#004 (LBZ - #001)

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Epilogue: Yeah. That's what happens when weird ideas get into my mind... But first things first. Do you remember when the price of Agents of Artifice was announced? I don't care it's a hardcover and how much it was discharged later on. 25 bucks was a ridiculous price to begin with. I remember many people expressing what they think of it... Especially Eid's comment caught my attention. A scene in a store, with $25 AoA, next to George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones... for $8! (Which one would You choose, btw? Go back and take a closer look at them again). Anyway, Brady Dommermuth was proud of that. Good for him. But don't get me wrong. I've heard Ari Marmell (aka Mouseferatu) did a great job with this novel. Many storyline fans claim it's the best Magic book in years! Many years! What can I say? I wish him well, and hope we'll get more Magic fiction from him in the near future... for a reasonable price. Speaking of which. Now, after NINE MONTHS of waiting, AoA is finally back in a soft cover and for a standard price of $8. Sounds better? Interlude: Ant WTF r LOLBEEBLZ? I've been thinking of using these ridiculous Magic creatures almost since the beginning of Vorthosian Inquisition project. A number of ideas for the comics included them, and I shared them with Moppi on his hidden forum (not yet the new, official one). In our discussions, Moppi used so many abbreviations, like LOLZ, ROTFLZ, and others, that my mind happened upon an idea of adapting LOLCATS to Magic. I only needed some weird little creatures instead of cats. The choice was a gut reaction. In other words: Afterwords: Some enraged people might ask, why two parts, and why such mystery? Let me explain. It all began with my original sketch, made of these two parts, one next to the other. I thought they composed well that way, but since LOLCATS are always just one picture, I wanted to stay in this tradition, and decided to release the first part as a somewhat mysterious prologue - the idea for this experiment was born. The lack of any description under the strip #004 (beside of invitation for seeing you today), and the feeling that something is missing (no frame? no title? what's that strip about, anyway?), was meant to lead you into conclusion that it's not the end of the 'story', and to speculate on what would happen next... However angry you might be at me now for this little experiment, I thought it would be interesting to see your interpretations, and some really good ones were delivered (opressed men of medieval Europe - priceless! Just priceless, luminum can - and how close! XD ). I thought more people would know about A Game of Thrones though (or at least, say that on forums/comments). So if you didn't know of it till now, and you love to read fantasy stories, you might really want to consider putting your hands on this piece of fiction. It stood next to AoA, but not as shiny, for a reason too. Now, it's not my intention to advertise anything here. I want to point out that cover is not everything, and we should always keep in mind quality/price correlation, and personally, I wouldn't give $25 for ANY hardcover Magic novel so far. There are some limits you know... Last few words, if you're still with me. A good eye will spot that Martin's $8 AGoT is actually a soft-cover, unlike in our comic. Well, that's my fault - my initial sketch was made when I didn't really think of the details yet, and later I totally forgot to point it out, before Moppi finished the strip. That's all for today. See you next century ;-) There is a pink version too. Which one is better? :D Might need resize to fit it into the VInq.

Goodness, look at the gap between the months of this release from the last!. If you are still there, thank you very much for holding on haha. The release of this might've come off more early but due to sleep time probably hindering me from waking up hours before 12 pm (UTC+8) i decided to post this now. If the first three comics were introductions of the ideas from each of us the upcoming comics would feature different kind of formats that you could expect seeing here. First we get the normal type of comic like that of the first 3 releases and then there's this 2nd type: the LOLBEEBLZ. I think i do not need to explain that part as MORT has covered that already. Other than my father being here until around mid-November i have been soul-searching on the direction of what the comic has become. Looking at the past entries i think i have veered too much from my first goal: to have the webcomic in a more western cartoon style. I think i have injected too much of my anime roots and have been critical on stuff that i should not be in the first place. So with this two-parter of sorts is the beginning of this "new art direction", i hope you don't find it bothersome. You might say that the only visible difference is that i removed the shadows... actually you have a point there but while i was soul-searching i came to the conclusion that it's one of the factors that are hampering the speed of a release. The lost of shadows in the future comics isn't really for-life but more of it being added when it's totally needed. (i.e. night scenes, light explosions etc...) So there, THANK YOU again for staying with us. I'm actually excited for the next comic as i've been spending quite some time brainstorming for it. It may not be too lengthy but i'm going to do my best on the visuals. See ya around!.