The New Adventures Of FELICITY

So, it's now confirmed(a reminder for me more than anyone else). A raging debate has existed in my mind for several months now, one that came to a head with defined and outlined goals to carry through 2012. But adding to that, Felicity is coming home.

What does this mean?

• It means The New Adventures Of Felicity(TNAOF) will be restructured and re-written to allow for a page-by-page delivery on 99reasonstowin.com. 

• It means TNAOF will be a colour comic and no longer break the trend set by previous Issues.

• It means TNAOF storylines will be spread over the course of months, giving readers something new to see each week and myself a less daunting and impossible challenge.

• It means TNAOF will have an updated and tweaked artstyle and will focus much more on character stories given the narrative room the delivery format presents.

• It means 99reasonstowin will be optimised for maxium reader use and the original Issue 1 and 2 will be ported to the page-by-page format for those unable to read it as a flash book.

What does this not mean?

• It does not mean this will happen immediately, The website will require restructuring, the scripts will need re-written and the work itself will not hit the website until I have a substantial 'safety cushion' of pages made.

• It does not mean Felicity Issue 1 and 2 will be void or re-written, TNAOF will carry on the story from where those Issues left off, including touching on and concluding threads and subplots contained in the original Issue 3.

• It does not mean immediate new pages will be Felicity Issue 3 split up, the new format will mean tweaking original narrative ideas and therefore will be tailored specifically for the new delivery, presenting what I hope will be a motive to want to read each new page.

• It does not mean that TNAOF will continue on forever and become a never ending webcomic, it will still reach natural 'Chapter' conclusions, much like current Issues and will stop at a natural and obvious point.

• It does not mean I will abandon any of my original 2012 goals in favour of this, all of my original goals take priority and I have approached this conclusion with enough careful thought that I will achieve my ambitions.

Why didn't you do this all along, ya great big berk?

Short-sided ambition. For which I can only apologise. I wanted the best for it and making a website from scratch that had full collected size volumes available for free, presented in the coolest way possible for the easiest user experience was all I cared about, eventually getting in the way of problems I'd run into.

Over the years some comments from friends and readers have shown me the light, I've learnt to reel back that ambition and have since learnt so much about my own limits thanks to Issue 3. Presenting page-by-page will have its own challenges but nothing compared to what I've battled before.

Thanks to all Felicity readers, thanks for all the waves of support and the questions during its absence. And to those readers old enough to remember the PSTP days, I may sound like I'm repeating myself here but trust me- I will follow through.

Quoting Chasity herself;


"I...I can't. I can't give up Felicity. She's my life. I've put everything into her."

-Adam

Two Thousand And Twelve.

So it's 2012 and with that comes an optimistic look at the year ahead with steely eyed determination to do better than we all did last year. 2011 won't be a hard year to beat as I stumbled a lot more than I gracefully flew over the past twelve months. It's with that in mind that I want to lay some of my personal goals on the table for the new year.

1) Firstly addressing the obvious- Felicity has been put on ice for the last couple of months. I went into a great bit of detail on it just before that. Summarizing; I have to rebuild my confidence on it and approach it with belief that I can 'do it justice'. My issues with Felicity are mainly routed in my frustrations with my own artwork- never quite delivering the results I want on the book. Curiously, these are issues that seem exclusive to Felicity, which I feel may be because I created Felicity alongside re-writing my artistic identity, I have had to rebuild each element to match my current artstyle.

I think it's time to completely rebuild those elements and do it thoroughly. I aim to release another chapter of the story. I can't say it will be in the first half of the year unless my problems are solved quicker than I expect. Who knows though, I might be able to kill my gremlins on this one.

2) Secondly, The Journey- my short story has been put on ice as well. Although this is for entirely different reasons, I completed my goal of a December deadline for Chapter One but I have since come to realisation that there is a far better direction I can take this story. I will be rebuilding it as a higher priority book than my other 'Free-time' stuff. Ultimately, I've managed to create something more special than I initially thought and I don't want it brought down by my lack of experience in areas where it needs to SING.

3) Thirdly, Magpie will be getting a debut Issue late this year as I'm currently scouting for a writer to collaborate with, it's not a high priority for me compared to my other stuff but the demand amongst the folks who have loyally supported my work is certainly high(more so than any of my other work) and I can definitely say I will have one Magpie book completed by years end.

4) Lastly, although most probably the first piece of work I'll produce this year; Scoundrels is a new mini-comic that I've just detailed in the previous post. My contribution will be one of hopefully a few from many artists and will be a piece of a bigger puzzle. While I may only do one book for this in 2012, I'm hoping by years end, there will be a lot of books to read.

That about does it for the Artistic ventures I alone can control, I do of course have some work in between to involve myself with and which I'm sure I'll continue to enjoy. Hopefully some of that stuff can come to the surface this year, will have to see. Fingers crossed!

-Adam