badspacecomics

The long and the short of it

Published: July 6th 2023, 6:52:27 am

Bit of a change this week, Spacers!

For the first time since I started doing these comics 18 months ago, I haven’t been working on a short story. I’ve been working on something much bigger.

A script for a full size comic!

And after a bit of trepidation, I’m getting more and more excited. It's classic Bad Space: Astronauts in trouble, hard science, big questions, existential dread, and plenty of blood.

So what the hell brought this on?

Well, first of all, I’ve been advised that if I want to get my short stories into print with a decent publisher, I’d be better launching a long-form story first. This will get more eyes on it, and will mean more interest in a short story collection later on (which apparently is a harder sell).

Secondly, after more than 40 of these stories, I’ve been itching to expand some of them into something longer: The ten panel limit is a great motivator, but it also means I have to dump A LOT of really good ideas - which can be frustrating.

So this feels like the next logical step. It's definitely a change in gear though, and I admit to not knowing how you might feel about that. Hopefully it's something you would like to see!

I can promise to give you updates as I move forward, behind-the-scenes art and sketches, which no one else will see. Once I have a firmer grip on format and so forth, I may even be able to serialize it as I go, but until I then, I don’t want to make any wild promises. And I’m really open to ideas from you about how I could proceed.

Any thoughts? I’d love to hear what you think!