschrift für Videospiele und deren Kultur) habe ich den Link entdeckt und bin sowas von begeistert! Ich hoffe und erwarte eine wunderschöne Fortsetzung Deines genialen Wormworld Comics! Er erinnnert mich an meine Jugend und die vielen Gedanken die ich auch hatte. Danke für die tolle Zeit, die Du mir beim lesen bereitet hast!
    este

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  19. Hi Daniel! I've been frequently checking your blog and your progress and I just wanted to say thank you for acting as an inspiration for me. I hope that you never loose the child in yourself.

    Simeon

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  20. COuld you please find some time and do a IAmA on reddit. :) It would sure help your publicity issue,

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  21. beautiful, amazing, wonderful...you are a heroe of the colour and the beauty, I really am fascinated with that magic light wich with you illuminate your creation. thank heavens you
    are in the world ,thanks heaven I have eyes to see your work.
    lots of warm

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  22. Die Bilder sind fantastisch! Man hat das Gefühl, das Licht wäre in diesen Bildern eingefangen und die Farben sind total gut getroffen. Es ist einfach schön anzusehen.
    Ich kann das zweite Kapitel kaum erwarten!
    Ich stimme voll mit dem überein, was ilsetowanda sagte!
    Die Story mag ich auch total.

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  23. What software do you use?

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