I swear the comic will stop being black and white at some point. We’re prioritizing getting y’all pages on time. One day there will be color again.
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I’m excited to announce that Shadowcasting, book three in the Mia Graves Saga, is now out!
I could run through a brief description of the book and I give the back-of-book synopsis again (like I did when pre-orders went up), but you can go back and read that post if you want to. The short version is “how do you talk a twenty-something out of using a magical nuke, especially when you just work retail.”
In all honesty, this is my favorite book in the series so far. In some ways it’s very different than the two earlier books in a couple of ways, but still feels like the same series. There’s not much else I can say without major spoilers, so you’ll just have to trust me on that one.
Like my earlier releases, for the first three months the eBook will be available only on Kindle (and Kindle Unlimited), but you can also get the paperback a couple of ways. First off, there’s always Amazon, but you can always direct order a copy if you want to avoid Bezos. Finally, you can get it through any bookseller with the ISBN 9781088207031.
So yeah, the book is here, and I’m excited that folks will get to read it finally.
So the world may be on fire, but we don’t stop living just because we’re also doing our best surviving, y’know? This Saturday I’m going to be at UWEC GEEKcon 2024, a one day convention held at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire Davies Center in (you guessed it) Eau Claire, WI!
I’m going to have copies of UnCONventional print editions, and (of course) copies of my Mia Graves novels. Importantly I will have copies of Shadowcasting, the third book in the series, a week earlier than the general sale date. Yep, you can get book three early and meet me.
The best part? GEEKcon is inexpensive to attend as well. If you’re a student, entry is free with showing your ID, and if you’re not there’s a suggested donation of either $3 or 2 non-perishable food items.
Honestly, small college shows like this are my favorite kind of convention. Just people running a geeky event for the fun of it and the community. It’s my favorite kind of con, and if you start going to them, they’ll probably become your favorite too.
So if you’re in the Eau Claire, WI area and free December 7th (and you’re the kind of person who’d be reading this blog entry), why not come down and say hi? I think it’s going to be a good time.
“Don’t waste any time mourning. Organize!”
-Joe Hill
My brother texted the family group chat this quote before he went to work today. I’m not in a good place this morning, but we can’t lose ourselves to despair. I know I have a lot of anger right now, but getting into whose fault what is won’t help anyone.
Dwelling on the people I will never forgive won’t help anyone.
I’m not that optimistic, but hope is a choice we can still make. It’s a hard one to make this morning, but I’m still going to do my best. We are where we are, and focusing on yesterday won’t change that. We can only move forward, and save as many as we can along the way.
There will be a tomorrow because we’re going to make sure there’s a tomorrow.
So the big difference between Peregrine Lake and my earlier comics is, obviously, that I’m not the one drawing it. When I was doing my earlier comics, I never wrote down what I was planning, I just had it in my head and would translate it directly to the page. At most I’d write one sentence lines about strips so I could plot out pacing. I did a few thumbnails early on to figure out page layouts, but more often than not the pages didn’t exist in any form until I wrote them.
That obviously isn’t a way we can work for this comic.
I can’t sit there over Ethan’s shoulder while they draw, since that would be weird and we don’t live in the same city. So I do what comic writers have been doing for quite some time. I write scripts. That’s where every page for Peregrine Lake starts. Then, if Ethan needs any clarification on a description or has an alternate suggestion for a setting or scene, we talk about it.
But again, we start by my writing a script.
So I thought it might be fun to take a look at a recent installment and compare the final art to the initial script I wrote. Our example is the October 22nd page titled “Greg.” It is, unsurprisingly, the first page where we see the final of our four main characters.
I love this page, but let’s see the initial script:
Panel 1
Greg emerges from the curtained doorway. Tall panel. If this were television or film, we’d smear some Vaseline on the lens for the best gooey soft focus shot we could get. God damn, we want everyone seeing this to want a piece of Greg. Like take a second slice home in a take out box and eat it while watching Netflix. Let’s make this far more detailed than any other panel. Let’s get people to demand we print this man on body pillows.Panel 2
Close up of Bev’s face. She wants to just lay Greg down and cover him in butter.Bev: (tiny ass words, whispering to self) Yeah… not talking good.
Panel 3
Greg leans on the counter towards Lynn, Bev is… “reacting” quietly, but no one’s paying her any attentionGreg: Hey Lynn, Bob hasn’t gotten me those antique iron nails yet. I said I’d call when they come in.
Lynn: Thanks, but not what I’m here for. I may have an… off the books job for you
Greg: How off the booksPanel 4
Close up of Lynn. Lynn is very serious.Lynn: Off the books off the books. Greg, this is my new friend Bev.
Panel 5
Back to a shot of the three of them, Greg turns to Bev smilingGreg: Hi! Nice to meet you.
Bev: (tiny words) Hello tall man
Yep. That is… that is pretty close to what we got. We moved some of the dialogue around to fit better with the art (moving some of Greg’s stuff to panel one from panel three), but overall we stick pretty true to it. Ethan read my ridiculous descriptions and understood the assignment.
And yeah, I think it’s safe to assume at least some of our audience wants a piece of Greg now.
So this has been probably one of my most productive years creatively in a long time. Back in January I published my first novel, The Witch and the Rose, and followed it up in June with a sequel, Bloody Damn Rite. Well, today I’m excited to officially announce the third book in the series, Shadowcasting, will be available on 12/15/2024!
Like the earlier books in the series, you can pre-order the book on Kindle immediately, and it will arrive on your device December 15th ready to go — but this time you can also pre-order the paperback version too, either through Amazon or through your favorite bookseller with the ISBN 9781088207031!
Honestly, I’m super excited about this one. It’s probably my favorite book in the series, and I can’t wait for you guys to get your hands on it. Here’s the back of cover synopsis:
Winter has clawed its way into the heart of Parrish Mills, and something far darker may have come with it. When Mia Graves, a witch with a habit of getting into trouble, and her best friend Riley Whittaker stumble across a grisly scene along the Wabash River, they find it reeks of dark, forbidden magic and has left at least one charred body in its wake.
With the help of young Bobbi Crawford, the further Mia and Riley dig into the events that took place on that cold Indiana morning, the more dire their circumstances reveal themselves to be. Between a stolen grimoire and a group of young witches who may not know how dangerous their actions are, shadows loom in the dark of winter.
And one of those shadows may be more dangerous than anyone imagined.
(Also, and this is unrelated, the non-Kindle, DRM free ePub version of Bloody Damn Rite is now available in my Patreon store too)
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