First, thanks to Gijs for p roviding me a much more sane translation of Dutch for the Speed Planet Blurb below:

Dicebox is a comic by Jenn Manley Lee about the characters Griffen and Molly. A beautiful comic which eventually will span 36 chapters, divided over four (books). The first one is now online.

Gijs also did not know what omgekat —from the Zone 5300 blurb— meant, but from context and Gijs guess, I’m pretty sure it’s design or re-design.

And actually Gijs wasn’t referred to Dicebox by either of the Dutch sites, but by OnlineComics.net, where I recently listed Dicebox in the Science Fiction section.

Another native speaker of Dutch, Piet, has cleared up the meaning of “omgekat” for me:

Your description of re-design kind of fits the bill. It is the illegal action of changing the identity of a car after you have stolen it. You do this by removing the existing serial number and applying a new one. Usually the new one is derived from a dump.

I think that’s pretty cool. A very interesting analogy for a re-design, especially when I think of certain graphic designers’ work.

During the past couple of months, I have had the pleasure of being linked to by three European portal sites that have sent many, many new visitors my way. First were two from the Netherlands: Zone 5300 at the end of September, then Speed Planet at the beginning of October. And, most recently, and currently, ORF from Austria.

It’s all very flattering and yet makes me feel a little lame that all these people can read Dicebox in English and I haven’t the foggiest what they are saying about it in Dutch and German. (Not to mention my inability to read the Dutch or German comics on or referred to by these sites)

Naturally, I am curious what they are saying, so I located an online machine translator. Now, here’s where I laugh.

Here’s the blurb that accompanied the link on Speed Planet:

Dicebox is een comic van Jenn Manley Lee over de personages Griffen en Molly. Een prachtige comic dat verdeeld over vier boeken uiteindelijk 36 hoofdstukken zal beslaan. Het eerste staat nu online.

And here’s what one tranlator made of it:

Dicebox is one committee with Badger Masculine Lee via the personage Engrave and Do in. One splender committee who divisible via four register ultimate 36 chapter will trim. The first realm now online.

Actually, I love the fact that my name translates to Badger, Griffen’s to Engrave and Molly to Do in. I got a similar result with the blurb from Zone 5300.

Does anyone know what “omgekat” means? That word was not even in the dictionaries I checked out.

I’ve gotten some nice comments and congrats on my starting Chapter 2 of Wander of Dicebox. Believe you me, no one is more thrilled than I.

In the decade (or so) that I’ve lived with Dicebox, (though not always under that name) I’ve written Chapter 1 five times, and now drawn it three times.

The first scripted and drawn version was a rough inked layout, done about nine years ago. I was trying things out, seeing what I thought about the story and approach. Apparently not much, since I put it down for a few years.

Dicebox was always vaguely with me and would bubble out once in awhile to result in new scripts, sketching and so forth. Things started to get really serious again for me about five years ago when I finally realized the name of the story was Dicebox and I began to plot and outline the four books.

Then, about three years ago, I drew Chapter 1 for the second time. It was pretty close the version that you can now read online. As I thought I was going to print it, Chapter 1 was edited down to fit printing concerns. And it was inked, badly. It was okay but flawed and cramped.

With going the route of the web, I was able to restore much of the chapter—this being the third time I drew Chapter 1. Going back to then original script and executing the art in a way that I had more mastery over has made Chapter 1: Pre-ramble much more satisfying for me.

So now that I’ve begun Chapter 2: Fair Weather, I feel like I’m making some real progress.

It’s become a different story over the years, though the characters remain the same. (okay , Molly’s name has changed a few times) Actually, I’m surprised by what has remained the same—many aspects of of Chapters 2 and 3, in fact.

But it all means something else. Especially now that more than just ten of my nearest and dearest are reading it. Many, many more. And that really helps, especially since some of you are “unforgiving” about my sporadic updates (really, you are all such gentle nags).

Chapter 1 is finally done.

Well, not too bad really: I had hoped to finish this about month or two ago, but considering I had my original domain ripped out from under me along with other unexpected events (more pleasant, like my going to San Diego) I can live with it.

27 pages of mistakes. Or, really, experimentation. Now I will decide what succeed and what failed.

As I hinted at before, it will be about two to three weeks before I begin Chapter 2. I will be using the time in between to do prep work for the next chapter. In the way of writing this will include finalizing the script for 2, flesh out the script for 3 and frame out the script for 4. I also intend to do prep sketches and some art and coloring exploration before I begin drawing Chapter 2. I’m also going to work over Jennworks as a whole, evaluate the navigation and update things such as my links.

To this end, I’m making a request for any and all feedback and criticism from anyone who is willing to give it (go to town, Barry) This includes Dicebox as well as the website. I’m looking for comments on things like readability, ease of use, mistakes, things you feel should be included or excluded. The art of the Chapter 1 is fair game as well—I plan to adjust the whole damn thing as I might change my coloring style slightly. But I won’t start on that until I am nearly done with Chapter 2.

If you do chose to comment on readability or code issues, please let me know what operating system, browser and screen resolution you are working with. As soon as you could would be fantastic as I hope to start revamping the site with in a week.

Things that will be updating until Chapter 2 gets rolling will be my journal on the main Jennworks page as well as the beginning of the art section. I also will start a short comics piece that hopefully will be complete by the time I start the next Chapter. I probably won’t do a process page just yet as I am about to do an exploration into said process.

I was chatting up Steve Lieber when he spots and calls over Paul Chadwick. Introductions are made. It comes out I do comics and as I hand Paul my card, he asks what is it about? Perfectly valid question—which I dread like the plague.

After some fumbling and coaching from Steve, I arrive at the high concept one-liner or elevator pitch: “It’s about a couple of female itinerant factory workers in space.”

Paul looked confused and intrigued, which made me deem the one-liner a success.