Back at work and Wormworld Saga App coming up!

I'm back! Back from a summer vation in Spain and back from the convention of the digitalartforum which took place this weekend in Berlin. It was a great event and I'm happy that we had an absolute record in participants this year because that way a lot of people were able to enjoy what I think was the best convention we've ever experienced. We've never been at a cooler location and we've never had better talks than this year which, by the way, was the 10th anniversary of the community.

The traditional convention group shot

And I had a nice surprise in my mailbox: finally the trademark registration process is completed and "Wormworld" is now a registered trademark in the United States of America!

that's what a U.S. trademark certificate looks like

I'm happy that this issue is off my mind now. I just checked and I can't believe that it took almost 22 months to register the Wormworld Saga trademark in the European Union and the United States. 

However, I will continue my work on Chapter 2 in a few days. Before I can fully concentrate on the graphic novel again I have to prepare some promotional work for the launch of the Wormworld Saga App which is going to happen very soon. In fact, we have a definite launch date which is going to be October 1st. I'm excited!

So, you'll hear from me again in a few days!

Chapter 2, Milestone 1 reached!

Today I reached my first milestone and finished 20% of the Chapter 2 final artwork. I spent 40 hours working on it. Normally that would have taken me over a month but with my new fulltime schedule I accomplished the first milestone in 1.5 weeks. And that's in fact longer than it should normally take. The finishing touches on the app and the upcoming digitalartconvention in Berlin (which I'm organizing) took away some time from my schedule. However, it feels great to make such fast progress on Chapter 2. I really can't wait to present it to you.

However, the next 4 weeks will hardly see any progress on Chapter 2. It's summer vacation time and my wife and I are looking forward to present little Lucas to his great-grandparents in Spain for the first time. The little rascal is starting to crawl and I'm curious to see his face when he sees a beach for the first time. Then, directly after our vacation there's the digitalartconvention, and in October the Frankfurt Book Fair will take away some days from my schedule, too. I will post details on Frankfurt as soon as I can say when exactly I will be available on the Tokyopop booth.

Well, that all combined leads to the fact that Chapter 2 will presumably not be released so much earlier than originally planned. I really didn't anticipate all the stuff that got in my way and with the app release and the book publishing ahead there's plenty of distraction still waiting for me. I'm planning to continue with Chapter 2 late September and hopefully I'll wrap up the artwork in early November. I don't quite know yet how much time editing and layout will take. For Chapter 1 that process was very tesselated and it's hard to say how long it'll take when I'm working on that part fulltime and in one stretch. There's still a lot to learn for me. I guess, Chapter 3 will be the first Chapter that I will create in a truly proven workflow.

Okay, of course I'm not leaving you without at least a small sneak peek into Chapter 2. Here's a panel from the first milestone that I really enjoyed painting. I was longing to paint forest scenes since the very beginning of my work on the Wormworld Saga and Chapter 2 fortunately has plenty of them:

First Video2Brain Video-Training (German) Released

Some of you might remember that I mentioned a journey to Graz, Austria at the beginning of July. I went there for a week and recorded a bunch of video-trainings for video2brain which is a company that offers online and DVD video-workshops. The first one (in German language) was just released. It runs for about two hours and covers all details of my digital drawing workflow. The video is not timelapsed. The full drawing process is filmed and commented in realtime. As you can see, I chose an image from the Wormworld Saga for the course:

Click to go to the product page

And there's a trailer, too:

A second video in German on digital painting will be released soon. I also recorded two video-trainings in English language which hopefully we will not have to wait for too long.

Alright, I hope that I can catch the interest of some of you with this. I will keep you informed about the following releases.

Kickstarter Drawings

Last week I finished a task that was sitting on my to-do-list for some time now. All backers of the Wormworld Saga App kickstarer campaign who pledged $500 or $1000 receive a custom pencil drawing. The outcome of this is a nice and diverse collection of drawings that will go out into the world today (click thumbnails for a larger resolution):

These are really unique items because not only are these originals but these are the only 10 drawings with the blue Wormseal stamp that will ever exist. So, collectors: watch out for these!

If you happen to be interested in an original pencil drawing from me, you might want to consider to buy an Ultimate Fan Collection from the wormworldsaga.com print shop. A pencil drawing is part of this package.

I'm starting with the Chapter 2 Final Artwork

"Finally!" A lot of you will say, I guess. And yes, I didn't think that it would take me so long before I could start on the next chapter of the Wormworld Saga neither. I promised fast progress the day when I announced to work fulltime on the Wormworld Saga and here we are - nearly 5 weeks later and I'm just starting with Chapter 2. I just completely underestimated the amount of work that I had to put into the app. It feels good having made the effort though. I'm really looking forward to the release as I hope a lot of you do, too. I have finished my part and now the developers are going to fix bugs and submit a version to Apple in order to get the approval for the App Store. We hope that the whole process will be completed by the end of August. The app should be landing in the App Store in early September at the latest.

So, that finally gives me the opportunity to start with the final artwork of Chapter 2. During the last two days I have reworked the preliminary version from ... April (oh God, is it really April?) and I'm now confident to say that I have landed a version that's ready to be finalized. 

I'm really excited about Chapter 2! I think that it's going to be a worthy follower to Chapter 1 - with more content, more action, more dramatic turning points, and a kickass ending that will make you wanna read Chapter 3 instantly. Well, okay, let's finish Chapter 2 before we begin to talk about Chapter 3...

I've established 5 milestones again. They are 25% larger than the milestones of Chapter 1. I hope to reach the first one before my summer vacation starts. I don't dare to announce a release date for Chapter 2 yet. There's a 3 weeks vacation coming up and I'm organizing the convention of the digitalartforum again which will take place in September. In October I've got to attend the Frankfurt Book Fair. Apart from that, I'm going to concentrate on Chapter 2 though. You'll get the updates here! 

So, no time to lose!

Wormworld Saga App Preview

I have recorded a video in which I present you the main features of the upcoming Wormworld Saga App! We are very close to the finish line and I expect the app to hit the app stores in August.

The app will be available for iPad and Android tablets. I will try to provide a comprehensive list of Android devices that will be able to run the app as soon as possible.

And just to make sure that everyone gets a clear picture of what my plans are with the app:

The app will not substitute the free online version of the Wormworld Saga on wormworldsaga.com. The graphic novel will remain to be free. The app will be a free download and there will be a free version of the graphic novel (without special features) inside the app, too. The free version inside the app will have a better image quality than the web version and the scrolling performance will be better than reading the graphic novel in the browser.
I've made a huge effort to make the Collector's Edition of each chapter attractive to you. If you purchase the Collector's Edition of a chapter inside the app, you will unlock the special features of this chapter, which includes the artwork and sketch mode, the production notes and the artbook items that are associated to this chapter. And of course, by purchasing the Collector's Edition you support the Wormworld Saga and help me to keep on working on it fulltime.

I'm looking forward to make this app available to you as soon as possible!

Tablet poll results

The poll in which I basically wanted to find out how many of you own a tablet device is over and these are the results:

Question: Do you own a tablet device?


Yes, iPad - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -205 (28%)
Yes, Android - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 94 (12%)
No, but I'll soon get one - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -70 (9%)
Nope, and it's not gonna happen soon - - - - -357 (49%)


Total votes: 726


First, let me thank everyone who participated in this poll. This is very usefull data, not only for me but for anyone who thinks about focusing his publishing efforts on tablet devices. Of course you have to take these results with a grain of salt because followers of this blog definitely don't represent the general public. On the other hand, I don't think that the figures are extremely warped because in order to be interested in the Wormworld Saga and following this blog you don't have to own a tablet device in the first place so there's essentially no reason why the readers of this blog should have an above the average inclination to own a tablet device. So, I guess you could transfer these results to the general internet readership that also has an interest in webcomics. Well, I'm not a statistics specialist so please draw your own assumptions here.

At least we can savely say that these figures are valid for the Wormworld Saga readership and I must say that I'm really surprised. My guess would have been that a lot less people already own a tablet device. That 40% already have one and 9% are heavily inclined to get one is really encouraging.

I also want to address that I understand that a lot of you are disappointed to learn that the app is released for tablet devices only. That was the plan right from the beginning but I see that this information was somewhat buried inside the kickstarter campaign up to this point. The reason why the Wormworld Saga App isn't released for smartphones is simply that smartphone screens are too small to experience the Wormworld Saga as it is meant to be experienced. I actually could imagine a dedicated phone app in which the layout would be altered so that you would see individual panels in fullscreen but that would mean to create a whole other app and it would have been too high a risk and too much work to create two apps at once. However, I will keep the option of a dedicated smartphone app in mind and if I happen to be able to gather the ressources for that, I will definitely do it. But maybe this issue will be obsolute in a year or so. Word is that the next generation of iPhones get a bigger screen with higher resolution and a lot of smartphones are already very close to the 1024 pixels that the Wormworld Saga needs on the wide side to be fully displayed. So, let's see how this develops.

The Wormworld Saga App is nearing completion. This week should see the first complete version with all features and I roughly plan to record a preview video for next week.

The app is coming closer!

My first week in the home office is over now and man - I've really got lots of stuff done! The app is very close to a first version (which will then be tested and polished) and I'm really looking forward to make it available to you as soon as we have finished our work on it and it's got the approval from Apple.

I also want to ask you to take part in a small poll that you'll find on the right side of the blog. Basically I want to find out what percentage of my followers own a tablet device and if they do, which OS is running on it. Later we'll also have a poll about price points but let's make one step at a time here.

Alright, still lots of work ahead. Let's get this second week rolling!

My first Monday in the home office

And here it is - my first day at the home office! I know what you're thinking - 1st July is already a week ago, what the heck was he doing all the time? Well, before diving into the Wormworld Saga with full speed I traveled to Graz, Austria where the nice people of video2brain recorded some brand new video workshops with me. We'd already produced a German workshop DVD in 2006 (and you can access the videos as online streams here) but a lot has changed in the last 5 years and I'm really happy that we were able to record some fresh material. Also, this time we recorded the videos in German and English so that a lot more people are going to be able to enjoy them. I will announce it here as soon as they become available.

Alright, after an intense week of recording in the studio I've now arrived at home. This travel to Graz served as a wonderful transition into my new work life I must say. At the weekend I did some rearrangement of the stuff in my studio and now I'm ready. There's a lot of stuff to do and finally I've got time to get things rolling. 

My first priority at the moment is the Wormworld Saga App. We are planning to have it finished by the end of the month so I guess we can look forward to a launch in August. Then there's still some work to do on the kickstarter rewards on which I worked over the past 12 weekends. Here's some photos of the fun:

I'm going to finish my work on the rewards during the week now so I hope that I will be through with it pretty soon.

Well, and then of course there's the second chapter waiting. The preliminary version of it rested for 8 weeks and this is perfect for revising it now. I've learned that it is crucial to the process to give everything the time it needs. It will become a challenge to arrange for that when I'm starting to speed through my milestones from now on. I currently plan to create the preliminary version of chapter 3 before starting the final artwork for chapter 2 so that it can rest for some time, too. It might generally be a good idea to always be one chapter ahead with the prelims. Speed doesn't only have its benefits but also its pitfalls. But we'll maneuver our way around them!

By the way, in the last few month I have used the Wormworld Saga Facebook Fanpage to post smaller updates (like links to interviews and stuff like that) so you might be interested to subscribe to that to get the full fix on Wormworld Saga news. Essential updates will always be posted to the blog though. I'm still not quite sure what exactly to put on my Twitter but there might turn up more stuff in the future, too. Please share any ideas you might have!

Alright, now let's get some stuff done!

I'm going fulltime with the Wormworld Saga!

I'm sorry that it was so quiet here on the blog over the last four weeks. The reason for that is that the last month was such a crazy hotchpotch of stuff that happened, which made me leap from here to there and which I just wasn't able to comprehend into a form that I could share with you. Now that I just had the chance to relax on a short trip to the Munich Comicfestival (which was a great event by the way) things have settled down a bit and I'm able to break the news to you about some decisions that I made. And boy are there news!

I was approached by a big investor a few weeks ago. To put it into a nutshell, they wanted to give me the money that I needed to work fulltime on the Wormworld Saga. That of course got me totally thrilled. My goal got within reach! So I created a business plan for a production company, we talked about the details and in the end it was up to me to sign the deal. It would have meant to create a company, earning a good salary as CEO and ... to hand over the major share of the Wormworld Saga property to the investor.

Relax! I didn't do it.

I realised that I hadn't worked my ass off over the last 18 months only to hand my rights over to someone else. But I'm deeply thankful for their approach because it made me crunch my numbers and it got me thinking about the financial potential of the Wormworld Saga project. And I realised that it could work. There still is a gap in the cash flow for the rest of this year and I will have to dive into my savings in order to bridge it. But next year, when the app has been in stores for several months, I'm optimistic enough to hope for a complete yearly income generated by the Wormworld Saga.

Especially because the app won't be the only way to generate income from!

The next big news is, that I found a publisher for a print adaption of the Wormworld Saga Digital Graphic Novel. That really wasn't an easy thing to do because there needs to be some serious editing done on the material and I had to find a publisher who would let me retain the rights for the digital version AND who would let me keep on publishing the free online version on the website. Fortunately I found a forward thinking publisher who would agree on these terms. The German Tokyopop publishing house will bring the Wormworld Saga books into stores from next year on. I'm thrilled and I think a book will be a nice artifact for fans and with it I will be able to reach people with my story who don't like to read comics on a screen. It will be published in Germany first and international contracts will be negotiated over the next months. I hope that it won't take too long until readers outside of Germany will be able to enjoy the Wormworld Saga in the printed edition.

Well, all this ultimately lead me to the decision to do the leap of  faith. I quit my job and will be working fulltime on the Wormworld Saga from 1st July on. I'm scared of course since I'm venturing into unknown territory here. I don't know how things will turn out. But how much sense this all makes! "The Journey Begins" is the title of the upcoming chapter two. The journey begins indeed and I begin to understand how Jonas must feel on the brink of his great adventure. I'm joining him and I hope you join us, too!

Oh, and I think I don't need to mention that the second chapter will be relased WAY before the end of the year now, do I? Feast your eyes on my rearranged schedule!

Compared to my old schedule I now I have FIVE times more hours per day to work on the Wormworld Saga AND I'm actually going to see my family in the evenings. That's pure craziness! Prepare to see the milestones fly by!

Thanks for all your support and encouragement over the last six months! If this all was just the prologue, I'm wondering what's going to happen now that things are really getting started. I'm going to work hard in order to meet your expectations.