The Far Reaches Webcomic

I just received the new black and white print edition I’m having done through Comixpress. It came out looking incredibly good, much better than the proof copy I had done by Lulu. The paper is good quality and the blacks and tones are clean and crisp. And it’s half the price of the Lulu one per copy too, so that’s a bonus. The only way you may be able to get one of these beautiful print editions of the graphic novel is if you’re going to Baltimore Comic Con. Only 30 copies are being printed, since I’ve never done a convention before. I had thought of offering them through Comixpress’ online store, but I’m second thinking that for reasons I’ll explain in a minute.

But I’ve known for a while that I just wasn’t happy with the current Gilrec storyline, and after reading through the print edition I realized why. It’s not that it’s bad per se, or that it hasn’t had some funny moments. It’s just that I built up the storyline with the evil Grynn and the artifact and all that, and was heading in a more epic direction or at least that was the attempt. Then all of a sudden I take Gilrec off to this snow planet and the whole Vellara/engagement storyline and it’s so far off the main plot everything sort of lost momentum. This storyline wasn’t meant to take so long, anyway. One writing book I was reading was saying that if a scene doesn’t advance the plot it should be taken out of the story, no matter how much you like it or how funny it may be. It’s kind of hard to do that with a webcomic. But since I’ve gotten so far into this Vellara story, I feel I have to finish it. Mainly because it ends in a confrontation between Bentley vs. Frak, and Gilrec must face Koda by himself. I’m really looking forward to that part, and it’s where Gilrec really has to make a choice and stand up for himself.

I could just skip to that scene but it’ll look bad in the print book, and I don’t want to leave anyone hanging who’s enjoyed it thus far. The big reason I don’t want to offer the print edition yet on Comixpress, or shop it to any publishers, is that I’m going to do a new edition that includes the completion of the Vellara story as soon as I’m done. Reading through the print book I just felt that it ends prematurely. It needs some closure on Gilrec’s story. The ebook will also be updated and everyone who’s been awesome enough to buy one will get a free link to the new version.

That being the case, I’ve spent a lot of time streamlining the script to get to that end scene in the best, most satisfying way. I’ve gotten to the part with Gilrec’s speech in front of the Imperial council.  There will be a cool action scene with Bentley before that. I feel like I need to do something cool with him before he faces off with Frak. But at least reading through the print book has made me get more enthusiastic about the project again, and has made me know what I need to do to get it back on track.