Kickstarter

But we're back on track again. Some of you might have noticed I put the webcomic on hiatus while I attempted to catch up on everything. 2012 was kind of incredibly nuts, in that I had a lot of health problems (and no health care, ha ha ha) and all my most important (and therefore expensive) tools broke. So, I said yes to every job that even glanced my way.

There were some consequences to that, naturally.

But, they're finished now. 

Now, if you requested Talib or Jaime, you probably have your books by now. Unless you're overseas, because of nonsense that I have since handled. If you're overseas, and you requested Jaime or Talib, your book ships this week. If you requested anyone else, I am back to sketching as of this week.

Now, regarding the poster. It is half done. I am back to that too. And at some point after all this, the e-book will also be completed. Which is more or less inverse of what I planned to do, and for that, I'm sorry. But for those of you fretting because it's been awhile--here's my announcement, my apology, and hopefully I'll have your incentives to you shortly. Because if my hiatus on Godsend goes on much longer, I may lose my mind.

So, my computer bit it pretty hard (hence the lack of even webcomic updates lately). I've since replaced it, but it cost me some time as I scrambled to get it fixed, then tried to find a cheap/free replacement, and finally had to admit that I just had to go to the store. I've been scrambling to catch up, with the vain hope that I might have books to bring to several events in September, but, that's just not going to happen. The timing of everything has just been hell.

I'm currently not at home, as I promised to be at my best friend's week-long Bangladeshi wedding THING, but that doesn't mean I'm not working (when I can). Yesterday the book proof arrived, and so I have pictures. Also included: surprise bookmarks. One I made special for you guys, the other is just a promo bookmark I'll be passing out at conventions and such.

The proof needs tweaking, so it'll be a while yet till I have books to mail to you guys, but, look at it! it exists. It's a real thing.

So we came in at $8,463, which is way, way more than I expected. I'm thrilled. You guys are fantastic. 

I'm actually taking the first official step right now--even though I won't actually see any of the KS pledge money for another two weeks, I'm getting the ISBNs tonight on credit, to make sure I have all the paperwork and such squared away for Library of Congress numbers, among other things, by the time I get the book printed. There's so much I didn't anticipate needing to do. I'll have a full tally of it, in my final update. But I bet right now you want to see pictures of things, right? Pictures are way cooler than lists.

Unfortunately, most of the work I've been doing lately is the dull kind that doesn't come with lots of pretty pictures. But I'll show you a little of it anyway The first set of pictures is some of the work I'm doing editing the pages. I'm not reworking too much--just the pages with the worst layouts. And I've gone through every page and adjusted the text so they sit better inside their balloons. Which is really time consuming, you guys, and not terribly exciting, but it makes the book look better. I've finished them, actually--I edited the last page today. So the next step is assembling them all together into a printable format. I also have to go through and edit the pages a second time, this time to make a readable, downloadable PDF. 

The second picture i'm including here is an in-progress image of the cover illustration. It's still a bit far from completion, but the general idea is there, and I do hope you guys like it.

I'm not going to do too many updates. I know they tell you to, but honestly, I never read the updates on the projects I back. If you want to know something and I'm taking too long to make an update, by all means feel free to contact me directly. I promise I don't bite, and I actually really like to talk to readers. The next thing I'll probably be sending you guys is information requests. So, those of you who have sketch/charm/commission incentives as part of your pledges, be on the lookout for those. And again, thank you all so much.

So! We've more than hit the goal, and there's still two whole weeks left in the campaign. I am amazed, and terribly grateful. Thank you so much. I've found a publisher than can do everything I want for less than the initial price-quote I structured the project around, which means I can actually make the books a bit bigger than I originally intended. They will now be 7x7.5 inches, not 6x.6.3. Unfortunately, they also work much slower than the printer I had originally planned to work with, so I don't know how closely I'll be able to stick to the estimated arrival dates attached to the incentives. I'll do my best though.

Here's some stuff for you to look at! The gods will be part of the computer background everyone is getting, and will be included in the gallery section of the book as well. Then we have the charm designs. I had originally intended to make them two inches, but, as it turns out, two inches is really small. So, they will be 3 inches long, which costs almost twice as much, but, we can do that now! The charms are only part of three incentive levels, two of which are now sold out. I will open another charm level if you guys really want me to. Note: those of you who want charms, you only get one. I'll be sending a survey when the campaign ends to find out who wants which. 

And again, thank you all so much.