So back in June, I released the first 30 or so images of Issue 4 as a "teaser" - and also because I knew it would take me a LONG time to finish this long issue - 94 images worth! That's longer than the last 2 chapters put together!
I'm really trying to drum up as much readership for this as possible so - if you're on some social network where people listen to your recommendations, I would greatly appreciated it if you were to pimp this shiznit to the populace at large
now that you've read it - did anything stick out? not work? anything that seems like a loose thread that I didn't tie up? anything that left you confused?
I'm very grateful for the positive feedback - but I also trust you guys to let me know if I've got spinach stuck in my teeth, ya know? cheers!
You know what I like best about your story? Take away all of the science, the technology, trippy-magic apples and it's basically Leathle Weapon in space. It’s a buddy story, and when the focus is on AIDE and SIR that’s when the story really shines. I especially loved the scene where the blue fairy finally turns AIDE into a real boy who, as it turns out, is afraid of bearcats.
Yep. I saw what you did there. You switched it up. The normally calm and composed sidekick is now the bumbling sidekick trying to make sense out of, not only his new form (emotions, self actualization, preferences) But also, trying to process information in general. A computer can tell you the dimensions of the Grand Canyon but it doesn’t appreciate how beautiful it is. I can see AIDE struggling in that department, getting distracted.
But, if you need feedback instead of accolades there were three little things I might change and I am only mentioning this cause you asked... TWICE. First, you didn't end on a cliffhanger and you really need to try and do that. If I walk away satisfied, I'm not thinking about your next installment as much as I should be.
Secondly, I'm not 100% sure why we spent so much time on the martial arts and killing the bearcat. It kind of felt forced, like maybe you thought martial arts was “freakin sweet” and just wanted a section on the Art of War. I get that. The problem is it distracted your readers from what should have been the more epic storyline... the “holy crap, there were two civilizations and one of them was an asshole!” Even now I’m still not exactly sure if they crashed on the original planet or another planet-- a second planet if you will, that the good aliens would have made fatalistically instead of trying to save themselves from alien ebola. It’s just a little muddled there.
Third, since SIR is jacked into the matrix now, it should seem different. It doesn’t, it seems the same. For instance, why did our hero have to fight the bearcat at all? Couldn't he just tell the stupid thing to buzz off? And, for that matter, why isn't SIR talking to the Tree of Souls asking whatever entity brought him back to life to fix his spaceship... or for directions... or if bearcat is edible?
Those are some of my honest thoughts while reading your newest installment since you seemed to want to some feedback :)
@Crisssy101 - Wow! thank you for such a thorough and well-thought-out reply! Very gratifying to read :)
Let me take your comments and concerns one by one.
First of all - let me just commend you for being a regular fucking Nostradamus when it comes to predicting the future of AIDE's character development. Yes, the Pinocchio meme is going to come into effect, but I'm hoping to put in enough surprise twists that it will still be entertaining, and will play with the usual buddy-picture tropes in (what I hope) will be an original way...
Now - to your points
1. Cliffhanger: if everything goes as planned, the entire comic should take me 10 issues to tell. If I ended every single one of those 10 issues with a cliffhanger, it would start to feel pretty forced, wouldn't it? As such, I have decided to go for a "tension and release" strategy, and to have at least some feeling of mid-story closure at the end of Ch. 4, while giving you plenty of unanswered questions to (hopefully) keep you wanting future issues. I'm going to do something similar with Issues 5 and 6 as well. Also - it's not like I'm going to have Issue 5 finished next week or anything. If my past production schedule is any indication, you might be waiting a good 2-3 months for the next one, so maybe feeling a bit of mid story satisfaction ain't such a bad thing? Who knows - your point is well taken tho - and believe me - there will be plenty of mysteries and cliffhangers in the next 6 issues...
2: Martial Arts. First of all - touche -> I really do think that samurai stuff is "freakin' sweet", which is why this whole scifi story even has a sword in it to begin with. It's a personal fetish of mine and I'm obviously running with it.
However, I have made that choice as a writer for several reasons. For one - I did not want Sir to have a GUN. If he has to survive - he has to get up close and personal with the things he's killing, and he has to deal with the existential responsibilities that come with that - which gets into his personality change stuff, and all that. It may seem like it's a weird footnote within the larger plot arcs of Ch 4, but once you get to Ch 5 you'll be able to track the progression of the whole "sword plot" a lot better - you'll start to see how the sword fits into the mechanics of this whole world, and how it starts to play its own role (no, it doesn't get any "lines"...)
Lastly - you have to remember that - when I first conceived of the Mobius Gene in my mind - it was as a VIDEO GAME. A first-person-slasher if you will. I spent months thinking about this video game until I realized that I had created a plot and a character, and only then did I start to even think about setting it down in story form.
As such, there are certain mechanics of the video game that I wanted to include in the plot of the story. And yes - I'm the kind of writer that will salt little details throughout various chapters, only to have them finally come to some kind of pay-off much later.
So yes - the sword is a leveling-up mechanism - it gives him a certain status in his world, and allows him to manipulate that world in such-and-such a way. It also forces him to make certain choices (to fight or hide the sword and avoid conflict) that feeds into his character development over time as well. So yes - all I can say is - just give it time, and hopefully what seemed awkward in Ch 4 will make more sense after a few more chapters.
(also just real quick - they're on the first planet (Ooloo)- they have no idea where the second planet is, but that will be revealed in time.)
3: The Matrix: here's the thing - Sir isn't actually all that jacked in. His connection to the code layer of the mobius genes is pretty much as a passive observer - that being the color-coded danger level stuff and the quantum predictions of what's about to happen stuff. He gets to SEE it but he can't really DO much about it.
There are a few things that his new access lets him do - but they all relate to his manipulation of the mobius genes in some way. So he can walk through diamond walls, and the MGs go out of their way to try to help him learn their language (for instance). But the MGs are kind of like ants - some huge collective brain that can only interface with Sir in these very oblique ways. He can't actually get in and control very much at all. Everything that he and AIDE do on the computer, they figure out by their own wits - the MGs were only there kind of trying to nudge them in the right direction.
So yeah, you have to remember that all of the animals on the planet are executing some huge, complex program in real time that requires this super-rapid evolution. The MGs are certainly shaping that on the macro scale, but they can't really control the actions of any one animal on the micro scale. All that shit is going down chaotically in real-time. So these new found powers help Sir to SEE it and be able to PREDICT it - but he still has to navigate it the old fashioned way - one step at a time.
But yeah, stay tuned - in a few more issues, our hero is going to get some new toys and new powers to play with...
and I'll shut up now before I reveal anything else!
I've always been fascinated by transporter/replicator/fabricator technology. Even as a very young kid I always wondered about why the weapons / wholesale technology of Star Trek were not essentially variants of transporter technology (which kinda happened but weakly to give us holodeck episodes...) I thought of an idea for an 'element sifter' for finding gold or other useful elements etc out of planets or stars etc.
Even in issue/episode one where the limitations are mentioned, I'd imagined to see DEUS [sic] repair grandfathers sword properly in a guided mental flashback journey of Sir's 'katra' or whatever the appropriate word. (I liked the sword angle and I though it presaged a time when Sir would have fewer artifacts / artifices to make his way in the new world)
@XYLENE - thanks for writing back - I really appreciate your reply :)
Yeah, the DASU. I was trying to do something subtle with it in the first issue - with regard to its "limitations" - I was trying to give the sense that here was a small field-unit -- something that was a scaled down version of a bigger tool that was just supposed to be used to capture archeological artifacts out in the field. As such - everything that Sir does with it for the first 3-4 issues is supposed to have this flavor of him adapting the tech he has on hand to his needs - the DASU was never built to store fish or tunnel holes through diamond, but that's what he needs it for.
Now, I'm not going to say a lot - but now that he has upgraded the DASU with the alien crystals, it becomes a bit more versatile - so you'll see how the DASU story develops over the next 2-3 issues or so.
Another thing that I wanted to do with the DASU - and I haven't really been able to get to yet - is to compare/contrast the human and Oolowa approaches to nanotechnology. Us humans have a top-down approach - we can build something on the atomic level, but we need a CAD template to put all the pieces in the right place. The Oolowa have a much more genetic approach to their nanotech - and so the mobius genes are able to build an entire animal by adapting to the "instructions" hidden deep within the remnant DNA of human cells - information that is stored and retrieved "procedurally" - but ends up being a part of a much more complex dynamic - a whole ecosystem where genetic information is encoded in a much more distributed manner.
Neal Stephenson was getting at this ideological division in THE DIAMOND AGE with The Feed and The Seed - two completely different approaches for shaping one's world. I am trying to do something similar with the Oolowa - and the DASU (or what it later becomes) is going to be a big part of that. Stay tuned...
So back in June, I released the first 30 or so images of Issue 4 as a "teaser" - and also because I knew it would take me a LONG time to finish this long issue - 94 images worth! That's longer than the last 2 chapters put together!
Well, now the whole shebang is finished and it is up on the main site here:
http://mobiusgene.wordpress.com/
I'm really trying to drum up as much readership for this as possible so - if you're on some social network where people listen to your recommendations, I would greatly appreciated it if you were to pimp this shiznit to the populace at large
feedback welcome!
enjoy!
I've already read vol 1-3 like 4 times.
Mobius Gene is truly excellent science fiction writing and art.
now that you've read it - did anything stick out? not work? anything that seems like a loose thread that I didn't tie up? anything that left you confused?
I'm very grateful for the positive feedback - but I also trust you guys to let me know if I've got spinach stuck in my teeth, ya know? cheers!
I went ahead and reread and noticed this:
http://mobiusgene.files.wordpress.com/2012...
BADGER IS MAD!
Yep. I saw what you did there. You switched it up. The normally calm and composed sidekick is now the bumbling sidekick trying to make sense out of, not only his new form (emotions, self actualization, preferences) But also, trying to process information in general. A computer can tell you the dimensions of the Grand Canyon but it doesn’t appreciate how beautiful it is. I can see AIDE struggling in that department, getting distracted.
But, if you need feedback instead of accolades there were three little things I might change and I am only mentioning this cause you asked... TWICE. First, you didn't end on a cliffhanger and you really need to try and do that. If I walk away satisfied, I'm not thinking about your next installment as much as I should be.
Secondly, I'm not 100% sure why we spent so much time on the martial arts and killing the bearcat. It kind of felt forced, like maybe you thought martial arts was “freakin sweet” and just wanted a section on the Art of War. I get that. The problem is it distracted your readers from what should have been the more epic storyline... the “holy crap, there were two civilizations and one of them was an asshole!” Even now I’m still not exactly sure if they crashed on the original planet or another planet-- a second planet if you will, that the good aliens would have made fatalistically instead of trying to save themselves from alien ebola. It’s just a little muddled there.
Third, since SIR is jacked into the matrix now, it should seem different. It doesn’t, it seems the same. For instance, why did our hero have to fight the bearcat at all? Couldn't he just tell the stupid thing to buzz off? And, for that matter, why isn't SIR talking to the Tree of Souls asking whatever entity brought him back to life to fix his spaceship... or for directions... or if bearcat is edible?
Those are some of my honest thoughts while reading your newest installment since you seemed to want to some feedback :)
Let me take your comments and concerns one by one.
First of all - let me just commend you for being a regular fucking Nostradamus when it comes to predicting the future of AIDE's character development. Yes, the Pinocchio meme is going to come into effect, but I'm hoping to put in enough surprise twists that it will still be entertaining, and will play with the usual buddy-picture tropes in (what I hope) will be an original way...
Now - to your points
1. Cliffhanger: if everything goes as planned, the entire comic should take me 10 issues to tell. If I ended every single one of those 10 issues with a cliffhanger, it would start to feel pretty forced, wouldn't it? As such, I have decided to go for a "tension and release" strategy, and to have at least some feeling of mid-story closure at the end of Ch. 4, while giving you plenty of unanswered questions to (hopefully) keep you wanting future issues. I'm going to do something similar with Issues 5 and 6 as well. Also - it's not like I'm going to have Issue 5 finished next week or anything. If my past production schedule is any indication, you might be waiting a good 2-3 months for the next one, so maybe feeling a bit of mid story satisfaction ain't such a bad thing? Who knows - your point is well taken tho - and believe me - there will be plenty of mysteries and cliffhangers in the next 6 issues...
2: Martial Arts. First of all - touche -> I really do think that samurai stuff is "freakin' sweet", which is why this whole scifi story even has a sword in it to begin with. It's a personal fetish of mine and I'm obviously running with it.
However, I have made that choice as a writer for several reasons. For one - I did not want Sir to have a GUN. If he has to survive - he has to get up close and personal with the things he's killing, and he has to deal with the existential responsibilities that come with that - which gets into his personality change stuff, and all that. It may seem like it's a weird footnote within the larger plot arcs of Ch 4, but once you get to Ch 5 you'll be able to track the progression of the whole "sword plot" a lot better - you'll start to see how the sword fits into the mechanics of this whole world, and how it starts to play its own role (no, it doesn't get any "lines"...)
Lastly - you have to remember that - when I first conceived of the Mobius Gene in my mind - it was as a VIDEO GAME. A first-person-slasher if you will. I spent months thinking about this video game until I realized that I had created a plot and a character, and only then did I start to even think about setting it down in story form.
As such, there are certain mechanics of the video game that I wanted to include in the plot of the story. And yes - I'm the kind of writer that will salt little details throughout various chapters, only to have them finally come to some kind of pay-off much later.
So yes - the sword is a leveling-up mechanism - it gives him a certain status in his world, and allows him to manipulate that world in such-and-such a way. It also forces him to make certain choices (to fight or hide the sword and avoid conflict) that feeds into his character development over time as well. So yes - all I can say is - just give it time, and hopefully what seemed awkward in Ch 4 will make more sense after a few more chapters.
(also just real quick - they're on the first planet (Ooloo)- they have no idea where the second planet is, but that will be revealed in time.)
3: The Matrix: here's the thing - Sir isn't actually all that jacked in. His connection to the code layer of the mobius genes is pretty much as a passive observer - that being the color-coded danger level stuff and the quantum predictions of what's about to happen stuff. He gets to SEE it but he can't really DO much about it.
There are a few things that his new access lets him do - but they all relate to his manipulation of the mobius genes in some way. So he can walk through diamond walls, and the MGs go out of their way to try to help him learn their language (for instance). But the MGs are kind of like ants - some huge collective brain that can only interface with Sir in these very oblique ways. He can't actually get in and control very much at all. Everything that he and AIDE do on the computer, they figure out by their own wits - the MGs were only there kind of trying to nudge them in the right direction.
So yeah, you have to remember that all of the animals on the planet are executing some huge, complex program in real time that requires this super-rapid evolution. The MGs are certainly shaping that on the macro scale, but they can't really control the actions of any one animal on the micro scale. All that shit is going down chaotically in real-time. So these new found powers help Sir to SEE it and be able to PREDICT it - but he still has to navigate it the old fashioned way - one step at a time.
But yeah, stay tuned - in a few more issues, our hero is going to get some new toys and new powers to play with...
and I'll shut up now before I reveal anything else!
I've always been fascinated by transporter/replicator/fabricator technology. Even as a very young kid I always wondered about why the weapons / wholesale technology of Star Trek were not essentially variants of transporter technology (which kinda happened but weakly to give us holodeck episodes...) I thought of an idea for an 'element sifter' for finding gold or other useful elements etc out of planets or stars etc.
Even in issue/episode one where the limitations are mentioned, I'd imagined to see DEUS [sic] repair grandfathers sword properly in a guided mental flashback journey of Sir's 'katra' or whatever the appropriate word. (I liked the sword angle and I though it presaged a time when Sir would have fewer artifacts / artifices to make his way in the new world)
Yeah, the DASU. I was trying to do something subtle with it in the first issue - with regard to its "limitations" - I was trying to give the sense that here was a small field-unit -- something that was a scaled down version of a bigger tool that was just supposed to be used to capture archeological artifacts out in the field. As such - everything that Sir does with it for the first 3-4 issues is supposed to have this flavor of him adapting the tech he has on hand to his needs - the DASU was never built to store fish or tunnel holes through diamond, but that's what he needs it for.
Now, I'm not going to say a lot - but now that he has upgraded the DASU with the alien crystals, it becomes a bit more versatile - so you'll see how the DASU story develops over the next 2-3 issues or so.
Another thing that I wanted to do with the DASU - and I haven't really been able to get to yet - is to compare/contrast the human and Oolowa approaches to nanotechnology. Us humans have a top-down approach - we can build something on the atomic level, but we need a CAD template to put all the pieces in the right place. The Oolowa have a much more genetic approach to their nanotech - and so the mobius genes are able to build an entire animal by adapting to the "instructions" hidden deep within the remnant DNA of human cells - information that is stored and retrieved "procedurally" - but ends up being a part of a much more complex dynamic - a whole ecosystem where genetic information is encoded in a much more distributed manner.
Neal Stephenson was getting at this ideological division in THE DIAMOND AGE with The Feed and The Seed - two completely different approaches for shaping one's world. I am trying to do something similar with the Oolowa - and the DASU (or what it later becomes) is going to be a big part of that. Stay tuned...