22 Comments
C05P23 – No more questions
I’d like to take a moment to talk about a very special local comic store: Time Warp, in Boulder Colorado.
Why is Time Warp so special? Well, besides being a beautiful, clean, well-lit, well-organized, friendly, welcoming store with a very generous owner, it is also the first brick-and-mortar store EVER to carry the LeyLines books on the shelves!!
So if you are a comic reader in Boulder, it would mean a lot to me AND Wayne, the owner of Time Warp, if you would drop by and pick up a copy. Please tell him that Robin says “Hi!” 
22 Comments
Congratulations on getting your comic on shelves! That is awesome!
Yup someone saw right through his lies, hmmm?
Thank you! We’re starting slowly, with local stores that we already enjoy, but one day I hope to expand the number of shops that carry us into a nation-wide net!
That would be even more amazing! Good luck!
Time to lawyer up, Lu Pai. Oh wait, I’m guessing due process is not a thing here, is it? Time to get beaten up, Lu Pai.
Yyyeeeaaaaahhhh not so much. The police basically collect information and present a case, which is treated as fact. People can get advocates, to negotiate sentences, but there is no “innocent until proven guilty” — if you’re in front of a judge, it is assumed that your guilt is proven already. Whether or not an officer is allowed to beat the tar out of you depends on whether you’ve been classified a criminal, a suspect, or a civilian. Civilians are the safest. If you were caught while committing a crime, you’re free game in the eyes of Itsuri law.
Aaand you’ve managed to hit yet another of my literary sweet spots. Dear Lord, woman, you read my mind.
It’s an intermittent gift.
Wow… That second panel. That LAST panel. Love them both!
I had fun experimenting on this page with white-space and expression. I think it paid off!! Thank you!
That’s super awesome. I always like seeing independent comics on store shelves.
Definitely! Time Warp is my favorite store in Colorado, in part for that reason. Wayne is very generous with his shelf space when it comes to supporting local artists!!
I’ve learned about Your comic from ConLang mailing list, but it’s the characters I like it for.
That’s really neat! I did not know there was a mailing list for that – how cool!!
And I’m glad you enjoy the characters. As much as I love making a world and language, what I truly care about are the people in it. The characters are the heart of the story!
Your comic was just referenced by one of the members in the thread discussing the concultures. I’m an ordinary member there, but guseeing by the writings and the lullaby You’d be more then welcome.
Considering the characters, I totally love auditor Pakku, the way he percepts the world around. I think it was a very nice idea, especially because we can learn Your conworld through his keen eyes.
He definitely provides a more factual, analytical view than any other character, which makes him odd to everyone in the story, but accessible to us. Which is a very fun dynamic to explore.
I’m so glad you’re enjoying his character!!
In a way, I’m just recognizing myself. You know, “by the shape of Your eyes and the way You speak You should be from the North-East of India, somewhere around the border with Nepal” – it was my actual phrase, and only later I thought it could be not that polite to start a conversation with this…
Maybe not “polite” — but that kind of analytical ability IS awesome. I wish I had that skill!!
Oh, guseeing -> guessing, “more thAn welcome”, sorry.
Well, Indian pronunciation, Asian eyes… Not that I was completely right about the person, though. Sometimes you get bored of this kind of world perception. Like when you’re on the sea, and everything you care about are the outer gills of the sea worms; or when you’re looking on the flowers, and everything you’re interested in is their pollination technique.
But, in a way, that’s what makes me like Your conculture. Being not that polite again, I can distinguish the main components, such as Europe (of course), China (clothes), Japan (masks for the festival and some other accessoires), Moghul Empire (clothes, auditors’ HQ, the untouchables) and a scent of something else, perhaps, the Inca. Yet, it is so nicely mixed that I can’t really tell, where some culture ends and some other one begins. This intrigues, this makes the brain working, deciphering where is what, this suggests an enormous amount of work and care put into the comic by the author. The last time I’ve had such a feeling about a conculture was when I’ve been watching “Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise”, though the Inca part was prevailing there and some techs have clear origins (but many others do not).
To put it short, I think that Pakku va Wulka would’ve enjoyed Your comic ^)
And yes, now I recognise the scent more clearly – it is not the Inca, it’s Hopi with their kachina spirits, and _zh_-sound, which, in current context, reminds me of Amazonia.
Sorry for being such a meddler.
That is fascinating!! Our minds probably work very differently, because MOST of those elements were not consciously included. I have studied nearly all of those cultures to varying degrees, and over time they became a mish-mash of scattered mental thoughts and impressions. A creative, primordial soup from which I build the LeyLines world. It’s neat to see you pick out the pieces that I myself am only vaguely aware of!
In particular, the language sounds come from nonsense songs I used to sing as a child. So convincingly, I might add, that many people would ask me what language I was singing in. Decades later, I finally have an answer for them.
Some influences I DID specifically look into were the clothing styles of India and Pakistan. I’ve also done research on European Merchant guild systems, US Civil War era firearms, and the architecture of ancient Arabic cultures.
Well, I’ve written Moghul Empire because of the Indian + Arabic clothes and Arabic architecture. As for zh sounds – I’m totally not a specialist, but to my knowledge they are not very common. All I can remember (surely there are much more) are Slavic, French, Portugese, Tibetan, and some words form the the book about the myths of Amazona I used to read as a child (which was not that long ago). But the first ones look too different from Pamaru – there are more consonants in each, and the structure is different – so the mind sticks to the most exotic and unknown.
And I don’t think we’re thinking too different. The point is, I’ve studied all these cultures to create my own concultures just the same way You did – blend them to the point where no one, including myself, would easily recognise the sources. Our main difference, to my mind, is that I’m too lazy to stop sucking in drawing and start a webcomic, or at least write a descent story ^)