“I just wanted to say, Hello.”

by on June 9, 2011 at 12:50 pm
Posted In: Announcements

“Change is only good when it’s good.”

I don’t know where I heard that, but I certainly agree with it.

Since Drowemos made his announcement I’ve been thinking about this first post. Many of you left really great comments on his post, some along the lines of; please don’t leave! the comic won’t be the same! who the Hell is this Dan guy?

All of which I agree with.

It’s always hard when a creator leaves. There’s always the little nag in the back of your mind going “Is this what Drowemos would have done?”

The history of literature, film, television, and graphic novels is littered with the corpses of things left unfinished for lack of time, money, or other resources. And it’s piled with half-assed sequel projects and follow-ups from people just wanting to make a buck or force something that wasn’t meant to be.

But it is also filled with the projects of those creators who didn’t want to do them and phoned it in. I almost find that to be a worse fate.

But there are also many examples of projects passed on to other creative teams that turned out really great. I enjoy the original SAVAGE SHE-HULK, and without it we wouldn’t have Dan Slott’s amazing SINGLE GREEN FEMALE She-Hulk run.

The 9th/10th/11th Doctors have been a blast!

And I’d never try to argue which is better; ALIEN or ALIENS.

They’re all amazing follow-ups to amazing original material.

So that’s my job; to help make sure that this follow up to something amazing is amazing. I’m not the writer, but it will be up to me to make sure that the creative focus is on keeping Exiern to its roots in what makes it amazing and unique, while making sure we move forward with story and characters on a natural course.

Things will change; they have to, or there is no story. But I’m focused on making sure that it evolves into the next logical thing for Exiern, and not turn into something it isn’t.

But who the Hell is it that’s promising all this? Who is Dan Standing?

Well, I’m terribly good at showing up, Drowemos was right about that. If you want to see a publish date next to my name somewhere go over to the BE Story club…my first work in erotic fiction was published in 2007, a novella called THE CHEST. Transformations and magic are my specialties. Since then I wrote a standalone comic called SPRITELY and five issues of a comic called T&A – which I’m trying to fund independently now under the banner TIME AND AGAIN (special thanks to Drowemos for putting up that ad/link). My website, www.danstanding.com, has updated daily since it launched this year (see me in a year and then that may be an achievement) and I’ve also been working with Jaycee over on Bloomin’ Faeries. I’ve self-published a 149 page illustrated book called BAR BELLES and you can go over to the ESCarchive and read my short story MOUSETRAP.

Sorry, I don’t get to blow my own horn very often.

The point of that blurb of ego is I have a little experience. I started helping Drowemos at the beginning of the year, and since February Compete.com says the website traffic have increased 91%. I’m here to keep Exiern going and keep it good.

Drowemos is still in charge right now, and until papers are signed and the income fully switched to me Exiern is still fully his, and even after that his voice will always be listened to. And it can always become fully his again – at any minute, actually. But if you want to know what I have planned, just consider it the era of THE EXIERN STRIKES BACK.

Now I just have to live up to all of that…

For interested writers I/we will be posting up submission information soon. I want to be certain of what I can offer before I offer it.

~Dan

P.S.  One bad change is that when we switched all the ads over to my account they reset. If you had a Project Wonderful ad I’m sorry but you’ll need to go search again for Exiern (you’ll see my company listed with it) and rebid. Sorry for the inconvenience – but thanks so much for the support!



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Exiern is dead… Long live Exiern

by on June 3, 2011 at 8:25 pm
Posted In: Announcements

This… This is a very hard post to write.  I have rewritten it a number of time.  So let me just cut to the chase;

I am quitting Exiern.

Now the answer to the big concern about this announcement;

The comic will NOT be ending.

How is this possible?  I have sold the comic to Dan Standing Entertainment and Dan will be the managing editor of the comic.  He is going to keep the comic running after I “retire”.

As for who is going to write it, I honestly I don’t know the answer to that one yet.  Dan is will be looking for a new writer and I have promised to stay around to do some script doctoring and helping the new writer get a feel for the story.  Dan will have more information about that shortly.  We are going to be running on my script for a couple of months at least as I have some buffer built up.

As to why I am quitting there are a number of reasons from but it all came down to this.  When I open up the comic a couple of weeks ago to upload the latest page, I just stared at the page a sense of dread overtaking me.  “I don’t want to do this anymore” I said to myself.

After another 5 minutes of staring I said “I don’t have to do this anymore”.

“I am not going to do this anymore” I finally said after staring at the screen for 2 more minutes.  I wrote Dan an emails saying “how’d you like to buy a comic” and after thinking about it he said yes.  We are in the paperwork laden period known as the transition.   Transferring a comic with revenue sources from a million places is no easy task.

The deal I worked out with Dan is that he gets the comic as long as he promises to keep it running because the one thing I don’t want to do is have the story die, like so many other webcomics.  We have a good thing going here and there is no reason for it to stop just because I don’t have the time for it.

In general I feel really good about this.  Dan is dedicated and has a lot of good ideas.  I really think he is going to take the comic to new heights.  I also think that it’s a good idea to get new blood into a story from time to time.  Webcomicer tend to get a bit clingy with their creative works and often strangle.  The dedication must always be to the story not to the glory of one individual and when that story is no longer speaking to you then you pass it on to let it grow and flourish.

There is on down side to all of this.  I am going to miss you guys.  I must say I have been blessed with the best audience of any webcomic.  You guys are funny and intelligent and quite simply a joy to interact with.  It was an honor to talk to you on a regular basis through this comic and I am proud to call you my friends.

Not that I am going away.  I’ll still be kicking around the site and doing other small projects.  But I will miss that direct connection I was able to have with such an awesome group of people.

Well…  See you guys around and as always a cookie for you if you read all this.

 

PS:  Dan will start posting here in a day or two.  Be nice to the guy.  And when a new writer is selected be nice to them as well.  The comic will be different of course but different is a good thing for the growth of a series.

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