CSotD: A new adventure
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Well, not quite new, since this is Episode Two of The Conjurers, a weekly on-line strip by Brian Anderson that updates Mondays, but Episode One is only a click away, so catching up is no problem.
Brian also does the very different syndicated strip "Dog Eat Doug," which, I think, proves nothing except that it's possible to do two quite different things.
Which, given the economy, is a good thing for most cartoonists, and Brian has a finger in several pies, including the aforementioned syndicated strip, the aforementioned non-syndicated strip and some picture books and other writing.
At the Conjurers' site, Brian explains the comic, starting with this: Imagine if JK Rowling launched a webcomic about a young Dumbledore and Hagrid before the first Harry Potter book came out. That, in essence is the idea behind “The Conjurers” webcomic. It is a companion piece to get readers hooked into the world of the Conjurians before the novel is published.
He goes on to promise that both will be standalones, with neither the book nor the strip dominant. The (planned) novel is intended for Young Adults, but fans of the Hunger Games and the Harry Potter franchise can judge for themselves how exclusive they feel that descriptor to be.
For my part, I have found YA fantasy novels a decidedly mixed bag. Those two series were very good reading, though I felt Harry was written tighter before it became a phenomenon. But I couldn't get through Twilight at all, and I found the Percy Jackson books to be chaotic rubbish, and they're both wonderfully popular, so perhaps I'm better off blogging about comic strips than about YA fiction.
A web comic that provides a sense of things without spoiling the story seems like a win-win: Brian gets to build a marketing platform for the book, while potential customers don't have to buy a pig-in-a-poke. And, while he's not clear on where the novel stands, I gather it is a work in progress, which means he'll be able to tweak it as he sees response to the strip.
Meanwhile, Terry ("Edge City") Laban's Muktuk Wolfsbreath has just wrapped up on-line, so, if you are in the market for an adventure webcomic by an artist who is also a syndicated cartoonist and you are feeling abandoned by that strip ending, well, there ain't no niche so specialized that the magical Internet can't fill it. And if you hadn't been following it, Terry is talking about bringing Muktuk out in book form, so have a look now.
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