Blog – Leif & Thorn

Volume 6: Forget Me Not (Double) Cover Reveal

21 September, 2023 6 Comments

It’s the time loop book! The one where characters break history so hard that the actual panels disintegrate around them! Which leaves me working on how to replicate the “transparent pixels” effect with…a printed paperback cover.

This started with a “mini mockups where I tinker with layout possibilities” post on Patreon.

And it’s ended up with these two basic variants:

I tried a couple different versions of the “cracks in reality” effect, ending up with this sharp zigzag effect for the edges. Couldn’t get the more detailed, rough-edged version I used in the strip to look good.

Maybe I’ll see if I can work out a “torn paper edges” effect before the actual printing? Maybe not. (Any updates about this, I’ll post directly on the Volume 6 crowdfunding campaign.)

As for the basic color scheme, though — that could go either way!

Which one do you like better, readers? Light mode, or dark mode?

Now available for Patreon supporters: Annual memberships

21 August, 2023 No Comments

Readers can now choose to support Leif & Thorn on Patreon on a yearly basis, instead of month-to-month!

You get all the same bonus content, at a 15% discount from the regular rate. I get the security of a more stable monthly income, fewer transaction fees, and less risk of cards declining. Patreon gets fewer chances to screw up your payment, and therefore less bad press. Everybody wins.

Already a monthly supporter? Follow these steps if you want to switch:

Log in, hover over your profile icon in the top right corner, and select Manage memberships
From your Active Memberships page, click Edit next to the membership you want to change
Select the Annual option (if available) on the checkout page
Click the Update button. You’ll be charged upfront for the discounted price

Just joining us? When you sign up on my Patreon page, there’s a “Pay annually” toggle above the list of tiers. Click it to see the savings.

Any other questions? Check out this help center article, they probably have the answers.

Oneshi Press got grifted, so their comics are all on sale

16 August, 2023 No Comments

Small comics publisher Oneshi Press recently got hit with a “tricked into giving a real refund for a fake payment” scam. They gave a play-by-play of how it worked in their newsletter — it’s worth a read, especially if you haven’t heard of this one before, and/or if you take high-price commissions!

They’re trying to recover with a store-wide sale. I’ve mentioned their Spring 2023 anthology, Destinations, before — it includes a Leif & Thorn short story, which has not (yet) been published or released anywhere else.

So if you were interested, but never got around to buying it? Now is a great time to pick up the ebook or the paperback.

Paperback copy of the Destinations anthology

(Creators got an up-front page rate for their artwork, we don’t get any extra royalties from ongoing sales. So there’s no personal benefit for me if you buy these books now! All the profits go toward helping an indie comics company recover.)

AI of the Storm/Still Evolving: original plot outline

10 July, 2023 No Comments

I had an LLM write a summary for the next Leif & Thorn book, let’s see how accurate it is

3 July, 2023 4 Comments

But first, a recap: We’re gearing up to make the next Leif & Thorn book!

I scored an invite to BackerKit Crowdfunding, a new service from…well, the company I was already using to handle half the work from my campaigns on Kickstarter. So, yeah, we’re crowdfunding Volume 6 directly on BackerKit.

It’s still a few months out, but can you give us a boost by signing up to get notified when it launches?

Meanwhile: I have this LLM free trial. (Didn’t ask for it, but it’s here.)

So I tasked it with writing a “funny and engaging” summary for Volume 6.

All the strips that will go in the book are already published on the site. Free and accessible to read. Collected in their own labeled category, even! And every strip is transcribed, in plain, easily-machine-readable text!

This is practically gift-wrapped for a bot to scan all the material, pick out the major character names and a bunch of common recurring phrases, and synthesize a summary that is…generally recognizable? In the right ballpark? A little confused, but it’s got the spirit?

And yet.

All the text after this cut/separator is generated by the LLM. Let’s see how it did, shall we?

Call for Leif & Thorn guest strips! Deadline: August 12

28 June, 2023 No Comments

Open call for all artists! Leif & Thorn is taking submissions for guest strips!

All ideas and art styles welcome
Draw your favorite characters, explore any era or any AU, show the world your secret headcanons
Only limit on the content is “keep it PG-13”! Basically, no more sex or violence than the regular strip, okay? Otherwise, go wild and have fun with it
Format: PNG, GIF, or JPG
Size: up to 900 x 900 pixels
You can send in multiple pages/strips, if you have an idea that’s too big for just one
Submissions deadline: August 12, 2023

(I previously took these a few months ago, and got a couple amazing strips — but I would like enough to fill a whole week! So we’re opening this up again, with the plan to post all the submissions in a row.)

Safest way to get the strips to me is by email (sailorptah at gmail dot com). You can also PM me on Deviantart, or submit them via Tumblr.

When you send them in, include whatever name you want to be credited by. And if you want me to promote your gallery/blog/fanfiction account/webcomic/Etsy store at the same time, just send me the link!

Roundup of webcomic news (good, gay) and AI news (heavy sigh)

11 June, 2023 4 Comments

A tournament to find the most obscure/unknown webcomic is running on Tumblr! An incredible place to trawl for putting new comics on To Read list.

“1 like = 1 rec for a webcomic with major LGBTQ characters” on Mastodon is falling behind the Tumblr version. Go give it some shares, so I can put all the recs on both sites?

Finally did a big update to the Help, I Want To Start My Own Webcomic Site, How Do I Start guide. Now it has a bunch of references to Toocheke — which I haven’t actually used, so anyone who has, do please comment and tell us about it!

I’ve been invited to the closed beta of Crowdfunding by BackerKit! Not much on my creator profile yet, but more about Leif & Thorn Volume 6 will be there…soonish.

I’ve also been presented with a “fill your site with low-quality SEO-spam glurge articles faster by using an LLM” limited-trial feature. Now I just have to figure out the 20 funniest possible things to use it on.

…and, speaking of LLMs:

Me, queueing a Leif & Thorn where Coco yells at officials for replacing all their human staff with non-field-tested “AI” when lives are at stake, to post on May 8: “This is surely an exaggerated fantasy situation I am inventing as a cautionary tale, and not something that will literally go down IRL in the next 3 weeks.”

The next 3 weeks:

Headline: Eating disorder helpline fires staff, transitions to chatbot after unionization

Headline: Eating disorder helpline disables chatbot for 'harmful' responses after firing human staff

Yyyyyeah.

Did not want that to become a fulfilled prediction! Really hope this doesn’t become a trend. (Both the “putting people’s lives in the hands of chatbots” part, and the “hyperbolic comedy skeeviness coming true” part.)

Pride Month recs are back!

4 June, 2023 No Comments

It’s June again, and you know what that means: time for all the gay webcomics to spend the month hyping each other up.

Here’s my contribution:

1 like on this Mastodon post = 1 rec for a webcomic with major LGBTQ characters!

1 like on this Tumblr post = also 1 rec for a webcomic with major LGBTQ characters!

To keep life simple, I’m giving the same recs, in the same order, on both sites. So far they’re keeping pace with each other — but maybe one will pull ahead? Reblog/share/boost/etc your favorite to keep the links flowing.

Tips on organizing your webcomic, for #WebcomicTalk

4 April, 2023 1 Comment

There’s a new Mastodon account/hashtag prompting creators to talk about their comics!

The last one had a theme of “Structure.” Most of the respondents talked about the structure of things like “plot outlines” and “worldbuilding notes”…I took it more in a direction of “how do you organize your files?”

Read the original answers on Mastodon, or scroll down for a touched-up combo platter of the whole thing!

(This is part of the “how do I webcomic?” series, with useful information on all kinds of comicking-related topics.)

I asked the Bing Chatbot about its Leif & Thorn headcanons

19 March, 2023 10 Comments

For a fun time, I decided to ask the new “Bing Search” chatbot what it knows about Leif & Thorn.

It started off by almost directly quoting the “About” page on the site here…then it suggested follow-up questions. I didn’t make up any of the rest of them, just picked from the suggestions.

By the second answer, the bot had made up a whole nonexistent storyline. The rest of the chat was a mix of accurate details and elaborate headcanons. It decides Pascentia and Leif both have ice magic! (I’m 90% sure it thinks Pascentia is Elsa.) It calls Kale a vampire expert who is Leif’s boyfriend and also roommate! It writes multiple paragraphs about the benefits of Thorn and Leif’s psychic soulbond!

Many sentences in these answers have a link to a “citation.” Some of the links back up the text of the sentence. Others are about the right character or theme, but don’t back up the specific detail at all. Still others are wildly off-base.

Y’all, one of the bot’s “sources” for explaining Leif and Thorn’s “magic soulbond” is a financial article about fixed-income bond investing.

The whole thing was extremely funny — so I’m just going to copy-and-paste the full unedited text here.

Content notes:

The bot is guessing wildly about pronouns, and gets some of them wrong. (It does the same with familial relationships…and nationalities…and species.)
There’s a line about a character self-harming, and a list of ways in which he does it. That is not canon! Please don’t worry about him on that account.

Page Header

Primary Sidebar

Document Footer