In Maps & Legends

UPDATE: We did it! In Maps & Legends won the November 2009 Zuda Comics competition! We’re working for DC Comics now!

The opening eight pages of In Maps & Legends, a graphic novel set in this world and (at least) one other, can be read at Zuda Comics starting November 2nd and running all month. I did the writing, and Niki Smith did the amazing artwork.

Here’s a direct link to the comic: In Maps & Legends.

We have eight pages written and illustrated, but we want to do more.

This is where YOU come in. For the month of November, you can read our webcomic, for free, along with the nine other competitors for the month.

Then, after you sign into the site (by creating a user name and password), you can VOTE for you favorite comic for the month. We hope you like our comic enough to earn your vote.

Here’s a quick tutorial on voting at the Zuda site. And more tips on helping your favorite comic win.

The comic that gets the most votes gets to continue on — the winning creators sign a contract with DC Comics (the people who do Batman, Superman, Sandman, and much, much more) to post 52 more pages or “screens” of their comic in the coming year.  So if we get enough votes, this could be an ongoing thing.

You heard that right. This is a chance for me to write for the same comics company that publishes Batman. It’s a dream come true for a comics lover like me.

Check out the In Maps & Legends Facebook page for more info, discussions, artwork, and more!

The Pitch

Kait considers herself just an artist until she gets recruited by an odd man named Bartamus, who shows up at her place and demands she use her skills to save his dying world.

The Story

Kaitlin is a newly single freelance artist who is stuck in the rut of the well-paying, for-hire covers and maps she creates for fat fantasy novels.

But at night, driven by some strange compulsion, Kait has been working long hours on an intricate, mixed-media map of a place she’s never been, a map that covers all four walls of the window-less spare room she keeps locked next to her tiny bedroom. She’s not sure where the inspiration for the map comes from, but she can’t seem to help herself.

One cold night, Kait is visited by a disheveled man named Bartamus who claims to be from another world. He needs her to finish a map of his dying world so he can use his skills to save it. He doesn’t need someone with the ability to create a map from a satellite image or GPS data; he needs someone like Kaitlin, who he calls a true “world artist.”

For Kait, things like this happen in the books she illustrates so often, she feels like she knows what will happen next, but she couldn’t be more wrong.

The Related Stuff

Nuts and bolts about the competition:

• Niki’s How to Vote at Zuda page (with tips on how to help Maps win!)
• Zuda’s Frequently Asked Question: “How do I help a comic win?“
• Current standings for the November competition
• How to add an image to your web site or blog to show your support

Fun stuff:

• Edward Kaye at the Hypergeek site did an incredible interview with Niki and me.
• Read a quick how-to of how we put together the first four panels of the comic. With pictures!
• A tour of the world!
• Scope out some of the nifty blogs about maps, including Strange Maps, The Map Room, GeoCarta, and Ogle Earth. Also Martin Waldseemüller’s 1507 world ma,p (the first map to show the Western hemisphere)
• View some photos I took of the setting (from the opening of the book, at least)
• Look at some of the other maps I’ve used on my Maps page

Reviews:

• MPD57
• Hypergeek
• The Vault
• Lefty Films Blog
• Art Sequential

A quick refresher on how to register and vote for IN MAPS & LEGENDS:

1. If you haven’t already done so, register at Zuda by clicking the Sign Up link in the upper right-hand corner of the page.
2. Verify the account via your email.
3. Sign into ZudaComics.com with your new user name and password.
4. Select IN MAPS & LEGENDS.
5. Read the comic!
6. To the right of the comic, click the VOTE button, rate the comic (five stars if you liked it) and click  Add as favorite. The vote is by far the most important of these three things.
7. Down below, add a comment, if you want.
8. Have your family members and friends do the same before the end of November.