Comic 762 -- Cards on the Table

Even though she's just a head in a box...

... Bella can still play a hell of a game of cards.

Okay. This may not be too wise, but I'm going to share a little behind-the-scenes.

Every writer has a different theory of outlines. Some don't even bother with them (these are known as "Pantsers," i.e., writing by the seat of the pants). Some adhere to them like dogma.

Me? I'm somewhere in the middle. I like a good outline, and indeed there comes a point in writing any long piece where I need one in order to make any progress. I'm not a pantser, in general.

But just as Prussian Field Marshall Helmuth von Moltke observed that no battle plan survives contact with the enemy, so too have I discovered that no outline I've ever made survives contact with my characters.

(To give you an idea of how this works, in the very first outline of Thunderstruck, Gail was a side character, and Stella exited the story by Chapter 4. That plan dropped over the far horizon a long time ago.)

As a consequence of this phenomenon, my outlines tend to be on the loose side. My latest outline for Thunderstruck, generated back before my hiatus, is a sketchy number that has nevertheless served as my compass for better than a decade.

Only now I'm not so sure it's the right way to go.

This time, it's not pushy characters insisting they aren't ready to be written out yet. My sense of the old outline's inadequacy is more a matter of how I've changed as a writer since I came up with it.

I can't really go deeper into details without laying out plot elements and potential spoilers I don't want to reveal. In a nutshell, though, I'm going to have to sit down with that outline and do some serious thinking. Fortunately, the holidays are coming up, and that's often a good time to reflect.

What does this mean to you as readers? Hopefully, nothing. With any luck, I will be able to pivot to whatever new outline I devise with such balletic grace that nobody would ever think I had ever planned anything else. It's possible. Although Thunderstruck does have a rather large Jenga tower of continuity to manage, and a few blocks may go by the wayside in the process.

Hopefully just a few.

However, I can declare my commitment not to take another extended hiatus. One is more than enough.

Anyway, that's the state of affairs right now, at least as much as I can reveal. Hope you are all having a good holiday season, and thank you for sticking with me as I try to find my way to a satisfying end to this tangled story.

Comic 761 -- Where We Stand

Let's get our bearings here...

This really should have been the start of another chapter, but I kind of spaced that part. I'll fix it in the next update.

I don't know about you guys, but I have enough difficulty keeping track of the threads (or strings) of my own story that I felt it was a good time to pause and take stock. Someday I'll write a simple story that follows a straight path. Something sweet and lovable. A child and his dog, maybe. They're looking for their mother's missing hairbrush in the yard. Only the dog starts digging, and the ground gives way, and suddenly they find a tunnel system that leads them into the globe-spanning labyrinth of an immortal and tormented Daedalus who has been digging for centuries in order to find the last line of the final song of Orpheus that will let him undo the fate of his beloved son Icarus, yet in his digging he has awakened an ancient colony of sleeping insectoid beings that have an inscrutable agenda of their own to... goddamn it! You see what happens?

My wife writes haiku. A handful of evocative words, that's it. Blows my mind.

Comic -- Fillin 'Cuz I'm Illin'

Sorry about this.

If you're curious about what kind if illness, the answer is shingles.

This crap has had me on my back for the majority of the month. Good news is that it's getting better. Bad news is that shingles really lives up to the hype as an excruciating experience.

If you're 50 or more, get the vaccine. Really.

So, today we're getting some selections from my sketchbook. Thanks for hanging in there with me, everyone.

Comic 760 -- Between Dreams and Waking

Prepare for a long conversation...

Once again, my inner artist and inner writer had an amusing exchange about this installment:

WRITER: I've got a really long conversation to do here, so I need you to make it visually interesting.
ARTIST: Where's this conversation happening?
WRITER: In an elevator.
ARTIST: ... Dude. Not cool.

Hopefully my inner artist's solution worked out for you all.

Hey, next month I may do something silly with the strip. Long-time readers know I used to fool around a bit between chapters with the extras and outtakes, and I'm feeling the need to take a breather here with something fun along those lines.

Comic 759 -- A Good Day's Work?

Hey, someone's crashing the party!

A visit from the in-laws can be so awkward. 

Hi everyone! Hope you're having a good summer...

Comic 758 -- Greatest of the Heavenly Host

Apologies for the slight delay here...

Angel on angel action!

Speaking of action, I'm curious to hear from you readers about what you like in an action scene... for comics, of course. I have my own favorite comics & artists, but I'd like to hear from others first.

My sensibility on action scenes in Thunderstruck is governed somewhat by my update schedule. There are sequences I'd have liked to show in more detail, but when you have to wait a month between pages, it seems unfair to readers to get super-granular with each move.

Which comics (web or traditional) do you think set the standard for action?

Comic 757 -- Armageddon Dreams

Just when you thought it was safe to go into an elevator...

Sometimes, there's a bit of a disconnect between the artist and writer parts of my psyche.

WRITER: Hey, let's set this dream duel in an apocalyptic landscape, with lots of dead angels and monsters and stuff as far as the eye can see!
ARTIST: (whimper.) So... I have to draw all that?

Still, it ultimately turned out to be a lot of fun.

Comic 756 -- We Have a Lead

And now, we turn our attention to Grandma Stella and Vigil...

There were some fine suggestions as for the answer to Sharon's riddle ("What did the hairdresser say at the gates of Hell?"). But the one she had in mind was:

"I'm here to give the Devil his do."


And if I wasn't already going to Hell, I'd probably be on the short list for that one.

Comic 755 -- Saving Maxwell Mah, Epilogue

A job well done!

... but that's a bit of news that's gonna cause some ripples.

So, if anybody wants to guess an answer for Sharon's silly riddle, give it a shot!

Comic 754 -- Saving Maxwell Mah, Part V

Riddle me this...

... Who's more devious? A dragon or a self-appointed Princess of Aptos?

This is a bit of backstory that's too obscure to cram into the comic at its current pacing, but Sharon's interest in riddles has a definitive source.

In Stephen King's Wizard and Glass (book 4 of the Dark Tower series), the story begins with our band of heroes matching wits with a psychotic monorail train (really!) in a riddle contest. The train, named Blaine the Mono, seems to be an invincible master of riddles... that is, until one of the heroes discovers his unlikely (and awesome) weak point.

Sharon's take on that scene is that Blaine is not so much a riddle master as a giant library of riddles, and that "his" success through most of the contest is based on the fact that he has a nearly comprehensive database of riddles from multiple worlds. The heroes in the novel try to stump Blaine solely with old riddles (from memory or from a book in their possession).

Sharon formed the opinion that completely original riddles not found in the mono's database would have probably defeated Blaine.

As such, Sharon began to study riddles, and come up with original brain teasers to share with some of her close friends. In the spirit of keeping these riddles "safe from Blaine," they never recorded these riddles in any electronic format, and shared them aloud in the manner of the Gilead Fair Day contest described in the book.

(Aaron Curmen was quite good at this game. Gail was terrible.)

Who knew all that geeky play would come in so handy?

The riddles presented thus far were not calculated to exploit the particular weakness Blaine the Mono fell victim to in the book. But she did develop the knack for coming up with that kind of riddle, too.

Tune in next time as she shares one of her favorites...

Comic 754 -- Saving Maxwell Mah, Part IV

Turns out Sharon did have a backup plan!

... aaaaaand that one didn't work either. So we're back to "improvise."

Hope you all are having a good start to your year!

Comic 752 -- Saving Maxwell Mah, Part III

Given the holidays, I had to make a shorter comic this time...

Sharon is perhaps lying a bit here. Her Plan Bs tend to be consist of one word: "Improvise."
I've noticed that we have the terms "out of whack" and "off kilter," but their positive twins don't seem to be with us. So I hope the new year finds you all in proper whack and well on kilter!

I've got some writing news to catch everyone up on this January, so stay tuned.