If today's page looks a little strange to you that's because, as he was doing what we in the industry call the flats (the basic colors of the page without the shading), Keith discovered he was running a fever. Obviously caring for himself overshadowed the need to get the page done tonight. We'll update with the finished, shaded page as soon as possible.

In the meanwhile, I am curious. I've been wary of actually sharing the origin story of the arcana with you guys. Not because you don't deserve to know it, of course, or because I think it is a bad story. Rather, I was worried with the slow pace of a webcomic (two pages a week) taking such a long break our familiar main characters might be a turn-off for readers. Even without the year-long hiatus we took in the middle, the Telling ran somewhere around 15 weeks. That's a long time to go without the main characters in a comic that is primarily about their relationships.

So, please tell me. What did you think of the Telling? Our origin story of the Arcana and the Keys? Please answer as honestly as you like.

See you Monday!

the leaking pen (Guest) (2014-02-27)


I liked it, but I caught almost all of it in bulk on a backlog binge.  I think it might have been something to try and do in a larger chunk, or a seperate item, if possible.

TC (Guest) (2014-02-27)


I thought something felt dark (as if the bonfire had gone out completely).

David E. (Guest) (2014-02-27)


I was pretty bored by the telling.
It is the kind of thing that might be welcome in a published work, or if the update pace was quicker. I wouldn't have minded, say, 2 weeks of updates on it. (As many comics as you like, but let's not stay off the story for longer than a couple weeks).It's also the sort of thing that you could make as a for-purchase side story.
If you feel that the Telling is an important element of the script, I wouldn't have minded reading some text on the website, or some comics that are mostly text with just a few images (or hey, even no images at all, to get through it.) The Telling in particular is a part of the story that could be effectively told without the aid of pictures. Then if you wanted to go back later and fill it in, either for dead tree publication or for-purchase pdf, that could be great.

David (Guest) (2014-02-27)


I liked it. Sometimes you have to step back from the main story in order to progress it, and I think you did that well.

It was a bit of a slower pace, yeah (hiatus notwithstanding)... but you used the imagery well to tell the story.

Fairportfan (Guest) (2014-02-27)


Okay - with the next update being four days away, that last panel is just sadistic.

Adamas (Guest) (2014-02-27)


Tell Kieth to get better soon, he can't leave us dangling like this!! Tsktsk
I enjoyed it as a break from the whole "Sneezing on Horrors, getting kidnapped, and running from homicidal machines" thing Wink


J Gray (2014-02-28)

Leaking Pen, In chapter 2 we had a set of pages we did five per week instead of two per week for that very reason.

Musical_life (Guest) (2014-02-28)


I rather liked it, I do think the panels after the telling itself are coming off a bit awkward though.

Gunsolo (Guest) (2014-03-01)


I really liked the Telling, it's always nice to see some good worldbuilding (or multiverse-building in this case).
It answered a lot of questions about MotA but left us with some new ones as well (just who won the battle royale of the gods???).
The long break from the main characters didn't really bother me since the Telling was so interesting, though it's probably not something you should do too frequently.
You could have done without the hiatus too. Smile

And with only the flat colors on this page, it did look like the fire had gone out.

Adamas (Guest) (2014-03-01)


Yeah, knowing more of the world is always a good thing.