Incanters

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Chapter 1 Page 4: A Wild Bruce Appears!

This page was almost not brought to you by the most sincere efforts of the 2017 Anime season. I’m looking at you Tetsuo Takahashi and Tanya von Degurechaff.

Fun Fact: I beat my head on my desk for nearly an hour trying to figure out how to get dialogue bubbles to merge in Manga Studio EX4. Then I beat it almost TWO MORE hours trying to keep different character’s speech bubbles from merging into each other. Who knew you’re allowed to have multiple dialogue layers?

Haha, fuck me.

To anyone curious, the book Carolina is reading DOES have a title. Based upon the little you know about her, let’s have some fun as to what you might think it is.

Writing and Lettering: Nich Smith Pencils: Derrick Ravey Inks and Colors: Trevor Woodham

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CRITICAL ROLE - EPISODE 85 SPOILER FREE

I feel the need to make a more in depth post about what happened in Episode 85 later, but for now (SPOILER FREE) all I have to say is this: Sam Riegel, you are a horrible person and I love you for it. Episode 85 is BY FAR in my top 5 favorite episodes if not my number one favorite episode. Whatever happens later is going to be amazing and I can't wait to see what you roll to do in the future.

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Incanters Chapter 1 Page 3: Only slightly embarrassing...

Writing and Lettering: Nich Smith Pencils: Derrick Ravey Inks and Colors: Trevor Woodham

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Incanters Chapter 1 Page 2: Standing in Line...

Writing and Lettering: Nich Smith Pencils: Derrick Ravey Inks and Colors: Trevor Woodham

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Hoo-boy. Time to fire up the WAY-BACK machine.

So, I befriended (I like to tell people he is one of my best friends that I’ve never met) a Webcomic artist back in... 2008, I think (Damn I’m getting old...). His name is Derrick Ravey (named with his permission) and he had a Webcomic called “Everyday Decay”.

It was basically “Survivalist and Prepper Porn” with zombies and I loved it. He had to stop publishing it on account of real life personal matters were draining his love for creating new content for all us “Wannabe Survivalist Arm-chair Quarterbacks”. More about Derrick at the very end.

We kept in touch on an off through the years until me and my tabletop gaming friends decided to play a Dresden Files AU (That’s Alternate Universe for all you Non-tumblrs). I bought the book for the Dresden Files RPG (Role Playing Game) but the rules confused and frightened us. One of our group members had a Doctorate in the World of Darkness rule system so he volunteered to GM (Game Master) the play sessions.

Enter: Wolfgang “Runner” Braxis

He was a “Focus Practitioner” that was good at Electricity Magic. A self-proclaimed Mettallicamancer(I felt SO VERY clever when I thought that up).

His concept was that he felt compelled to be the foil to the other “Serious Business” people he met in the world. He would sass the good guys. He would sass the bad guys. He made dumb Star Wars references at the most inappropriate occasions (Mostly in combat) and was annoyingly obsessive compulsive about doing the right thing.

In hindsight, I MAY have channeled Harry Dresden a bit too much in Runner’s character concept. But who can blame me, I just finished reading “Cold Days” and the mother trucker (Spoilers) punched Santa in the face then made one of Cthulhu’s henchmen blink in a metaphorical staring contest before plugging him with a Remington Lever Action  Rifle. For the especially astute, you probably took note of the flannel shirt.

Jack the Plaid (He’s like Gandalf, but wears a plaid wizard’s robe and is addicted to porn) from the Webcomic Zebra Girl (Click the link and enjoy yourself) is, in my humble opinion, the best subversion and re-inversion of the “Powerful Wizard Character” trope on the internet.

Could I have been more original with his character concept? Sure

Could I have been more original with his character design? Yeah

But by doing what I did with both, I got to pay homage to the great works of both Jim Butcher and Joe England.

Rounding this up, Derrick drew this piece for me at quite an affordable price and you should TOTALLY hit him up for your art commissions at [email protected]. I’ll be posting quite a bit more of his work in the coming weeks and months because at the time, I seemed to have more money than sense at my old job.

Nich

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RELEASE SCHEDULE

This release schedule is subject to change. But as of right now, I will be publishing story comics and additional content in the following manner:

Mondays: Story comic

Fridays: Story comic or additional content*

Barring unplanned and/or unforeseen global calamities, Monday will always be a story comic.

* Fridays will be a bit different. What gets published on Friday will rotate every other week. For example, February 3rd of this week will be additional content. this might be a scrapped concept image of a character or an in-depth look at some aspect of the world as told through a history lesson, biology report, criminal case file, etc.

Then, NEXT Friday (the 10th) will be a story comic.

After that it will be another additional content post on the 17th.

Know what I mean, Vern?

If ya’ll have any questions there’s a button somewhere you can push and send them my way.

Nich

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We love you, Monty

I am going to bed tonight with three victories under my belt.

1. I figured out my scaling and aspect ratio problems on Manga Studio EX4. My images now fit properly within the confines of the page.

2. I figured out that American comic books are EXACTLY 6.7 inches wide by 10.25 inches long. It WASN'T 6.63 by 10.24. Yes, I could tell.

But more importantly:

3. I did something I've been promising myself for the last seven years. Start the path of being a published (Self-Published at the moment) comic book writer.

But most importantly, I did it on February 1st. The day Monty Oum died. I'm going to guess that 90% of you won't know who that is. And that's ok.

Monreak "Monty" Oum died two years ago today from an unforeseen allergic reaction to anesthesia right before a routine surgery. I never met him personally, nor did I ever interact with him in a one on one basis other than he told me he liked mayonnaise on his ham sandwiches in an AMA (Google it) on Reddit once.

In the grand scheme of things, Monty wasn't really that big of a deal in the world. Also, considering some of the people that I have crossed paths with, I should be dedicating this post to them and not Monty. He made some really cool 3D animated movies but that's really about it. His most famous ones being "Haloid", "Dead Fantasy", and "RWBY" (pronounced Ruby, it's complicated).

But within his fandom, he is most famously (and obscurely) known for two things specifically:

His Herculean work ethic and his ability to inspire others to get that little bit extra spirit out of their work session. He would work for 30 hours straight all the while encouraging his co-workers to try and match his efficiency. Promising to buy them dinner or a beer after the project was complete. Or promising to acknowledge that his favorite anime character would lose in a fight with their favorite anime character if they beat him to the deadline.

Of course, since Monty was part cyborg he never lost.

I don't really know what else to say so I'll just finish this with a message to Monty:

Hey, thanks for making things. Thank for being you. I'll keep moving forward like you always say to do so long as you keep showing me the path.

I dedicate Incanters to your memory.

We love you, Monty.

Nich

P.S. Go easy on Jesus, he's not nearly as good at DDR as you are...

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Written by Me

Drawn by somebody else (I need to obtain his permission first)

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Incanters

Have you ever wondered what the world would be like if there was magic in it? And I don’t mean in that McDonald’s “Do you believe in MAGIC” sort of way.

I mean, how different would the world have looked like if Achilles could throw fireballs? If George Washington could have changed the weather and made it a a little bit warmer at Valley Forge? What if Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg divined just a few minutes into the future and DID manage to kill Adolf Hitler? What if prominent members of Hitler’s Ahnenerbe seized control of Nazi Germany in the wake of his death?

This is the kind of stuff that keeps me up at night.

This is also the kind of stuff I play around with as both a DM and as a player in tabletop role-playing games. In fact, I hardly use the suggested “worlds” or “world state” that comes with Shadowrun, Star Wars RPG (RIP West End Games), World of Darkness, or Dungeons and Dragons.

How this all began: One day, myself and three other friends thought it would be cool to play a Dresden Files RPG with the World of Darkness playing system. It was great. It fell apart a few months later, but it made me ask a question:

What if magic wasn’t hidden from society?

After coming to several different answers, I asked myself the BIG question:

Besides the obvious, how different would world’s history look like if it was there from the beginning?

Turns out, probably not as different as we might think.

Well, yes. But not really. Actually...

Hopefully ya’ll get the idea. If you’re not convinced, then I’ll do my best to try and convince you through my story.

Now, let us begin playing in this world that was 2 years of Writing, World Building, and Artist Hunting (HOLY SHIT, I’ve got stories and pictures about that) in the making.

I have no idea how long this comic will run. It could be over in one volume, it could be done in 2. Or (God willing...), if I get to play with ONLY the plot points as they are in my mind right now and I can’t think of any other going forward, this Webcomic will last for YEARS to come. I have enough material in my head for 20 volumes.

Seriously.

For now, let us check in on Runner, Carolina, Bruce, and Joe.

Oh yeah! Shout out to A, E, K, R, A, M, and the Reno Kenshokan. Ya’ll have been MONUMENTAL in supporting (most of you) and motivating me (All of you) to share this place with the rest of the world