To the Moon, Page 2

Happy Wednesday folks, this is page 2 of "To the Moon." Kamiko opens the door and voilà we're on the moon! If only NASA knew about her little trick. One day I'll have Kamiko explain it to ya, but for now just don't think too much about it.

Close Ups

I wanted to do some close-ups of the scrolls hanging on the sides of the door. You've seen these red birds before in "The Ferrygirl" and randomly in the webcomic (although not red), and even a bird on the Reyn fanart I did. I wanted to be subtle and not mention them, but a lot of folks might just miss it if I don't say anything. The thing they're flying around in a circle is the Universe. Birds in a circle, huh...

Here's a close-up of the other scroll. Does that figure seem familiar? Also, those are my initials, so yeah, I've discretely signed this page of the webcomic.

 

Blogging

I'm trying to figure out what to do with these "blog" entries that are attached to the comic pages. I suppose I could show you the work-in-progress thumbnails for storyboards, the script, and the pencils, but honestly it's a lot of work to cut that material and prepare it and it's ultimately not that interesting. I've done it with a spate of pages. I think you get the idea and the process hasn't changed much. If I do have something new to say about a page such as animating or using blender to make butterfly particles, then I'll write a bigger blog post outlining how I did that.

I'll use this more as weekly notes about the comic. Some topics to discuss: SEO, Interviewing creators, Fan Art, and Reddit.

SEO

Short for Seach Engine Optimization. I've been reading into it again as it directly relates to building readership to the comic. One strategy I've been reading is to try and build backlinks to rank higher in Google searches. This isn't just about creating decent content, but about trying to actively promote my work and get it out to influencers so they can link back to this site and hopefully grow my ranking. I barely know how to do that, so it's all a lot of theory right now. I've been doing SEO the "old-fashioned" way -- make content and try to rank, but I think I need to be more active if I want to gain any kind of traction here.

Also, this is why there's a blogging component with the comic page now. I'm hoping that it too helps with the SEO and makes the comic pages more rankable -- at least to appease the Yoast SEO meter. I'm still uncertain if it will help, but it's worth a try.

Interviewing Creators and Artists

I recently did an interview with Velvet Rasputin. I know you're probably thinking I'm some hotshot, but not quite. :)

The woman who runs Velvet Rasputin, Vas Littlecrow W, created a list of questions for the interview and I took my time and filled it out and prepared some media for it (just using some of my pages). I also have a new mug shot which I had taken for my mobile game company, Prisma Wave Studios. I did the interview back in January and sat on it because I wanted to get a better photo taken of me.

Since I did this interview and another one with Best Webcomics (I don't think they published it yet), I started to think that might be an interesting thing to do on this website, especially when we hit the end of The Rabbit and the Moon, which will be approaching in a few months. I think I'll try something like an interview questionnaire and use it to spotlight creators.

This goes back to the SEO thing...I can spotlight creators, learn how they work, and they can link back to Mortal Coil from their webcomic and I can link to their webcomic from here and we can start to build a network of link. Then share via social media, Stumbleupon, reddit? It's worth a try and will allow the website to continue in some capacity as I write a new script or two for the comic.

Fan Art

Last week I showed you some artwork I created for a Twitter follower of mine, Nikki Moore.

Kamiko's looking really nice! I noticed that Nikki's Kamiko is also wearing a stripey Lolita dress just like my version of Reyn. Maybe we subconsciously picked up on the same aesthetic.

Reddit

I started getting into Reddit for the mobile game company I co-founded, and to dive into Reddit, I decided to snap up /r/thismortalcoil. Honestly, I have no idea what to do with it, but I have it now. If you want to talk about Lolita fashion, mythology, religion, comic making, there please do. I don't have any submission or moderation rules yet. If you have fan art of Kamiko and want to share it go ahead and do it there as well.

That's all for this week, more next time...