NEW Video Blog: Judges 1:1-12

I have just started creating video blogs to add to the blog. These videos are to inform people about the creative choices made in the process, comments of the Bible verses, a little about the story and details to do with the historical aspects and geographical locations. 

This blog is about Judges 1:1-12

It's actually a pretty good way to tell people about the work because it's more engaging, less effort to "read" and quick to create. It's a bit rough 'n' ready but I think they came out pretty well. 

I wanted to get a desktop recording program but my PC is so old none of them will work so I came up with the idea of using my phone, which has come out better than expected. The colours are not very accur so please look at the page as it is supposed to be, attached below.

I plan to do some more. if people like them so be sure to "Like" them on YouTube and on the social media platform you found it on if you want any more. 

On YouTube you can subscribe or you can use the RSS to subscribe here as I will always post them in the official blog too.

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Also tag people who might like and share it it to help the project grew.

As you'll see the videos are also to promote the Kickstarter. If you don't know what that is, it is a crowdfunding website where I set a funding goal to create something (The Book of Joshua) and backers get rewards. If the goal is not met backer's pledges are not charged and the project gets nothing. Our funding ends on Sunday September 27th, so please give a little support and help us reach our goal. 

Also check out the website for more info, examples, image and endorsements like this one. 

https://wordforwordbiblecomic.squarespace.com/

Progress Report: August and Kickstarter update.

Progress 

As you can see from the pie chart there is not much left to do now. 

• The white and light coloured areas represents only 6 pages left to draw.
• There are about 20 pages left to colour but these are being worked on by my two wonderful colourists.

After it is all complete I need to go over the pages to remove and continuity errors (missing earrings etc) and make a few corrections (like turning all the speech bubbles opaque). 

Then I just need to prepare it for print. Once it is sent for print there is quite a long time before they are received one company had a lead time of 3 week another 8 weeks, so this is why I'm putting November as the fulfilment month for these. 

Kickstarter

The Kickstarter launches this Saturday (Aug 15th), the page is all set up with the video, again produced by the wonderful and talented Jamie Donne-Davies. It's looking good with it's official endorsements.  If you are planning to bless the project by backing it again for the new rewards please do so at the start if possible so that you can get the limited items and to give it some initial momentum. 

I have several places I'll be advertising the project (inc. Soul Survivor, Momentum, Alpha and Omega Con (a Christian Comic Con in California), Ashburnham (A big Newfrontiers event),  the CVM website, two Christian Metal Music radio stations and Premier Radio) and a few notable bloggers have agreed to post about it this year. I will also be having a stand at 'Together at Westpoint', Catalyst: Men's Day on Bristol and  ICE Comic Con in Birmingham.  

If you have places where you think you can help me advertise the Kickstarter between Aug 15th and Sept 27th, please let me know. I'm interested in churches, christian or comic conferences, blogs, websites, radio shows, online magazines etc to have a poster or advert or show the video. 

Any ideas or contacts please email me: wordforwordbiblecomic (at) gmail.com 

All your help will be gratefully received and I will try and sort out some treasure in heaven for you. (Receipt of treasure will be on arrival in Heaven, subject to availability and the management's approval).

Prayer Requests 

Please pray for Leslie, our wonderful colourist, for financial aid, help finding the right place to live and the move.  

Please pray for the success of the Kickstarter and that lots of people are reached with God's Word as a result. Please pray it will be a "staff Pick" this time and get a lot more attention that way. 

Also if you'd like to be part of a prayer team for the project please also email me as I will be sorting out how this will work soon. 

Official announcement and New Social Media Profiles

Announcement 

On August 15th I am launching a new Kickstarter campaign for the second book of the Word for Word Bible Comic series. This will be the Book of Joshua, which will serve as a fantastic prequel to the Book of Judges. I will also have a stretch goal to create the Book of Ruth as the third book of the series.

The campaign will run until September 27th, and it will make available to backers a limited edition pre-release copy of the Book of Judges, in addition to many other exciting digital and physical rewards, and of course another chance to get your face in the Bible.

Please help...

To successful hit my funding target on Kickstarter I'm really going to need your help. In the run up to the launch please Share, Like and Comment on the social media posts from the comic so that your circle of friends may see them too and get involved. Aside from the backing of my friends and members of my wonderful church, most other backers were people who had heard about the project through social media or your referrals via email or word of mouth. 

If you backed the project before, obviously I'd love you to come alongside the project again but if you can't afford to or you gave a uniquely generous gift last time don't worry, but please do tell people about it. 

If you would like to back the project, again of for the first time, please do so at the start of possible please as people like to support projects that look like they are going to hit their goals, and it'll be good for my sanity. ;) 

Why do another Kickstarter? 

I had hoped I would not have to do a second Kickstarter. Of course in my mind it would have been ideal for the book to reach a publisher and they'd immediately agree to print it the next day and sell a million copies but, but God has a different pathway for the project. As expected, getting a publishing deal has been a hard road. Also, creating the comic has taken a little longer than originally projected.

The plan is to crowdfund a smaller amount to support our family through until next summer which will give more time to negotiate a deal with a publisher or plan for self-publishing, whilst creating book two.

If we self-publish it will be around this time next year, hopefully, with two (or even three) books ready for sale. The reason for not self-publishing now is that the emphasis has been on creating the comic and self-publishing has not been built up to or planned for to a level which the project deserves and a poor launch would hurt the series' prospects for the future and signing a deal with a good publisher. 

Using Kickstarter, I can provide the book as promised to the backers from last year's successful Kickstarter and to the many people contacting me eager to get a copy , whilst still reserving the big launch into the general marketplace until we are prepared.

We don't plan to use Kickstarter again. After this all our efforts will be on self-publishing from that point on, and with two or three books as a base we hope the project will be a success and support itself. 

How to help

To get the word out even more I've just set up additional social media profiles (below). If you use these please come and join me there. Then repost and Like the posts as much as possible. I can't reach your friends any other way. 

In addition I plan to set up a prayer team which I will post about tomorrow, so please keep an eye out for that. 

DeviantArt (NEW)

http://word4wordbiblecomic.deviantart.com/

Tumblr (NEW) 

wordforwordbiblecomic.tumblr.com

LinkedIn (NEW) 

uk.linkedin.com/in/wordforwordbiblecomic

Pinterest 

https://uk.pinterest.com/wforwbiblecomic/my-artwork-wwwwordforwordbiblecomiccom/

Google+

google.com/+Wordforwordbiblecomic

Facebook 

http://www.facebook.com/wordforwordbiblecomic

Twitter 

https://twitter.com/WforWBibleComic

Youtube

https://www.youtube.com/channel/wordforwordbiblecomic

GodTube

http://www.godtube.com/wordforwordbiblecomic/

You can even follow me on Kickstarter

https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/word4wordbiblecomic

HAVE YOUR SAY: Glowing eyes or not?

When God gives a prophetic word or decision through a prophet in the comic I have used the device of glowing eyes to indicate that the prophet is seeing something of God's spirit. This blog is to ask if this device it working or sending the wrong message. 

In the comic the bright cyan coloured light represents the holy spirit or spiritual things like angels. Here is an extract from the "use of Colours" blog to explain...

Supernatural and Spirit

One of the most important colour elements is the use of the Spirit colour. This is a bright Cyan/ turquoise and it means there is something of the Spirit or something of God in the story. The idea is to show things that are very real in the spiritual realm but not necessarily the physical. The best example of this is with Balaam and his donkey. When I draw that story the angel that stands invisible to Balaam but that the donkey can sense will be shown in the Cyan colour. When it manifests in a way that Balaam can see it will be in the standard black lines. This colour is also used when Samson is empowered by the Spirit, with a power acting in the spiritual realm depicted as Cyan lightning. Lastly, it is used when God speaks, and for the speech of angels.

So while Samson and Othniel might strike someone with glowing power someone like Deborah the Prophetess has glowing eyes. 

This is something that is extremely common on comic as many superheroes have glowing (pupiless) eyes whether they are doing some mutant power (Storm-Xmen) or all the time as part of their costume (Batman) or nature (Abe Sapien).

It is also helpful to imply when someone is prophesying god's word or a false prophet. 

It was suggested that it might give the impression of possession or the Spirit taking over the person. The reason I have use it thus far is I think it is so common in comic it doesn't suggests possession or anything like that, but if it does even to some people I guess I'll need to reconsider this option. 

Here are examples of where I used it in the comic. 

  I really value your comments here or on the social media post you found this on, please give reasons for your opinions if possible... 

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HAVE YOUR SAY: What font should I use for God?

So, I've decided I don't like the font and style I was using for God' dialog, so I'm going to change it. I'd like your help please, can you suggest a good typeface to use for God's speech in the comic. People speaking other languages have a different fonts so I think God should too. 

Until now I was using the normal font for speech and changing it to be the Cyan colour that represents the spirit in the comic with the bright cyan glow or outline stroke. (For a Blog about the use of colour click here) 

I would like to use a more interesting typeface, but which one? Also suggest if you think it should glow or anything. 

Here are some criteria: 

• It has to be easily readable. 
• Needs to be free or inexpensive.
• Usable on PC and ideally available on MAC as well.  
• Not too fancy as there are sometimes long sections of God's dialog. 
• Has lowercase as well as uppercase letters

Please also comment about effects they you think would look good. (Glow, transparent, bubble, no-bubble etc).

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HAVE YOUR SAY : Chapters 17-21 as a Flashback?

In the book of Judges the stories and events of the first 17 chapters are in chronological order. Then in chapters 17-21 there are two stories which are basically appendices that are from the period at the start of the book.

I was planning to present them the same as the other chapters in colours and just try to indicate that they are the same period as the early part of the book with the dress and equipment and other indicators. I can't add any words to tell the reader that they are “in the past” as far as the chronological story line goes, because there is no such words in the Bible text.

I have a couple of options in regards to how to present them and how to try and show they are not a continuation.

Present them as a flashback

They could be shown as a flashback. In the book I have established the format for a flashback already so it should be clear that is what it is. The down side is the flashbacks are in a brown “grey scale”. So they are not in full colour like the rest of the comic. If they were only a few pages I probably wouldn't hesitate as it would be a helpful tool for showing the disconnect chronologically. However, it is 20 pages and it might seem like a strange stylistic choice to suddenly go into grey scale at the end of the book.

The benefit is that in the wider context of the Word for Word Bible Comic it might be a good idea. To help readers grasp the overall timeline of the events. I was thinking that the device I could use would be to introduce the writer or at least the character recounting these stories. Scholars believe the Book of Judges was written by Samuel. I could introduce Samuel in full colour about to tell the story. Then the story starts and is a flashback. At the end of the book Samuel could be pictures restating the immortal words that run throughout the book of Judges “ In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”

On the grand scheme of things it might be a nice segue into the later books of 1 and 2 Samuel, because Samuel is a contemporary of Samson, and Samson's death (which is where the precedent Chapter 16 ends).

An added bonus but not necessarily a key factor is that the greyscale colouring takes less time bringing the completion date forward a little bit. 

Present it in full colour

In this option the stories just run on as they do in the book of Judges text of the Bible, without much comment as to the shift in period setting. You could argue that the Bible doesn't make an issue of it so why should I. It's true that you don't need to pin down the time period precisely to understand the story or the point and moral of the narratives but seeing elements that indicate the shift of time which I intend to be helpful (like the dress and equipment as well as faces from the early chapters) could end up being confusing. I hope it won't be confusing but when I consider an unbelieving reader trying out the comic I want them to have as smooth a ride as possible.

Present in full colour with breaks.

The only other option I can think or is to insert blank black two sided pages between the stories to indict a break in continuity. It wouldn't be explicitly clear that that was why but it might help readers realise 'something is up' and not get as confused when people like Othniel seemingly come back from the dead after 300 years later.

So...

Please look at the examples and give your opinion on how you think it should be tackled. Is a 20 page flashback too much? Does the chronological order really matter? Please have your say and suggest any other genius ideas you have here or on the social media post you saw. 

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HAVE YOUR SAY: Speech Bubbles Opaque or Transparent.

Responding to feedback about the comic I'd like to get your opinion on how the speech bubbles look in the comic. Currently I have them a little bit transparent to allow you to see what lies beneath but the standard way is to have opaque white bubbles. Which would be better in your opinion?

Here are some of the benefits of each as I see them, with an example from Judges 13 .

Opaque :

• Clearer and a little easier to read the text

• It's the standard, so it's what people expect

Transparent :

• You can see more of the picture below

• Helps understand the picture sometimes where the bubble cuts into the picture.

• It's not the standard and therefore could be an interesting distinctive.

Please add your comments about this and your vote as to which way they should be. If there is a good consensus towards Opaque white speech bubbles I will change them.  

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Accurate Ancient Writing in the Word for Word Bible Comic

In the comic we strive to make everything as accurate as we possibly can. There are some great verses in scripture where someone writes a letter to someone else. Because we have, in some cases, the words recorded we can draw them as they would have looked. 

So often in my research for images I see depictions of the priestly vestments described in Exodus with the words that are engraved in the stones emblazoned in genuine modern Hebrew. Which is great until you realise that the script of Hebrew from that time was very different from modern Hebrew, not only does it not have many of the jots and tiddles, the characters were much less developed. 

In the example below I explain how I derive the ancient script for the comic. Below that are a few other examples of it's use in the comic. (To read Judges 9 click here). 

Judges 9

High Priests Vestments which have words all over Exodus 28

"JUDAH" reading right to left is "H-D-V-H-Y" from Judges 1:2

I believe this level of attention to detail and accuracy is what's missing from other comics, films etc about the Bible stories. 

Some may say this sort of detail to be pointless as "no one will ever know". Well, I considered this too but, firstly, I think this is the level to which God called me to invest in the work. But secondly, when I shared my work with my Kickstarter backers (a pool of people numbering under 200) someone in that group could actually read the script (you know who you are ;) ) and a friend of a friend I met could also read it, so it turns out some people will appreciate it. 

Hope you enjoyed this explanation. If you happen to be able to write ancient languages please get in touch as I will need help with other languages. 

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