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Valley of the Silk Sky page 79; plus book news for Secret Loves, The Outfield, and QAT Person

Valley of the Silk Sky page 79; plus book news for Secret Loves, The Outfield, and QAT Person published on

I’m gonna do the book news first, since I have some spoilery commentary for today’s Valley of the Silk Sky page.

First up, Secret Loves of Geeks made Barnes & Noble’s Best Comics & Graphic Novels list for February 2018. The book comes out on February 14, so you can pre-order now if you like! I’ll have more info soon about a signing event on Feb 21.

My collected edition of The Outfield got a nice write-up on Outsports, so check that out if you haven’t seen it already.

This one’s from a couple of months ago, but QAT Person #2 got a lovely review from Rob Clough at High-Low. If you want a copy of QAT Person #2, it’s available for sale in my Gumroad store.

NOW. On to today’s VotSS page.

Valley of the Silk Sky queer YA sci-fi

Page 79 of the queer sci-fi webcomic Valley of the Silk Sky is up, and it does indeed have some science for you:

But read it first before I tell you about the science.

Because spoilers.

Have you read it yet?

Go on, it’s quick.

Okay.

So.

Science.

I actually consulted with an IR professional for this page, to make sure the scenario would actually play out as intended. Here is his commentary:

A body immersed into water generally won’t be detectable. A thin film of water is enough to absorb IR. When a hand (or warm body part of your choice) is behind water, the water completely obscures the warm part whether the water is hot or cold.

However, when skin is immersed, the skin takes on the temperature of the water. Pull a hand out of cold water and the hand looks like the water looked liked in IR even if you dry off the hand. Then you can watch the temperature rise back up to body/skin temperature.

So if a body sat in water it might warm up the water, especially if there isn’t much water, but if so the warmup would be diffused through the body of water, and the outer layer of skin would be at a temperature very near that of the water.

So there you have it. SCIENCE.

Until next week,

Dylan

Dive in to Valley of the Silk Sky page 78

Dive in to Valley of the Silk Sky page 78 published on

Valley of the Silk Sky lgbtq YA webcomic

Valley of the Silk Sky: The Long Run page 78 is now live in these exciting places:

The Patreon post for this page includes a thrilling discussion of how plumbing works in the Valley, so if such a topic thrills you (and how can it not), do click that link.

I expect to have some Exciting News™ next week, but for now I must stay silent.

Until then,

Dylan

SHOCKING REVELATION on Valley of the Silk Sky page 77

SHOCKING REVELATION on Valley of the Silk Sky page 77 published on

Valley of the Silk Sky queer YA sci-fi webcomic

Valley of the Silk Sky page 77 is up, and it reveals a heretofore hidden aspect of one of the main characters. You will reel, you will groan. Read on, if you dare:

In chapter 9 news, I finished inking and started coloring, and did … something? … to my hands in the process. I don’t know what, exactly.

My best guess is that the brush I was using to paint some of the bits (not my usual brush) has a handle that’s too slender to be ergonomic. So something or other in there got over-exerted from a too-tight grip, and now it hurts to hold a pen/pencil/brush/etc. So I’m going to try resting and stretching and see if that helps.

I don’t know what this will do to the schedule as far as getting the Part Two book put together. It’ll depend on how long it takes to get my hands back in working order. At the moment it’s still feasible to hit the mid-April target for a DiNK debut, but I may end up pushing that back if necessary.

TL;DR: bodies suck and I want to be a cyborg already.

Anyhow, that doesn’t affect the serialization of chapter 8, so see you next week for the next page!

Cheers,

Dylan

Valley of the Silk Sky page 76 stops in; also: convention news!

Valley of the Silk Sky page 76 stops in; also: convention news! published on

Valley of the Silk Sky queer sci fi webcomic

Chapter 8 continues, and page 76 awaits your eyeballs! Read it here:

Speaking of Patreon, a couple of things:

I now have page updates set to early access, which means $1+ Patrons get exclusive access to them on Monday. On Thursday, the post goes public. (Note: This doesn’t apply to all the posts I make on Patreon, just finished comic pages. Things like work-in-progress posts will stay behind the paywall.)

That particular post has some additional details about eating habits in the Valley, so check it out if you’re curious.

Even if you don’t pledge, you can still follow creators and see their public posts. So if it’s convenient for you, feel free to follow me on there and get updates that way. The “follow” button is on the left under the total pledge widget.

As for convention news: I got into TCAF! I will have my own table this time around, up on the second floor. I’m very excited to return to Toronto and one of the best indie comics shows in all the land.

I’m working on lining up a couple of local events for February and March, and will post when I have more info.

As ever, you can keep track of all my convention appearances on the Appearances page.

Until next week,

Dylan

Valley of the Silk Sky page 75 is up! Plus more VotSS news

Valley of the Silk Sky page 75 is up! Plus more VotSS news published on

Valley of the Silk Sky queer YA sci-fi fantasy

Chapter 8 rumbles along, and page 75 awaits your eyeballs:

Little-known fact: 75 is the sesquipedalian anniversary.

Another little-known (until now!) fact: I have finished the pencils for chapter 9. It’s true! So if you were wondering, “Are you gonna do like last year when you posted one chapter at the beginning of the year and then bupkis?” the answer is “probably not!”

And while a penciled chapter is not the same thing as an inked, painted, scanned, lettered, and formatted-for-web chapter, the pencils are usually the most time-consuming part of the process. Having all the pencils done for the next chapter when the current one has barely started is a darn good sign.

This means I’m still on track to wrap up Part II art by the end of February so I can get the book to the printers in time for a mid-April release. So! Things proceed apace.

Until next week,

Dylan

Valley of the Silk Sky page 74 awaits you

Valley of the Silk Sky page 74 awaits you published on

Valley of the Silk Sky queer YA sci-fi comic

Want to read page 74 of Valley of the Silk Sky? You got choices:

This page references some stuff from chapter 1, so if it’s been awhile since you read it, pages 12 and 13 can help you out.

In other VotSS news, I’m about halfway through the pencils for chapter 9. Oh yes! I’m taking advantage of this quiet time of year to pad the ol’ buffer as much as possible.

Also, if I’m to hit my goal of having the Part Two book out by mid-April, I’ll need to have all the art done by end of February at the latest. I believe this is doable, I just have to knuckle down and draw draw draw.

Finishing chapters 9 and 10 will give me a buffer of weekly page updates through about July (this assumes a couple of breaks between chapters to post updates to the Appendicies on the VotSS website, for the edification of world-building nerds such as myself.

Finally, I just wanted to point out a new feature on this here website. Over in the right-hand column (which gets pushed below the main content on mobile), you will now see a “Newest Comic” widget that shows the most recent page I’ve added. This is a quick and easy way to jump to the latest installment of VotSS.

Anyhow, back to work on making more of those installments. See you next week!

Cheers,

Dylan

And now, page 73 of Valley of the Silk Sky

And now, page 73 of Valley of the Silk Sky published on
Valley of the Silk Sky The Long Run
Page 73

It’s Thursday, which means it’s time for another installment of Valley of the Silk Sky. Page 73 is now up, and you can read it here:

Since everyone knows teenagers always make good decisions, you can expect the next page to be the final page of the book. It just says, “And then everything turned out fine. The End.”

SPEAKING OF EVERYTHING TURNING OUT FINE: As I posted on Tuesday, I believe the redesign for Studio NDR is basically done. I’m sure I will find stray bits and pieces that need to be fixed/improved, but these should (in theory) be minor corrections.

So please do have a look around. I added a bunch of comics that hadn’t been collected on here before, and streamlined the content to focus on stronger, more recent work.

Cheers,

Dylan

Website redesign is basically done, I think?

Website redesign is basically done, I think? published on

Dylan is tired

I mean, there are more minor tweaks here and there, and I’m sure I’ll find some typos or whatever, but the bulk of the work is done.

I took down about 300 pages of comics and art, leaving a mere … 250 pages of comics and art for you to peruse. The guiding principle for what got cut and what stayed was framing this site as more of a portfolio and less of an archaeological dig through every single comic I’ve ever bothered to create. So the focus now is on more recent work.

That does mean I took down the anti-Valentine’s Day cards. They were at one time the most popular thing on this site, but they don’t really fit in with anything else I do (so they weren’t driving traffic to the rest of my work), and I haven’t felt motivated to make any new ones in several years. So eh. On to new things!

I also removed all the comment boxes. In the five years I had comments enabled here, I think I got a grand total of sixteen non-spam comments. Obviously this was not a feature people were all that interested in using! I’ve found people are more likely to communicate via Twitter or Tumblr than a comment box. Other cute but non-essential widgets got pulled, like tag clouds, cuz mostly it was adding clutter more than anything else.

Because the redesign involved a major under-the-hood rebuild, I ended up deleting basically all the old pages and started from scratch. That means any permalinks you might have set up will probably no longer work, so I guess check yer bookmarks.

There are some big improvements: the new structure is responsive, so you should now be able to view the site on tablets and phones and have it adapt to your device.

I also learned a new way to save graphics that cuts the file size dramatically without sacrificing quality. A great many comics on here are now bigger and clearer while also chopping about 1.5MB off the file size. That should mean faster load times (and less data usage for folks on mobile devices).

I finally added a new section for my autobio comics. Most of these weren’t on the site before (or were difficult to find), so take a spin around and see what there is to see!

Cheers,

Dylan

Valley of the Silk Sky returns! Website still a construction zone!

Valley of the Silk Sky returns! Website still a construction zone! published on No Comments on Valley of the Silk Sky returns! Website still a construction zone!

Valley of the Silk Sky Hali Razi

The first page of chapter 8 is live, and you can read it here:

  1. on Studio NDR
  2. on Tumblr

Since it’s been a good while, you may be wondering, what does it matter where I read it? Well, I’ll tell you.

If you peep it here on Studio NDR, it helps with my view numbers for ad boxes (assuming you don’t have an adblocker enabled). If you prefer Tumblr, you can like and share the comic on there.

At the moment, of course, Studio NDR is a construction zone, with dust and concrete blocks and I beams strewn all over the place. I’m working on reassembling everything into a prettier package, but it’s going to take awhile (as in, a few weeks). So if you would rather have the site you’re reading on be stable and consistent, go to Tumblr for now.

Anyhow. Welcome to Chapter 8, and look for lots of improvements around here in the coming weeks!

Cheers,

Dylan

Messy website update in progress

Messy website update in progress published on No Comments on Messy website update in progress

As the title suggests, I’m making a bunch of changes here. I took down a bunch of comics, some of which I will be adding back over the coming weeks. Right now I’m working on reposting Valley of the Silk Sky (with newly generated pages that have significantly smaller file sizes without losing image quality, yay!).

Anyway, things will continue to be a mess around here for a bit, but hopefully the end result will be a less cluttered, more user-friendly incarnation of Studio NDR.

Cheers,

Dylan

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