Nov 2008
Origin story
I need to tell an additional Heidi story. Luckily, I had the very thing in mind.
As a writer, I was very interested in telling the story of the process of "hard boiling" the private detective. It also gives me a chance to make Heidi more like us... emotional, careless, fallible and very human. The current Heidi web-graphic novels chronicle Heidi's "origin story" and how she becomes the fully capable private eye that you've come to expect in detective fiction. However, I've also been itching to tell some stories showing Heidi as the full fledged detective. Well, I'm doing it. I've got a Heidi short that's been sitting in draft form that I've been dying to illustrate. But I've also decided to design and release it as a paper comic. A bit about what I mean by that.
When I first conceived of Heidi as a web comic, I didn't want to take a comic strip and whap into a web page. Having to read a comic from left to right in a series of little frames seemed stupid. Why retrofit an old medium into a new one? So, inspired by Scott McCloud's infinite canvas, the web comic layout goes down, taking a decent portion of the screen with no clutter. If you hadn't noticed, clicking on an image automatically advances you to the next frame. So basically, I made it as easy to read as possible, with nothing in the way. It's also why I haven't released any of the web comic in graphic novel form. I'd have to rethink my layout and design from scratch. Tough work for a kid who raised on Will Eisner and aspires to his fantastic use of the page. So, this new story will be designed for paper... and not for the web.
To make it all the more interesting and inspiring to me, I will be returning to Heidi's birthplace to finish this story. On December 6th, I'll be working on the story at the Richard Hugo House Write-O-Rama, a writing marathon to raise funding for the literary arts center.
So, get ready for a new Heidi short story, Tr0jan. One set in current times. If you check the Heidi timeline, you can see it's already been accounted for in the plan.
Now, the best way to encourage me to finish and publish is to sponsor me in Write-O-Rama. All you gotta do is hit the link and pony up whatever you like. Under "Designation" type "Write-O-Rama" and under "Dedication" type in "Planet Heidi". All proceeds go to the Richard Hugo House.
As a writer, I was very interested in telling the story of the process of "hard boiling" the private detective. It also gives me a chance to make Heidi more like us... emotional, careless, fallible and very human. The current Heidi web-graphic novels chronicle Heidi's "origin story" and how she becomes the fully capable private eye that you've come to expect in detective fiction. However, I've also been itching to tell some stories showing Heidi as the full fledged detective. Well, I'm doing it. I've got a Heidi short that's been sitting in draft form that I've been dying to illustrate. But I've also decided to design and release it as a paper comic. A bit about what I mean by that.
When I first conceived of Heidi as a web comic, I didn't want to take a comic strip and whap into a web page. Having to read a comic from left to right in a series of little frames seemed stupid. Why retrofit an old medium into a new one? So, inspired by Scott McCloud's infinite canvas, the web comic layout goes down, taking a decent portion of the screen with no clutter. If you hadn't noticed, clicking on an image automatically advances you to the next frame. So basically, I made it as easy to read as possible, with nothing in the way. It's also why I haven't released any of the web comic in graphic novel form. I'd have to rethink my layout and design from scratch. Tough work for a kid who raised on Will Eisner and aspires to his fantastic use of the page. So, this new story will be designed for paper... and not for the web.
To make it all the more interesting and inspiring to me, I will be returning to Heidi's birthplace to finish this story. On December 6th, I'll be working on the story at the Richard Hugo House Write-O-Rama, a writing marathon to raise funding for the literary arts center.
So, get ready for a new Heidi short story, Tr0jan. One set in current times. If you check the Heidi timeline, you can see it's already been accounted for in the plan.
Now, the best way to encourage me to finish and publish is to sponsor me in Write-O-Rama. All you gotta do is hit the link and pony up whatever you like. Under "Designation" type "Write-O-Rama" and under "Dedication" type in "Planet Heidi". All proceeds go to the Richard Hugo House.
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