The Dreaming: Good news. My editor got back to me again after I submitted the summaries of Vol 2 and 3 to the EIC and herself, and apparently after they read it, the EIC is now confident my vision is compatible with his. I was asked to ignore his previous comments and just go with it. Which is great – except that I believe my plots for Vol 2 and 3 need alot of trimming and fixing up. I was amazed they were satisfied by the summary I sent up, because it was typed in a hurry and required, in my opinion, a LOT of rewrites. At least it can’t be a bad thing that they find my draft writing acceptable. However, it’s okay as I’ll have plenty of time to fix it as the plot of Vol 1 has already been pinned down, and everyone is clear that “The Dreaming” is a 3-volume story only (for now). I hope this means I won’t be getting any more baffling notes on “themes” until Round 2 swings around and Vol 1 has sold some copies.

Art-wise, all the higher-ups like what they see. Apparently there’s no aspect of the art, toning, camera angles or pacing they think need improving on, with the exception of some of the faces (which sorta sounds like a miracle). They’ll be sending detailed notes to me on that, so I’ll start fixing it when I get the notes, probably by next Wednesday.

 

Other Stuff: Keeping with my attempts at all-CG art, this is another entirely computerised piece of art. This took me less long than the previous rooster attempt, but already this random sketch has a name and a story mushrooming behind her. I’ve always wanted to do a pure black & white noirish story (though the get-up looks more pulpish), but while I’ve done pure black and white art before and had no trouble, this sort of “hyperexposed” look can very difficult to pin down in an actual manga/comic. It’s a DIFFERENT way of doing b&w art, and if not done properly with the balance of black and white in both the characters and the environment, you can end up with a confusing mess. I’m interested in doing more of this, probably as a short story. Since computer art is easier to fix up, I hope I’ll be doing it on computer as an experiment.