I’ve been bad at doing the whole blog update thing. But I have a good excuse. I’ve been busy!

I’m halfway through scripting the first half of the first “season” of our webcomic, In Maps & Legends, and it’s been a lot of fun.

And a lot of work. There’s so much you take for granted when you’re writing a novel or story that you tend not to think about when writing a graphic novel (aka “comic). You need to think about camera angles and every possible item you might need the reader to see in the “shot” or comic panel. You have to be able to move people from Point A to Point B quickly, but not so quickly that you lose the reader. You have to have conflict, action, and clever dialog (and dialog that’s not so long it obscures the pretty pictures!).

And you can’t clutter up the page with too many panels! I’ve been working hard at not throwing 8-panel or 9-panels pages at Niki, the artist I’m collaborating with on this webcomic. I’m learning a lot about storytelling and pacing from Niki’s feedback and knowledge of the medium. And I’m psyched about the finished product, coming soon — hopefully in March of this year!

So while you’re waiting, why not go on over to the Zuda site and re-read the opening pages of our comic and leave us a comment or two? And then go read all the other great comics at the site.

If you act fast, you  can still vote in the January competition, which has been a very intense battle, to say the least! (Go, “War of the Woods”!!)