I know there are quite a few people on the boards who’re fans of Erfworld and may want to support it. The Kickstarter has reached 60,000 USD or so, which funds book 3 in the form of text updates with illustrations(like the epilogues for book 1) and the goal it needs to cross is 97,000 for it to be the sort of webcomic that book 1 and 2 were. The stated reason is the previous artists were working with equity, but the new one is a professional who gets paid by page. So hopefully, this’ll mean regular updates.
ETA - For those who haven’t read the webcomic, it’s well worth your time - www.erfworld.com (start reading with Book 1, not Book 0)
Yep(well, mostly). The first one was a mess, but he fulfilled all donor rewards. The second and third were completely fulfilled. From the risks and challenges section on the Kickstarter.
I’m reluctant to get back into this one – the pacing was so bad in book 2 that I lost interest before Parsons ever left the magic kingdom (if he ever did).
I think it wasn’t so much pacing as pace of release. There were quite a few hold ups because the artist had some family crisis going on (IIRC) and the really slow release schedule made it seem like the story was moving slowly. The artist has changed now, to a professional comic artist, and regular updates were promised, so I’m hopeful.
As for me, I only clicked on my erfworld link today to see if the Duke Forecastle story had progressed to chapter 7. Seeing the first page of Book 3 made me suddenly not care if I ever do.
For me, it’s more about the frequency of updates than how long it takes [del]a promised[/del] an anticipated action to take place.
The thing I don’t get about the text updates is, how do they relate? It was nice to see backstory on Wanda and Jillian, but Digdug? Forecastle? The other dude from the So-be-it Union? Who are these people, and why do I care?
That’s a reasonable criticism of the new text updates. As you may or may not know, these stories are Kickstarter rewards for pledges at very high tiers. Though they could be tied in more directly, I don’t find that I mind when that’s not obviously true. We see short appearances from comic characters in the backer stories; Jillian is a mercenary in the one about Lord Crush and Dove appears, unnamed, in several pages of book 2.
None of this necessarily would be a reason for you to care, but that’s who they are at least.
Just to add to what twhitt has said, the stories are sort of like ‘bonus content’, I believe they are owned exclusively by the backers and are only being put up with their permission,
I personally liked them because they do some nice world building. The Digdoug story(which was incomplete and thus irritating) tells us more about what life is like in Erfworld, and particularly the magic kingdom, than any of the other Erfworld content so far.
Yeah, I like background as much as the next guy, but they’re going to feel like they were kind of left dangling if we don’t eventually see these people, or at least their effects, in the main comic. Like, if Parson finds Lord Crush’s book and gains some insight from it, I’d be satisfied with that, or if Digdoug ends up joining Parson’s war against Charlie (though I’m not sure why the story would need a second dirtamancer). At the very least, the story of Lord Forecastle had better at least lead up to some naval action in the main comic.
Actually, I was kinda hoping that Digdug was going to somehow transmogrify into Sizemore. And with that teaser that suggested he may one day be a Ruler, that may yet happen.
I would be surprised if they showed up in the main story. They seem to be stories set in the same world, not stories set in the same story. And for that reason, as long as they’re complete stories by themselves, I wouldn’t think of them as being left dangling. Erf is easily one of the most original worlds I’ve come across in ages, and I don’t mind visiting it in other stories.
I suppose that since Balder has done Book 0 earlier in a similar manner to these updates, it does raise the expectation that these too might tie in. And given the truly ridiculous amount of money that Digdoug guy has given to support Erfworld, who knows.
Huh, an actual on-time update. Not sure if I’ll get used to that.
We already know Sizemore’s background: he is the last of the Plaid tribe other than Stanley. He popped in Gobwin Knob. There is nothing about his background that would let him be Digdoug.
I’m fairly sure that the intent of the kickstarter backer stories is to highlight parts of Erfworld that the main story won’t be touching on (but which the backers were interested in, obviously).
I think I agree about the art-- It’s not expressive enough. Like, when Parson is saying to throw the grenade away, it’s not clear from his face that he means “Get that thing as far away from us as possible, right this moment!”: It could just as easily be “Eh, that’s worthless, don’t bother keeping it”.
Yep. I really dislike the way Parson’s neck and head is drawn in those two panels too. I went to the Erfworld forums to see their reactions(most don’t like the art either), and got drawn into an argument(someone on the internet was wrong!) about how the perspectives were all wrong too. That also made me notice how the positions of the characters on the second to last and the last panel make no sense whatsoever. Why did Parson et al run to get in front of Ace before going to ground? I’m hoping the art gets better, it’s just bad enough that its distracting from the otherwise explosive start to book three.
Another interesting thing someone has pointed out is that there is a minor continuity error. Ace has made grenades in the past, so his reaction was odd.
