Faraway stars (bow) is my online comic. It is the ongoing story of a misfit group of humans thrown into a series of madcap adventures. If this is your first time here, I sugguest starting with The Sum-up Page or the Archives.
Why?
Well, after reading quite a few other online comics (Sluggy Freelance & Goats to name a few) I thought "Wow, these are great... I should do one...". I was so humbled, however, that I didn't think I could produce anything as good/funny.
Later, I stumbled across a few others that weren't quite as good (I'm not naming names ... ahem goats (just kidding...)), but still had a huge following. I then thought to myself, "Hey, self, if these lazy SOB's can put out this crap and still rake in the big bucks, then what the hell are you waiting for". Since I usually don't berate myself so fiercely, I took notice and decided to try it out. What you're looking at is the result.
When do you update?
I recently started updating 5 times a week (Mon-Fri). I'll stick to that until such time as I can't manage without lame "filler" such as stick-figure or fan-art week. You have my solemn promise that I will never, ever use that type of filler. I may do more "Special" weeks (such as the ship schematic week), but these will at least have some interesting stuff to them and not the characters screaming about how the artist is such a lazy SOB. Regardless, I try to stay at least 1 month ahead in strips (usually 4 to 5 weeks) so don't worry.
Where do I send my VISA or Mastercard number to?
Hang on to them for now... I'll let you know.
How do I get started?
You can start by reading the Archives (nicely broken down into groups of 5 strips by storyline), or you can read from day one by clicking on this link:
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Do you accept story ideas/submissions or fan art?
Sure. Go nuts. Mail them to me. I'll do something with them. I've posted every bit of fan art I've ever gotten (not much, but its there) and while I may not USE your story ideas, I'd enjoy reading them.
Can I link/copy/blatantly steal something from your page?
I've gotten some email on this (whoddathunkit), so here goes:
- You can link to me at will, in any way you want (good/bad/indifferent), I'll make some buttons or something of enough people whine. The URL is simply farawaystars.keenspace.com
- You can do anything you want with the comic strips, as long as you are not directly attacking them, and you make no money off of them at all (and I don't mean no profit, I mean no cash at all). You can make t-shirts, buttons, mousepads, toilet-paper, etc. And hell, if you swindle a way to actually make cash off of my comic, let me know and we'll work something out!
- You can post any comic from my page on your page as long as it includes a link to my page.
- If you ask nice (email), you can have any non-comic graphic off of my page as long as you are using it personally for something other than putting it in some archive. I don't care what you're doing with it otherwise.
- NOTE: The only exception to this is for items in the Homage section, since the characters (and sometimes the art) is owned/copyrighted by someone else. This is especially true of the JoBeth stuff, which I don't own. For these reasons, you may not use any of the fanart stuff unless you are part of the comic that I've done fanart for (JoBeth, Chopping Block, BoxJam, etc). In those cases, you may use those images at your discression.
Yeah, my art is pretty lame. I'm trying to tell a story and get some laughs here, not create the next Mona Lisa. I happen to think that some of my work approaches tolerable and other stuff just sucks. So, if you like the story, you'll have to suffer through the art. If you want good art, check out my links page.
How does the navigation bar work?
Purty ain't it? There will be different combinations of buttons depending on the page you're on, so here they are in rough order:
- : First Day - Takes you to the very first day of the strip.
: Storyline Start - Takes you to the first strip of the current storyline.
: Previous Strip - Takes you back 1 strip.
: Next Strip - Takes you forward 1 strip.
: Last Day - Takes you to the most recent strip.
Is character "X" based on person/character "Y"?
Probably/probably not. Look, I don't know exactly where all this stuff comes from. I read like 8 online strips, 5 regular comic books, watch a ton of TV/movies, read lots of books, and am generally involved in a myriad of stuff. If I've borrowed some trait or personality quirk, it wasn't intentionally plagarizing someone else's work, I swear.
Where did your character's names come from?
I'm not going to say. If you think you know, send me an email and I'll verify/deny the claim. I'll warn you that some are from friends/family and others are from places I visit on the web.
Why can't Vox kill the characters?
Because it'd make the comic a bit sick. He'll get a fair amount of killing done later, but none of the major cast members is slated for death (anytime soon, bwaaa hahahah).
When are we going to see some nudity?
Never (well, there has been a bit, but nothing beyond PG-13). I'm as much a fan of mature entertainment as the next guy, and while there will be some blood and gore here and there, I'm not going to push the rating of this strip up. Besides, given my art, why would you want to see any of these people in the buff?
Why move to Keenspace?
Only my oldest readers (Dave and Ferretgirl) will remember my geocities account (which is still active BTW, just minus FS). I moved to Keenspace because they offered too much for almost nothing. For the price of the ad banner above (which geocities was doing anyhow, and which really isn't that big or intrusive) I get free hosting, free updates, free traffic, and free server-side codes that do a pile of my work for me. You can't beat free, dammit, just ask Netscape.
Where did FS come from?
The original FS storyline started in 1999, and was a bit different. Doc, Kendra and Captain were the only cast and the strip started with them trying to reach Cygma Tau. They woke up from cryo with problems, yadda yadda, strip continued for about 6 issues before I decided that the "wake up in cryo" had been done to death, and I abandoned the strip. I started 2 other strips along similar lines, but didn't like how much they plagarized other strips I was reading. I went back to FS because I liked the characters, so I drew the first 10 or so strips that exist now. I then went back and changed Doc's "hair" incident (originally he simply had blue hair, no reason for it) and I altered the premise of their escape. The only change since was a minor alteration in Q (who will have a bigger role later) and a change in how Kendra and Doc's brief affair played out. I'm fairly happy with the current cast and story, and now that I've actually got some readers, I can't go back and make any changes, so I'm stuck with it.
Where/when does FS take place?
I'm not going to answer that, because I know if I do I'll regret it. For the story's sake, it takes place far in our future. If there is a "Cygma Tau" galaxy or system or whatever, it doesn't take place there, the names get changed somewhere in the future, so there. If any technology seems out of place or problematic, assume scientists have fixed it or revamped it. Rockets, for example, might be an archaic phrase that has stuck around 8^)
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Faraway Stars and all characters/concepts contained within are the intellectual property of Brian West aka Tirdun.
All persons depicted within are unrelated to anyone else in the known universe, any similarities are unlikely and unintentional and so on unless being used in fair use/parody format.
These pages are viewable on any browser on any platform capable of looking at a page 700 pixels wide with pictures in 256 colors, since that's how big the comic (and pretty much everything else) is.
I happen to like Opera, but you're probably reading this at work on the Internet Explorer your IS/IT department slammed onto your poor machine without pity.
I'm sorry.
If you have a text browser or are stuck at 640x480, then your system just sucks too much for me to bother.
We do have a privacy policy that completely fails to address your inner child issues.
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