Ladies and gentlemen, Caspian chapter 12.

Well dang a lot of stuff has happened, and a lot of stuff is about to happen. This was probably the most demanding chapter of the comic so far, artistically, and required a ton of work. Strangely, though, it never felt laborious, I actually had a lot of fun putting it together. I hope you folks like it. I’m not sure why I decided to set a huge chunk of my epic seafaring adventure several miles underground, but hey that particular story is over now, and it feels good to be back on the Elgin Marble. Weirdly, this chapter is actually much darker (as in lighting, not tone) than chapter 11, even though that one was set in an underground cavern and this one is set on the deck of the ship. I wanted to continue experimenting with extreme lighting, and I’m not completely sure yet whether the experiment worked or whether it made everything invisibly underlit. I’d love to hear what you guys thought. Also- is this chapter too big for you folks’ monitors? I tried experimenting (again), by saving the pages this time around at 144 DPI, double the resolution I’ve been using up to this point. So if the images are too physically huge, or the chapter takes two weeks to fully load or whatever, it would be very helpful to hear from you guys. I’m clearly still figuring out the most basic elements of webcomic publishing after two years.

Anyway, there are a lot of changes coming up soon. I’m off to New York for a few days right now, but when I get back things are going to happen. Of particular interest to the general public, I’m going to be giving the site a visual rehaul, and I’ll also be changing up the presentation of the comic itself. I’ve decided to discontinue the whole PDF presentation in favour of one-page-at-a-time viewing favoured by every other webcomic in existence (it turns out there is a reason they do it that way). I just decided that having to individually load up every chapter of the comic would be too time consuming to do one chapter after the other, if you wanted to read them in bulk, and too daunting for first time visitors. I’m still going to publish the comic in chapters, though, instead of page by page. So, all told, not a huge change, but still.

Also aw dang aw geez Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is the best thing created by humans since indoor plumbing. If you are reading this right now but could be watching that movie instead, drop everything and go see it. It is like a religious experience.

Anyway, enjoy chapter 12 of The Fantastical Adventures of Caspian the Sea-Devil.

Well it’s been four long months, but I’ve finally strained the eleventh chapter of Caspian out of my system like it was a friggin’ kidney stone. My goodness, what a cock up. In my defence, I’ve been in the middle of exiting the education system permanently (ie, graduating), but I mean really, four months, what a disaster. In any case, chapter 11 marks something of a leap forwards in attempting to appear professional. You will note, reader, that the tails from word balloons curve seductively instead of accusingly staring at their source with ramrod stiffness. Similarly, I’m now using a font that isn’t an absolute eyesore. I’ve flirted with various typefaces in the past (including Futura of all things, what the hell was I thinking?), and even dabbled in hand lettering (let us never speak of this again), but now I’ve got myself a nice typeface designed specifically for comics lettering from the good folks over at Blambot. I think it represents a rather large improvement.

But enough about that! It’s summer now (it was February when chapter 10 came out, if you can remember that far back), so hopefully (hopefully) I’ll have plentiful time in which to draw cartoon pirates. After all, I’m not in school anymore and don’t have a job! If I’m not doing this, just what in the hell am I doing?

So! I hope you guys enjoy chapter 11 of the comic. Incidentally, if you haven’t been reading them, there’s a new Dresden Codak story arc beginning called Dark Science that looks to be as excellent as Dresden Codak always is, and Tyson Hesse of Boxer Hockey has also graduated and is continuing the story of Team Mekpen. He also just released the first volume of Boxer Hockey strips in book form! Why not check all that out?

And after 24 months, at a proposed publishing rate of 1 chapter per month, I have now successfully published 10 chapters.

So yeah! Either I am terrible at math or I have terrible working habits. Or, both! Basically the most important thing I have learned during this whole self-inflicted learning process, is that comics are hard, and take lots of hard work. Still! It’s a very rewarding process and I think I’m actually making progress in the realm of becoming less terrible.

So! Thanks for reading so far I guess, and please continue to support this fool’s errand as it slowly kills me.

Chapter 11 is due on April 15th.

(Also! For more and better information don’t forget to maybe try out the Facebook and Twitter pages, and you can try out the RSS feed if you’re into that. Links to the right.)

Oh my goodness, you guys. Oh my and your goodnesses, and everyone’s goodness. It’s been a while. I’ve mentioned before that my computer was finished, which kept me out of the webcomics game for like, three months. But now my triumphantish return is at hand. I’ve got a new computer, and it is seriously wonderful. Unfortunately all those weeks off left me pretty severely rusty. So! Finally we get to see the tenth chapter, and it is probably the ugliest thing I have ever posted here! Quality, you guys. But now that I’ve got some momentum back, hopefully it’ll all pick right back up again. Expect chapter 11, and the conclusion to this riveting story arc, in one month’s time.

Until then, I haven’t slept in well over thirty hours and haven’t eaten for about ten, and have a train to catch in like, an hour. Almost certainly I will not survive the train ride home. But even though it took ten years off my life to bring this comic to you, it’s still good to be back.

“Cartooning will kill you. It will break your heart.”
-Charles Schulz.

Oh my goodness you guys, it took forever, but chapter 9 is finally, finally here. If you’ve been following the Twitter feed or you know me personally (and between those two I think I covered all of you, and some of you twice), you’ve probably heard about the crippling computer problems I’ve been having lately. It’s the reason this update is so late. Apologies all around, if it means anything. I’m sending my computer off to the tech support guys here at Queen’s to have it looked at, so hopefully soon it will be fixed. Or, even more broken than before. I’m actually making this update from the library is how bad the situation has become, and I had to get pretty creative to overcome some of the restrictions placed on library computers re: downloading and uploading files.

ANYWAY you guys, I really hope you like the newest chapter in the Fantastical Adventures of Caspian the Sea-Devil, and I’ll do my damndest to make sure I can deliver chapter 10 as on-time as possible.

*Dies*

That right there is chapter 8 of The Fantastical Adventures of Caspian the Sea-Devil. Tell your friends! This one goes out to a dood named Fraser Radford, on account of it was his birthday pretty recently I guess? Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy this chapter. I attempted to have a bit of fun with strong light sources, but all I really ended up demonstrating I think is that I’m not really sure how light works. Or, what tigers look like. Anyway!

Hello, folks! Chapter 7 has arrived. For a while now I’ve been promising to attempt to do a chapter without using inks, and now I’ve finally delivered. It turns out there is a pretty good reason that I usually ink my comics. Still, the experiment was satisfying, would try again B+. Hope you guys like it.

I intend to keep the site updated with a new chapter of the story every month, on or around the 15th whenever possible. So prefaced, if you really want to keep on top of things, I recommend subscribing to the RSS feed, becoming a fan on Facebook, or following me on Twitter, since I’ll be updating more than just the comic over the months, and since I may occasionally post a comic a few days early or late. You can do all that stuff by following the appropriate links in the sidebar there.

So! I hope you guys enjoy the comic so far, and are interested enough to return over the countless decades it’s going to take me to labour through to the end of this story. Oh, and if I start slacking off, do me the favour of nagging me about it. I’ll never get anything done otherwise.

So, go take a look around! And thanks for reading.