Prompted by our mention in a Robot 6 article, I just wanted to give you some account of what’s up with the comic.

We fell prey to some of the pitfalls many webcomics do. Mostly, it was hard to make money on an ongoing adventure webcomic, and therefore hard to justify spending so much time producing it.

As for me, I’m back in school, studying illustration, hoping to make a career out of making funnybooks. I’ve been working a little with BOOM! Kids in my spare time – I colored Muppet Snow White and the last 3 issues of Muppet Sherlock Holmes, which were all great fun. I’m also coloring my friend Zack Giallongo’s upcoming graphic novel, Broxo, for First Second books.

After I wrap up that and graduate this summer, we’d love to get back into producing Kitty Hawk, though probably in a slightly different format, and likely with a “relaunch”, giving us time to work up a really great story. So, Kitty Hawk hasn’t crashed, it’s just up in the air.

So to speak.

-BDL

(Tacking on: I think 2010 was, at least for me, a categorically bad year — although the unemployment numbers seem to back me up on this.  I’mma call it a late yakudoshi [although 25 wasn't great either...  maybe I had 42 early?  That'd be nice].  We have been doing some brainstorming, however, and I have hopes for 2011.  When we come back, I want to come back so strong 2010 sends me a written apology.
Yours parenthetically, -V.)

There are some really cool things in store for our heroes, as you can probably tell from the cover and the last page, and we’re excited to bring it to you. We want to give you the remainder of this chapter on a regular schedule, but right now life is getting in the way of doing a webcomic. I’m going to school full-time at AIB, and Vin is without reliable internet.

You can expect color versions of the already published pages in the coming months (which should reveal an interesting detail), and we’ll see what we can put together for you in January. Stay tuned!

Hearts and bolts,

-BDL

(That is, “speaking in terms of conventions”.  Not “speaking in a conventional fashion”, although that may also be true.  [Though it usually isn't, in my case.])

It’s built out of Google Calendar, so you can add us very simply and unobtrusively to your Life Plan!  Just click the little button at the bottom–I promise we won’t spam your agenda.

For those keeping score, we also took out the two little Project Wonderful boxes in the sidebar, to enhance its utility.  I will miss their cute, symmetrical faces, but housekeeping needed to be done, and I think our other spots are a better deal anyway.

-V.

Just wanted to let you know that this weekend I’ll be going back and coloring this chapter. Granted, it’s mostly dream sequence so far, which means the color is gray, but future installments of this chapter should be posted in color, just like the rest of the series.

And now I have a question for you: What kind of Kitty Hawk merch would you like to see? Shirts? Embroidered patches? Original pages? Breakfast cereal? You name it, we’ll consider it.

• We’re bi-weekly now!
• Wait, is bi-weekly every other week?  I am never certain.
• We’re twice-weekly now!  Wednesdays and Fridays!
• We’re running a more web-friendly page size.  I think it’s more readable.  How are you all finding it?
• We’re black and white for a little while, hopefully not for long.  It depends mostly on how the new schedule works for Braden.
• I have no more bullet points.  Please return to your business.

-V.

Chapter 3 begins this Friday with a full-color chapter cover, and the comic proper will begin the following Wednesday.

In the meantime, I thought I’d distract you with my depictions of some pulp heroes who inspired Kitty Hawk, seen here in their civilian attire. If you’re not familiar with these characters, I’ll tell you a little about them. If you are familiar with them … well, that’s why there’s Kitty Hawk.

Clark Savage, Jr – “Doc Savage“, aka “the Man of Bronze”. Raised from birth to become the pinnacle of humanity, he uses his brilliant scientific mind and incredible physique to fight injustice and solve mysteries. He is aided in this quest by a team of people almost as remarkable as himself. (I’ll likely feature these folks in a forthcoming Pulp Hero Sketch Spotlight if this becomes a regular thing.) Like Kitty Hawk, he has no alternate identity when he goes adventuring. He occasionally disguises himself for brief periods, but a 6′8″ Eskimo is hardly inconspicuous.

Ellen Patrick – “the Domino Lady“. A pulp hero with a shorter resume, she is nevertheless remarkable for being one of the very few recurring female pulp heroes, though admittedly not a very progressive one. The daughter of a murdered DA, she disguises herself in a domino mask and a revealing evening dress in order to deliver a peculiar kind of justice to wrongdoers. This mostly involves seducing, drugging, or robbing her intended targets. She’s more an inspiration for Kitty Hawk in that she’s what I wanted to avoid, though there’s certainly room for a character like her in this world (not to mention the world of Kitty Hawk…).

Lamont Cranston – “the Shadow“. I’m sure you’ve all heard of this guy. With his cloak, scarf, and slouch hat, he cuts an awfully iconic figure without the need for a “costume.” You might actually see someone in his era wearing any of these items, though probably not all at once.

Richard Henry Benson – “the Avenger“. Physically and emotionally scarred by a shocking crime, his face became paralyzed and his eyes and hair took on a silver hue. Benson soon discovered he could ply the muscles in his face to take on the appearance of other people, a technique he used to avenge himself and others. Um … okay, there’s no real connection to Kitty Hawk here. I just wanted to draw him.

And again, if you’re in the vicinity of Maine, check out the Maine Comic Arts Festival next weekend. I’ll be there selling The Sting of Defeat, some art prints, and Inbound #3. Check out the guest list. They’ve got some heavy-hitters for a first-time convention!

One more week until the new chapter of Kitty Hawk! I’d better get this stuff done.

And starting next week, you’ll get even more updates on this site. That’s right, we’re updating twice a week – Wednesday and Friday! We’ll start this schedule with Colossa, and continue it when Kitty Hawk returns in May with Chapter 3.

Stick around – we’re just getting started!

At long last, we’re winding down the second chapter of Kitty Hawk.  I emailed Braden the scripts for the final two issues yesterday, so the end is solidly in sight.  The chapter turned out to be much longer than I expected–or at least, to take much longer to tell.  I had originally planned for it to be a quick, adventure-y episode to break up the larger plots and introduce some elements for later use, but it dragged out in the writing.  Reading it over, it’s not as slow or laborious as it felt in my head while we were putting it together, but the writing process definitely highlighted for me the drawbacks of our weekly micro-issue format.  Updating only once a week is a real hindrance, not only to audience-building, but to plotting and scripting as well.  It’s difficult to retain momentum and immediacy when you only need to be on stage once a week (also it encourages pacing breaks which are not the most sensical in the long run).

I still think there’s potential in the multi-page format, but it doesn’t outweigh the drawbacks of a weekly schedule.  If we’d had the resources to put out two issues a week, it might have been a different story, but four pages is definitely beyond our means right now.  Perhaps there will be more experiments in the future–and perhaps not.

The good news, for those of you who are still reading after all that paragraphy, is that we’ll be embracing a new format when we start chapter three, which will be not only more frequent in its updating, but more friendly for web reading.  At the same time, I plan on making a lot of changes to the plotting and pacing of the strip, making things a little more dynamic and giving the story more forward motion.

We’ll have more details over the next couple weeks, so stay tuned.  Excelsior!

(cross-posted At the Elephant.)

Also, I fixed that type-o.

And the forum link works now (thanks, Josh!)