Cebelius
I am Cebelius, writing on the advice of my artist. She insists that we give the people who’ve chosen to invest their time in our comic a little more than a pair of handles. I couldn’t come up with more than laziness as a legitimate excuse to not comply, so here goes.
This is the first comic that I’ve worked on, but not the first story. I’ve been writing essentially all my life. Storytelling is a passion of mine and ever since I was read the Just-So stories, the Jungle Book, and Treasure Island as a child I’ve had a fascination with what makes a good story.
If you’re here for the pretty pictures, you’ve fallen right into my trap. Comicry relies on a story, but more than that it’s a vehicle for the artist to bring his or her imagination to the viewer in a way that the audience can enjoy and appreciate. I told Beowulf when he started this with me and Dream Taker later when she came on board that I am not the draw for Beyond the Veil. They have been, are, and will be into the future.
So what the hell does the comic need me for? Good question. As talented as Beowulf and Dream Taker are, either one of them could have put together a comic on their own and it would have been very popular, so why didn’t they?
If you’ve been reading web comics for a while you’ll realize that there are some VERY talented artists out there doing them. Some of them have some pretty decent storylines, and are very popular. Others have… crap storylines, but people still follow them because they have pretty pictures. That latter category of comic pisses me off. There are also some comics out there with very mediocre art that have really good followings as well because they have (at least) a decent story, sometimes a good story, very rarely a great story.
I hate those comics too.
I hate that second category of comic because I think the really good stories should either be written as short stories or novels, or be drawn by talent that can equal the quality of the tale itself.
That explains my presence here in part. I am here to supply a solid foundation for the artwork; to ensure that people don’t just come back week after week to marvel at the pretty pictures.
The scripting should be tight, grammatically correct, and the plot should have small caliber holes if any at all, not the big shotgun blast holes that make you really ashamed of yourself for loading the latest page. I want to make the story invisible. I want to make it so seamless that you never have to stop and wonder what the hell someone is talking about, or who they’re talking to, or why the hell they’re talking at all.
When you read a good book that’s how it is. You get the story as an image in your mind that unfolds in a way that inspires and uplifts, and when you put the book down, you might not remember any given line, but you remember the image it gave you and cherish that.
I want to make sure that you can cherish these images. I want the story to come alive for you without anything to break the flow. That’s why I’m here.
That and to tell silly jokes every so often. I’m only human.
Hey can you tell me what the story is about? I read the first chapter and part way thru the 2nd. It looks interseting the artwork is great and the whole “I used to be an old man who ruled everything with an iron fist and lost everything due to betrayal, and now I am a young woman who will get it all back” is a pretty good draw (for a while know I’ve wanted to see a story starting from the potentional villains side) but I would like to know what the story is about before I get too involved in a story cuz the transition from chapter ones story to the story in the chapter 2 got me a little lost. I started to worry for and a minute that the story was over and a new one was starting
Well as seems to be the trend with epic story-telling over the past ten years or so, this story follows both sides and several characters, and threads that begin far apart draw together into a unified whole as the story develops.
I read through every single comic entry. I was a little lost at first, but as a fellow writer, I was sincerely impressed when the characters began to fit together. Congratulations, I will definitely be following this story in the future!
Although I haven’t really commented, I’ve been following this comic for AGES and I’ve really enjoyed watching all the characters slowly link in with each other, and I’ve always looked forward to what was coming next. That suspense is missing from so many comics these days. BTV is top notch.
Thanks kindly! This has been my baby for quite a while now and I’m really quite fortunate to be able to draw upon the artistic talent I have available to tell this story. I hope we keep you looking forward to BTV on into the future.