power trip, almost literally
OKAY SO APPARENTLY I BROKE MY POWERCORD WITH THE POWER OF MY RIGHTEOUS FURY (and also the power of my tripping over it)

AFK until I can scrounge up a new one, I'm sure there'll be some around my house I can Bojangle. Right now I am posting on a library computer, riiiiight next to a girl in an otherwise empty row of old ...omnitechs? Man, does that company even exist anymore? Did it exist in the first place? Guys. I could be typing on a non-existent computer. HOW'S THAT FOR A MIND SCREW, EH? Eh? I can't move over to the next computer, because then I'd be admitting that I was doing something very uncool and dorky*. Then what would this perfect stranger think of me? I'm not willing to take that chance.
eeee but it's so embarrassing.


I couldn't sleep last night, so I planned out/did some rough thumb nails for the entire prologue, what’ll probably run me 20 pages of exposition and character development for the Leo. Him being the opinion leader and all that (TACTICS OGRE GOOOO). Though to be fair, at least 5 of those are just those 'pause for dramatic effect' blank page dealies and the last one is a splash. I just want to keep the first chapter** relatively clean and fast paced, minimal expository dialog, except for some explanation about the world's unusual mechanics and shi-- stuff. This is going to be a family comic. One that I can finally show my to my parents and friends, something I couldn't do with previous (KYLE HYDE: GAY GAY GAY) comics. I don’t think they even know what style I’m working in now. I don’t even know what style I’m working in now. I hope it’s not too animanga lookin’, that would just suck, considering more of a heavily modified, eastern influenced, western studio animation/comicy look is more what I’ve been trying to go for. I, I hope. A DA mod lady called me a comic artist in her DD blurb… I don’t know if that’s true or if she was high as a kite at the time. Dude, I’d love being classified as a comic artist! That would imply that I know how to make comics. IF ONLY, MAN. IF ONLY.
SO ANYWAY keeping things action-y and not so much inane conversation-y will be a challenge for me, especially if by some miracle I hit my stride. The banter, it will go on for months. MONTHS, I TELL YOU.
But I'll try to publish the prologue in 2 large chunks, because if I go on a weekly schedule it'd take, like, 5 months to finish. 5 months of pure exposition, wouldn't that just suck?

Hey, when I get a power cord, and if I post the outline, would you guys tell me if it can work? I'm really nervous about making it too bloated and fake, uhgugh. I'm typing it up riiight now, just to see how many pages I can fit. Who knows, maybe I can trim it down to ten or less? Uh. Maybe. Still'd have to post in one chunk.

I am kind of in love with the Aries, Pisces and Taurus ATM, since I figured out how they’d go. So I guess apparently the Pisces is from Atlantis now? Which implies there is an Atlantis to be from? Um. Who knew?


*And we all know how I strive to be the coolest.
**which starts out with some found ham (CONGRATULATIONS, YOU FOUND A-- okay enough of that), ends with a jaunt to an Aztec-esque temple. In the middle there are some explosions and what hopefully will be the first in a long line of dogfights and blimp crashes! OH BOY WILL I NEVER BE ABLE TO DRAW THIS ON A REGULAR SCHEDULE. Okay, breathe. Be positive. Can do. Can do.

This monitor is so dark. I cannot believe how dark it is.
IN OTHER NEWS: Guess who is completely floundering in the world of CSS?YO.

EDIT:
AHAHAHA! She has left! I emerge victorious, becoming all the more cooler for the epic battle of wills! Or, if you want to technical, the battle of who was done with school work first, whatever.

Also, welcome to the prologue in written form. It's probably too long and wordy to do a condensed comic version, maybe it'll be in written form on the welcome, or info page or something. So then it could go right in to the fun! Actually, I think I'll do that. SCREW ALL THIS. SCREW ALL THIS.

Warning: Kind of starts out wangsty but gets to the imbred hijinks as soon as the comic proper starts, and OH DEAR LORD IS THAT SNOW



On 12/20/2012
The world will end


Or begin?


(either one)


Y’see, that’s the day time runs out. So the universe, right? It’ll either roll over, and start again-- only much better this time—or just disappear.
Poof.
Just like that, a snap of the fingers and boom. Gone.
Nobody, at least nobody I know, can say for sure which one’ll happen. Btu what they do know is somewhere out there there’s a guy with a big clay tablet, or scroll or ancient knowledge trapped in a banana peel by magic or whatever, who knows. He’s the guy with the prophecy.


Probably.
I mean, it’s certainly possible?
That’s what everyone says, any way.


Anyway. 12/20/2012. When twelve and twenty meet. There’re twelve months in the western calendar, twenty in the more widely-accepted Aztec. It’s the day when everything in the universe just suddenly, I don’t know, lines up. The sun in line with all her daughters or something, I don’t know. It’s real big if you’re into that cosmic stuff. Me? I like to keep both feet firmly planted in the sky.


Most people’ll tell you that it isn’t a coincidence, the twelve and twenty thing. Most people’ll tell you a lot of things that aren’t true, so I don’t know if that’s the best endorsement.
But one thing is clear as day:


The twenty, they’re the good guys.
Searching the world, trying to rid it of the rebel twelve. Keeping the skies clean and the land safe. Policemen, guardians and heroes of the world and civilized culture. They’re the ones who’ll make sure the 12 won’t try anything.
I mean, if there ain’t no 12 to meet the 20, then nothing can happen, right?
That’s the justification, anyway. It works for most everyone.
It’s not that hard a job either, finding and killing the 12. If you know the right things to look for, they stick out like sore thumbs. But, of course you have to know what the right things are first.


Have you ever had one of those dreams, when you get all studied up for a super-important test and stay up all night, only to find when you get to class that you’ve forgotten everything, even your own name?
You think everyone is pointing at you and whispering behind your back because you don’t know anything, not a single damn thing, but it’s really because you forgot your clothes and now you’re left standing stark naked in the middle of a hallway. What’s worst is they’re always too polite or scared to tell you, although they’ll eventually tell the teacher and bring the ruler of judgment down on your schoolboy butt.
Until then, you’re left alone and freakish and above all excruciating conscious of just how freakish you are. The consciousness, the knowing is its own special kind of torment.
Yeah, being a 12 is kind of like that.


You try, but you never quite fit in. You can try to be the dullest person in history, the kid who collects stamps and parts his hair just so, who drinks a warm glass of milk before they go to bed at exactly 8, never later.
You try and be the kid who never gets into trouble. But every time, every time, your nature will betray you. You weren’t meant to go unnoticed.


Even your family can tell you’re not one of them, not really. You’re a ‘how did that happen?’ or a ‘pity about the youngest’. A black sheep, a sport, the ten ton elephant in the living room.
And the minute that somebody gets the courage to shout, “Hey! The emperor has no clothes!” you know that’s it for you.
Stick a fork in it, you’re done.
One of the twenty comes (usually only one, sometimes two, three at the most. It’s too risky for them to travel in large groups) and then it’s Good try, kid, better luck next incarnation.


I know all this because I’m number 9.
A Leo, if you care.
And I’m going to bring us all together.
It’s because I don’t care.
I don’t care if the world’s going to end.


Because the first time I ever met someone else, someone like me, everything clicked into place. Everything fit. For the first time in my life, I was normal. I wanted to bottle that moment, distill it and brew it, so I could keep myself drunk with it forever.
But all that went away when the other one did. I felt it slip through my fingers, all too liquid to be held.
The next one I found, I kept.

And the next, and the next one, too. So that’s what I do now. I fly around, trying to capture time. All 12 months, nice and pretty in a row. Kind of like those cardboard ducks on a conveyor belt you shoot with a pellet gun at fairs.
For once, I don’t care about the consequences. I don’t care if it might destroy everything, turn time’s wheel on its head. Because for the first time in my life, for the first time in perhaps in all of my lives, I have a family.


I hope you understand me
I hope you understand what 12/20/2012 means.
To me and 11 others, it means everything.