One of the greatest things about webcomics is that the reader has a direct pipeline to the creators of their favorite works. This new way of comicking isn’t like the old Marvel/DC ivory towered, hide the creative staff in a cocoon style of creation process. Pages come out at a crawl, scripts are revised on the fly based on reader support or dislike and if you pay attention, you probably even know what time your favorite artist eats his or her breakfast based on their twitter schedule. When I started creating SelfCentEnt, it was something I put a lot of thought into and that’s why you’ll see several ways to interact with me under the “Follow Us” button on the right of the screen. Another avenue for interaction was forums. I had forums running but I shelved them until I feel there is enough traffic on the site to warrant the continual maintenance that comes along with a message board. Later, there will be a wiki once I have enough content on Variables to start feeding tidbits of information that won’t be touched upon in the comic itself.

While I like interacting with other creators and people who read the book, I didn’t care for the current webcomic system where people are allowed to comment on every page. Hey, I appreciate anyone who comments on a page but I wanted each issue of Variables to actually feel like a real book. There is a cover and inside cover. The rest of the screen is dimmed around the comic so that flashing ads, banners, and whiz-bangs don’t distract from the reason you’re here, the book itself. I felt that comments fell under that same category. For some comics, they might work. But on a longform comic that will be referenced by later works years down the line, I don’t feel that someone’s comments about that particular page add anything to the longterm experience and if anything, they can detract from it by distracting the reader.

So, while the future of SelfCentEnt will be more interactive (and I’m always open to suggestions), right now there isn’t a lot that will entice a reader to stick around or come back more than once every update to see how work is progressing on Variables. And for the time being, that’s completely intentional.

In other news, I continue to try to give digital drawing and inking a shot. After a few more hours, I am happy to announce that I still don’t like it. Nope, I don’t think it’s for me. I appreciate the tactile feel of paper, holding a pencil in my hand, and feeling the resistance of lead scraping off onto bristol board as I rough out a page. Digital drawing, while it has its benefits such as the mighty ctrl+z combo, doesn’t do it for me. I still plan on drawing the occasional digital piece but as of right now, I don’t see a world where Variables’ workflow is done entirely in ones and zeroes.

After this week’s page update, we’re done with the Blake story for the first issue. That means a new character will be introduced. So, here’s your character. This is a rough (digital) sketch I did of the fellow last week in preparation for his debut page in 12 days or so. I already had the character developed and his look finalized but when I realized that I started this issue over four months ago and hadn’t drawn (or even really thought about) the character since then, I thought a refresher sketch was in order. His name is White and he’s… well, you can just wait to see who he is but I can say that he is a primary mover and shaker for the Variables universe (what I have written of it, that is).

Oh, and next person that tweets a Doctor Who spoiler to me gets a letter bomb. Just a warning.

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