Hello,

My story with Ed Heil, Mystic Crystal Revelations, is now concluded. It should be available in full soon.

The new story, Life and Death, written by me and illustrated by Andrew Navaro, has begun, at the Trollbabe comics page. The text introducing the story will be revised soon as well.

Best,
Ron

Excellent. I've been waiting for this one.

Julie

The return of the Spider Cult!

I really liked "Mystic Crystal," by the way.

Hello,

Josh, talk more about Mystic Crystal Revelations, please. What did you like?

Best,
Ron

Gack, I was afraid you were going to ask me that. Lemme see if I can nail it down.

First of all, I really like Ed's art. A lot. I really liked the look of the mushroom guy. I liked how he was small and cute, but picked up a sword & kicked ass.

But I particularly liked the tie in with the very first story, and the way it still is ambiguous as to the "reality" of the Old Enemy. (At least, it seems ambiguous to me. Unless I'm missing something that definitively points to the real existence and power of the Old Enemy.) It started out looking like the story was about one thing but turned out to be about something else. I liked that, too.

Andrew Navaro's artwork is bloody awesome. Every panel is so evocative. Espicially the third, the way that guy's facial tones are against the sky, bloody brilliant.

But the guy in the first panel, he looks extremely.. cute. Like a muppet. and I can't really pinpoint why, seeing as the picture itself doesn't seem out of place... weird.

Hiya,

Hey Josh!

First of all, I really like Ed's art. A lot. I really liked the look of the mushroom guy. I liked how he was small and cute, but picked up a sword & kicked ass.

But I particularly liked the tie in with the very first story, and the way it still is ambiguous as to the "reality" of the Old Enemy. (At least, it seems ambiguous to me. Unless I'm missing something that definitively points to the real existence and power of the Old Enemy.)

Ron Edwards wrote: Hiya,

Hey Josh!

First of all, I really like Ed's art. A lot. I really liked the look of the mushroom guy. I liked how he was small and cute, but picked up a sword & kicked ass.

Oh, it's wish-fulfilment! I get it.

Ron Edwards wrote: I like Ed's art too.

But I particularly liked the tie in with the very first story, and the way it still is ambiguous as to the "reality" of the Old Enemy. (At least, it seems ambiguous to me. Unless I'm missing something that definitively points to the real existence and power of the Old Enemy.)

The reader is free to think what he likes, but to this reader, anyway, the phrase "The Ancient Enemy is real!" seems clear enough.

Hey, I didn't say I disliked that part of the comic, it just makes me wonder why I think a 30-40ish facial haired man looks really cute for no easily descriable reason.

It's kind of similar to my response of mortal fear to that furry, rasputin-as-a-porcupine-looking thing in Dark Crystal. It doesn't seem wrong or out of place but I it's evokative in a inexplicable way.

hey, you don't mess with Fizzgig.

[img]http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Academy/3108/fiz1.jpg[/img]

Glad you liked the art. :)

But the guy in the first panel, he looks extremely.. cute. Like a muppet. and I can't really pinpoint why, seeing as the picture itself doesn't seem out of place... weird.

Hiya,

Clinton has fixed up the comics page! Now with current crediting and with the full Mystic Crystal Revelations for your reading pleasure.

Josh, you wrote,

Eskindar seemed to really believe what he said about the Ancient Enemy, but Retta thought he was nuts. Now Retta seems to believe the Ancient Enemy is real--but maybe she's nuts.

Hmmm. Ok now that I've had the chance to read all of the strips...it still doesn't make sense to me. Maybe I'm just not hip to all of the hidden comic code that signals what stuff is supposed to be.

I get it right up until they're ready to leave the cave and the shroom dude pulls her back. What is going on in that last panel with the bubbly things? Is that some sort of hallucenatory transition? Was it triggered by both Rhetta and Shroom-boy touching the crystal at the same time? If so then IMO the comic would be much clearer with the addition of text boxes "As they both touch the crystal..." then in the bubbly frame "...a strange vision".

Then in the next strip theres 3 panels of music stuff. The first one could say "music from nowhere strikes a memory" Then the "ancient enemy is real" cry in the second panel has a context. The last panel could say "a face in the shadows..." which would provide nice contrast with "and it knows me"...or at least that's the best I could figure after staring at the strip for about 5 minutes scratching my head and trying to figure out what that whole sequence represents.

Then in the last strip the shroom guy dies...from what? Drained by the crystal? Killed by the ancient enemy? Dried by the sun? And what did the "back to normal" comment mean? A signal that the hallucination had ended? A random gripe about how screwed up her life is? A reference to her being alone again after the death of shroom-boy?

And what was the crystal, just a Macguffin to get Rhetta into the cave? Another something that means something that we'll find out eventually?


I don't know. Maybe its just me. But it seems like just a few small changes could move these strips from being (for me) frustrating exercises in attempting to interpret what's going on, to enjoyable story telling. There needs to be either more expository text, or more frames per strip.

Maybe folks with more experience at reading comics are used to piecing things together from disjointed frames and fragmentary information...but I'm just having all kinds of trouble getting into these. Its like reading a novel with every third page ripped out.

edit: I should also note that I thought the exact same thing about Graveyard Greg's Gaming Guardian's strip...which is why I finally stopped reading them. They made almost no sense to me.

Hey,

I'm posting the following to be a pain.

I get it right up until they're ready to leave the cave and the shroom dude pulls her back. What is going on in that last panel with the bubbly things? Is that some sort of hallucenatory transition? Was it triggered by both Rhetta and Shroom-boy touching the crystal at the same time?

Then in the last strip the shroom guy dies...from what? Drained by the crystal? Killed by the ancient enemy? Dried by the sun? And what did the "back to normal" comment mean? A signal that the hallucination had ended? A random gripe about how screwed up her life is? A reference to her being alone again after the death of shroom-boy?

And what was the crystal, just a Macguffin to get Rhetta into the cave? Another something that means something that we'll find out eventually?

Ron Edwards wrote: Josh, you wrote,

Eskindar seemed to really believe what he said about the Ancient Enemy, but Retta thought he was nuts. Now Retta seems to believe the Ancient Enemy is real--but maybe she's nuts.

Or maybe they're both right, eh? Which doesn't necessarily mean that Eskindar didn't kill all those people. "Ancient Enemy is real" = "Retta killed them" is a Jesse-ism that got established way back for no apparent reason. In which case ...

Eskindar = nuts, because he massacred a bunch of folks.

Eskindar = correct that he and Retta are Ancient Enemies in some kind of reincarnation-y weirdness.

Retta = not nuts, and correct that Eskindar was nuts.

Retta = incorrect that Eskindar was completely nuts, i.e., concerning the Ancient Enemies.

Ralph, FYI, Ron doesn't tell us artists any more than he tells you. The single hardest thing about doing Ron's Trollbabe strips is trying to convey so much in so small a space. It got easier when I realized that the ambiguity was just the way Ron wanted it and I didn't have to try to visually-storytell my way around it.

I would have killed for twice the panel count per strip, to be able to convey more. But hey, I just draw them pretty pictures. :)

Hi Ron,

I just wanted to say I like how the Trollbabes take all the random weirdness pretty casually, there's a level of deadpan sarcasm that I also see in the Hellboy comics, plus the general unpredictability of where things are going that I like in the stories overall.

Chris

Hiya,

Chris, that's a high compliment. It so happens that I didn't encounter Hellboy comics until fairly recently, within the last year. This represents an unforgiveable lapse of attention on my part, at least from the standpoint of the comics-reader-dude I was for most of my life.

Anyway, I really love the Hellboy comics and the main reason is exactly what you're identifying: the sense of mild separation of the reader from the material, largely through the outsider perspective of the main character; and the "tone poem" nature of most of the stories. On their own, they hint at a story going on, whether in the minor characters or the main characters doesn't matter. All together, they represent a powerful and seamless whole - regardless of the missing parts and exposition.

Mignola's ability both to write and to illustrate in a way that reinforces all of the above at once simply astounds me. I do share a preference for this approach, and it is indeed a guiding aesthetic for writing Trollbabe, but even a whiff of success on my part is a victory. Whereas reading Hellboy is a swept-up-up experience with a master.

Best,
Ron

Interesting. The handful of times I picked up a hellboy comic I was decidedly underwhelmed, largely because they left me with a sizeable "huh?" factor.

By contrast in Xenozoic Tales (the only comic I'm a total zealot about) there is never a single panel where you don't know precisely what events are transpiring or what's going on. There is still mystery and foreshadowing and loose ends to be tied up...but there is never a frame where it isn't clear exactly what just happened.

That's partially because of the incredible clarity of the art, but mostly because he isn't afraid to supplement the image with text narration and exposition.

Despite the old saw about "a pictures worth a thousand words" I find pictures to be superior only for conveying descriptive imagery of scenery or appearance. For action and delivering information, prose is far more effective, and combined you have the ability to convey maximum information in minimal space.


I'll make you a deal Ron. You start adding some more narrative text to the comics and I'll start spelling Rhetta without the 'h' :-)

Hi Ralph,

It's definitely a style issue to which you either love it or hate it. I think its also a big part of pulp writing, from Howard to Lovecraft that they'll throw in random things, or off-handedly mention something and leave you hanging. Sometimes you get a bigger picture of it, sometimes you just have to accept that you'll never know.

Which, to me, fits totally into that random weirdness that I was talking about. The main characters in these stories run into the most strange things, and generally will never know the whole story behind anything, while the audience might be piecing together some of it, at best. Instead of continually teasing with a piece of info(such as, Wolverine's Past, for, what? 30 years?), it's either made clear, or simply a piece of color to the story.

Chris

Ralph,

Forgive me if I'm misrecalling, but didn't you mention at one point that you tested as an auditory learner? If I'm recalling correctly, then perhaps the reason the style doesn't appeal to you is because there's nothing to "hear" in the visual, whereas the exposition present when there are written words accompanying the images is what does it for you as a reader/viewer.

Chris: No doubt. I'm not a big fan of either of those authors either. I particularly can't stand Lovecraft. Probably part of why I really like the Potter novels. Zero ambiguity. There's a lot of secrets, but the events that happen on any given page are crystal clear.


Raven: I don't remember saying that. But in school I learned a heck of a lot more skipping lectures and reading the text book then I ever did from the majority of my profs, so yeah, I probably am predilicted (is that a word?) towards text.

Woo! New strip!

Andrew, I'm totally loving seeing the panel or two I did of Witten's Holm back in "Birthroot" resurrected in passing in your strips. Rock on!

Thanks, Ed!

As I mention in the Trollbabe section of my website, I took a lot of my cues in illustrating this strip from your previous work. I couldn't see any reason not to keep some continuity between strips and have Tha's tower and the surrounding area be essentially the same. My interpretation of Tha herself is also derived from your work in "Birthroot."

Thanks for making my job easier!

--Andrew

RE: this week's strip...

Yay! Naked Tha!

But more interesting still, the music in the background suggests that my friend Joe, with whom I was discussing the strip late last week, successfully guessed just which plot threads are about to converge in this strip, and perhaps how. Can't wait to see where it goes.