Category: The Dreaming Series

The Dreaming: The End, or is it?

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It’s seven days from Christmas Day, and I gotta announce that “The Dreaming” vol. 3 is finally out, both on bookshelves and online! You can buy vol1, vol2 and vol3 here on Amazon.com!

IMPORTANT: Please look on the VERY LAST PAGE of volume 3. There’s a SECRET there, to be revealed on the TOKYOPOP site soon, hopefully January.

 

The Dreaming 3 - cover

So, "The Dreaming" trilogy is officially over (at least the manga written and drawn by me is).

 

It’s been a long and busy three years, and so much has changed in that time. My art has also improved, though the results of that can probably only be seen in “Odd Thomas: In Odd We Trust”, the book I’m working on now.

 

 

  • Along with “The Dreaming”, I was one of the first people to be published in TOKYOPOP’s OEL 3-book manga program, and judging from the changes in their publishing plans, probably one of the last.
  • I started work on “The Dreaming” in October 2004, and finished the last of its pages in August 2007.
  • Book 1 was 172 pages, book 2 was 181 pages, and book 3 was also 181 pages. Each had 7 chapters.
  • This makes a total of 534 mostly greyscale-toned pages, including 21.5 black and white chapter pages.
  • The average chapter length was 25.43 pages. The longest chapter was chapter 20, at 35 pages. The shortest was chapter 21, at 17 pages.
  • I worked a total worktime of 22 months, which makes an average of 24.3 pages a month, 7.33 months for each book. That makes about a chapter a month.
  • In a single month, this means 1 week for the pencils, 1.5 weeks for the inks, and another 1.5 weeks for the tones.
  • My favourite chapter break is chapter 2 in book 1, and my favourite dress is the one the unconscious girl is wearing on the “To Be Continued…” page of book 1.

 

 

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  • First, I’d like to thank all my wonderful fans for your interest and support in this series. I give special kudos to all the people who emailed me – I replied to most of your emails, and will continue doing so. I apologise if I haven’t replied to yours in particular (I get on average 1-2 fan mails a day), but I’ll try my best.
  • Secondly, I want to thank all the editors who worked on this series, namely Jodi, Carol Fox and Paul Morrissey. Carol especially, because she spend the most time on it. Thanks to all the senior editors who kept an eye on things too, and also Stu Levy who greenlit this project.
  • An apology and thanks to Katie Huang and Paul Aeria, who helped me with the toning for book 3, but unfortunately didn’t get their names in the credits because of a printing error. Nobody was at fault – there was some confusion with the 1 month delay in street date because of the SECRET on the last page. So I thank Paul and Katie here instead.
  • A big thanks to TOKYOPOP Senior Editor Jenna Winterburg too, for telling me about the SECRET you’ll find at the end of volume 3. Thanks for the TOKYOPOP marketing folks who came up with that too.
  • Thanks to Emily Shao, for maintaining “The Dreaming” Fanlisting, and also my Normal Fanlisting. I really appreciate it.
  • Kudos to all the librarians who pushed this book, and recommended it to their enthusiastic little manga minions. Thanks to Scholastic for ordering 45,000 copies for their book club too. You’ve got to get them reading when they’re young…
  • May I also thank all the reviewers who gave it a good review, and all the bloggers and journalists who interviewed me for their blogs and/or articles! You can see a full list of them on my site.
  • Thanks to all the news sites I read for mentioning me and my book, including MangaBlog, Heidi at The Beat, ComiPress and the now defunct Love Manga (If a news site I don’t read mentioned my book too, then I thank you as well. Hopefully you were saying something nice, teehee.)
  • Last of all, a big THANKYOU to TOKYOPOP for publishing this series, including every single person who worked on it. If you know anything about book publishing, there’s probably quite a few people whose names didn’t get mentioned because of the “behind the scenes” nature of their job. I want to say: your efforts are appreciated.

 

 

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I hope everyone (and my fans) continues to support me in the other works I do.
Merry Christmas everyone, and Happy 2008 New Year!!

The Strange One: Odd Thomas

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Odd Thomas: Long time no update – I’ve been real overworked. For the record, I’m still working on the single-volume “Odd Thomas” graphic novel (just finished chapters 4 out of 7), which now has a name – “In Odd We Trust”. Dean Koontz came up with that name, and he’s also writing a fourth “Odd Thomas” novel, to come out just before this graphic novel I’m working on. Yes, Dean Koontz’s most successful trilogy of books is no longer a trilogy.

I promised long ago to write a lengthy description of the whole Dean Koontz-deal I’m working on, but I haven’t done it yet. It’s because up until the end of October, Dean was busy working on his novel(s) and didn’t have time to approve the last chapter script. Now that the entire script has been approved, I can finally tell you who did what part of the work. But I’ll save that for the big “Odd Thomas” post, which unfortunately is only coming out after volume 3 of “The Dreaming” in December.

 

The Dreaming: Yes, volume 3 is now coming out in December and not November. There’s a very good reason for the 1 month delay – the folks at TOKYOPOP had something to insert in the back and it needed time to get approved. As for what’s being inserted in the back of “The Dreaming” volume 3 – it’s a SECRET (though lord knows, I’ve blabbed it to enough people already. Whoops). Anyway, I haven’t yet posted up the chapter breaks, so here they are.

 

The Dreaming - Chapter 15

 

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The Dreaming - Chapter 16

 

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The Dreaming - Chapter 17

 

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The Dreaming - Chapter 18

 

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The Dreaming - Chapter 19

 

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The Dreaming - Chapter 20

 

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The Dreaming - Chapter 21

The Dreaming: Long Time No Update

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The Dreaming v3: Is finished. It’s 182 pages. It is OVER. The “The Dreaming” series has concluded.

It will be out in November 2007. I actually finished nearly all of book3 a while ago, but couldn’t be bothered to post it up since I was also working on “Odd Thomas”. It’s hell working on 2 books at the same time – now that the bulk of “The Dreaming” v3 is done, I’ve got a bunch of minor stuff I need to finish on it, namely the chapter illustrations and odds and ends (like part 3 of the Haunted Linen Cupboard series). Yeah, I’m dragging my feet on this, though luckily the due date is August the 23rd, so there’s plenty of time. It even took me a whole month to finish the cover, which is down below.

 

The Dreaming 3 - cover

After 2 covers, I finally figured out how to do a glowing window properly.

 

Odd Thomas: After that blabber about the last book in “The Dreaming” series, I get to talk about “Odd Thomas”. I totally forgot to post this up, but Allen Klingelhoets did an interview with me here which has some “Odd Thomas” information in it (Thankyou, Allen). I’ll be posting up a longer description of my work on “Odd Thomas” and how I came onto this project in August.

So far, I can’t show any art that’s not been approved, but there’s no hurry, because the book is scheduled to be launched mid-2008. So far, the first 2 chapters (of 7) is close to being finished, and the script is complete, currently being copy-editted. That’s about it for this chunk of news.

 

The Legend of Zelda: An 8-page doujinshi that is part of Life Meter 2, a video-gaming comics anthology. If you’ve ever wanted to see videogame characters in comic form, this is your anthology. This doujinshi was drawn specifically for this book, so this is the only chance you’ll have to see this “Princess Zelda” story in print. I’ll put it online later on… though only perhaps MUCH later on, when the anthology is sold out.

 
Princess Zelda

The Dreaming: It’s been a bad month…

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The Dreaming: Is getting a German edition, yay! Apart from that, it’s been a pretty bad month for me. Was sick with the flu for 2 weeks, and fell behind some other work I had to do, which includes a one-volume graphic novel for something else. At least there’s only 2 more chapters of “The Dreaming” to tone. I’m also working on the cover, finally.

 

Free Comics Day: At Kinokuniya this Saturday (5th May), there’s a Free Comics Day where I’d be speaking on a panel. The panel is called “Brave New World” and it’s on at 3:00pm. Come along for some fun. Here’s the rest of the program:

At Kinokuniya Sydney, located at Level 2, The Galeries Victoria (500 George Street, Sydney 2000). Telephone: (02)9262-7996.

 

Time: 12.30pm
Panel: Up, Up and Away
Discover the secrets of storytelling in comics with two of Australia’s rising stars!
Artists: Nicola Scott: Comic Book Artist ( BIRDS OF PREY, ANGEL), David Yardin (WHAT IF? X-MEN DEADLY GENESIS, BLACK PANTHER/X-MEN, STAN WINSTON’S REALM OF THE CLAW)

 

Time: 2.00pm
Panel: Panel: Power Of One or Strength In Numbers?
Exploring the difference in Storytelling between the single image (Book Covers) and a sequence of pictures (Storyboards)
Artists: Mark Sexton: Production Designer/Storyboard Artist (HAPPY FEET, STAR WARS EPS II ATTACK OF THE CLONES, MISSION IMPOSSIBLE II, BABE: PIG IN THE CITY ), Craig Phillips: Cover Artist/Illustrator (TOM SWIFT, GHOST SQUAD ), W. Chew Chan: Storyboard Artist (SUPERMAN RETURNS, HAPPY FEET )

 

Time: 3.00pm
Panel: Brave New World
Explore the explosive new storytelling form that’s taken the world by storm – MANGA!
Artists: Queenie Chan: Australia’s own Manga-ka (THE DREAMING )