Laura Seabrook's Ramblings

I got the sound working by simply choosing a different speaker option, so I decided to install Adobe CS5 anyway. It'll take 45 minutes, but I'm engrossed in a graphic Novel called Habibi by Craig Thompson, and will continue reading that until it's done. The graphic novel's about two orphens who get enslaved. Seems to be a mixture of modern and classic Arabian and Persian fantasy, including harems, eunuchs and Hijras. I'm loving it. The artwork is very nice and the story flows so easily.

After talking to my counsellor yesterday about my masters and the graphic novels, I have decided to

• set up weekly goals;
• Draw in the mornings; and
• Do SL stuff / write scripts in the afternoon.

I'm better at creative stuff in the mornings so it seems the better time to draw. This way around I'm getting some drawing done, even if there are hold-ups on other things. I reasoned that there are about 24 pages of Real Life Trips to be done via Second Life, but about 120 to be drawn. That being the case, this will mean that a delay in one (which is what's happening now (won't mean a delay in the other.

I'll be doing a couple of "draft pages" for the webcomic version, which will be replaced by the finished Second life versions later. They'll be place holders at first, but it will mean that the URLs of particular pages will be correct later on (important for referencing, and reading).

• Earlier in the week I applied for a new dog with a rescue pet group. I know that someone else did (a family) and the big issue when Jerry came out was fighting fleas in the house, and making the fences dog proof (Bobby mostly doesn't bother). But I know that I'll hear nothing for a while. Why another dog? Bobby won't last forever and a younger dog would be good company for him. Also, when all said an done I am lonely here, and having pets on the whole alleviates that.
  
  But the waiting's been getting to me.


• I have been so frustrated with the lack of progress on the graphic novel. I've chosen to do the story framework via Second Life and it feels right to do so. But Everything on the sets needs to be "right" before I shoot anything. And I spent some time tracking down the right bits of furniture and emphemera and props for that. But I bought a whole slew in bulk via the SL Market place, and only afterwards logged in to have them delivered. Out of the 80 items I bought (using Linden dollars, the in-world currency) about 12 turned up. I'm missing the rest even though I've paid about $L 460 for them (about $US 1.86 in the real world). The cost isn't the point. The annoying thing is that to remedy this I have to contact the vendors for each of those items and request a re-delivery!

That means I can't effectively do the shoots until that's all done, which mostly means I'm getting further and further behind with it all.

All came to a head yesterday. I feel the loneliness and sadness extremely, and  was very very angry with myself. Today, I've already got the housework done for the day and plan on working through that list of undelivered stuff. I'll automate it as much as possible and probably only use a text browser (rather than a fully fledged viewer). And then it will be done. And tomorrow, regardless, I might just put some "place marker" pages up on the website and replace them when I get all that done, and in the meantime draw the first chapter.

As I so often say, we'll see.

I sent Elsie in search of a hospital bed in Second Life, as a prop for Real Life Trips.This one seemed almost ideal but wasn't for sale.

An idea that came up a week ago was changing how I'll be doing two graphic novels for my Masters in Fine Art. One graphic novel is autobiographical and includes five trips I've taken in my life (showing how things have changed in my life over a period of time). The other is an examination of the process of Gender Transition and the issues that surround it, done in a detached and semi academic manor (with a style inspired by the Scott McCloud graphic novels on comic).

The revised idea is: script them; draw them; upload them as instalments in webcomic format, get reader feedback (and make revisions if need be); and then present the final webcomic version instead of the printed version (along with my research paper and exhibition based on the work).

I rather like the idea of making a webcomic version first, because I already have production skills in that area, and it would integrate it into what I do anyway. Also, it would be something I could show people as a work in progress. Now I fully intend to publish both graphic novels in paper version after the masters is completed (in fact the whole point of the Masters is to get them done). But this brings up issues surrounding them being presented as web comics in the first place. The firs of which is, making sure that one format does not detract from the other, and that I'm not doubling up on work. One solution I think is is produce each webcomic page as a 1/2 landscape part of a full portrait print page:

This is a scheme similar to that used in Asterix and Tin Tin albums, where the originals appeared as 1/2 pages in magazine before being collected in albums. Of course that will only work with panel grids that are even numbered horizontally. Otherwise I may as well just do a full print page per web page. Cutting and pasting two pages into one is a process I'm doing with webcomics that first appeared in Stuff Happens, and are now being reprinted in Seconds. It's very easy to do.

The original artwork is going to be hand drawn in black and white mostly, then converted to vector in Illustrator and probably coloured there. I've been exploring the techniques to do this most of this year. My last artwork, Cutting Edge, was done this way. The net advantage of doing that is better colour control for printing, and rescaling the artwork.

The other issue is access. The biographical work is fairly person and that won't need too much feedback. However the examination of gender transition needs to be accurate, at least as far as our current understanding goes. Some of that will need to be medical, political, academic, and practical. It would work better if I had an audience that could give me feedback as I go, and help correct blunders and gaffs that may come about. I'd want constructive feedback rather than potential flame wars. I'd also rather not have the whole thing open unrestricted to the public until it was properly published. The issue then becomes where to host the webcomic version, so that I can have those controls in place?