As the current chapter of the comic is wrapping up, I’ve been busy plotting out Algerbane’s next adventure. To be honest I’m not completely satisfied with just a comic–I want to tell more story. To that end, instead of writing an outline, or a rough “script,” I’ve been actually crafting straight prose. That’s right, a true-to-words story. My eventual goal is to have a novel of the Wizard of Quippley that will coincide with the comic. Right now I am merely using it as a tool to effectively plan the next stages of the comic, but one day I hope to go back and flesh out the plot of my earlier comics.
You may wonder why this is necessary. “If I’ve read the comic, wouldn’t I already know what is going to happen in a novel form?” may be your question. Well in every form of story telling, there are limitations. No one medium is perfect (not even movies). There is much more detail I’d like to give, but a once-a-week, single page comic only provides so much room. That is one of the reasons I occasionally write back-story narratives (which you can enjoy in the Lore section)–I just can’t tell it all in the comic. There are particular issues, in fact, where I had written much more dialogue (for example) that I couldn’t fit into the strip (Issue #66, “Night Visits” is one of those). A prose story will be able to give a fully realized narrative of Al and Peter’s journey, plus give me opportunity to reach back into the past and bring out what hasn’t been told in the comic.
So what does this mean in the present? For now I am writing out some prose for the upcoming chapter of the comic. Obviously I cannot post any of this prose yet as it will give away some key plot points. But once the comic reaches certain points, I will post portions of the narrative for you to enjoy.
I’ll give you one thing right now and that is the next chapter’s title: “Of Elves.”
Stay tuned.