a-love-letter-to-atrocity:
This weekend I started working in earnest upon issue #2 of Black Hole Wizard. This issue focuses on a character introduced in issue #1. Inanna’s an Immaculate, and the possessor of the world-ship vairya Amərətāt: the desirable Immortality.
But before I could begin turning my outline into a script, I realized I needed to do some more world building. This time world building necessitated listening to Om’s “Advaitic Songs” on repeat while drinking beers and falling down a weekend-deep Zoroastrianist wiki-hole. I’m moderately pleased with the results, so here’s an excerpt.
“The Six Bounteous Immortals, also called Amesha Spenta, Asuras, or world-ships, are Immaculate who terminally plateaued on the path to apotheosis. Each of them is a conduit through which the true god of the physical world makes manifest his will. They are essentially demigods crewed by worshipers and attendant Immaculate. The world-ships peregrinate in circuits evangelizing over the slow course of millennium, moving from one world or station to the next. Some cultures anticipate their visits, but given the vast stretches of time involved, these events sometimes have more in common with the practices of cargo cults than organized religions.”
An excerpt from writer Simon Berman’s setting notes for the world(s) of Black Hole Wizard.
Stationlost has once again made us an incredible tribute. This time he combined our mini-comic with Funerapolis, by Electric Wizard. Our heads are blowing up.
Qutaybah of El’anscopé, the Black Hole Wizard drops some wisdom in our first promotional mini-comic.
a-love-letter-to-atrocity:
This weekend I’ve been writing a piece of micro-fiction to use in a promotional mini-comic for Black Hole Wizard. Not only does it need to communicate the core premises, aesthetics, and themes of the series, but the whole story needs to be told in six panels which has presented some interesting challenges. While I hope I’ve written a compelling story in its own right, I think it’s probably drifting into something more like a fable, or even a poem than a traditional story. It’s also been an opportunity to explore some slightly different dialogue options than were available to me in the first issue of Black Hole Wizard.
When writing panels I tend to drop in placeholder text for dialogue in order to not get hung up on details. This means that in a first draft my dialogue is a weird mix of descriptive text or extremely specific chatter as a marker for the broad concepts that I want the character or characters to express. I then revisit it later to pare it down to be less “on the nose.”This does, however, result in the generation of initial lines of dialogue so profoundly stupid that I want to use them against my better judgment.
Evil Old Man
You seek a powerful enlightenment, wizard. Take this, the dankest of nugz, but know that it has waited aeons to be smoked.
3liza:
Emotive reference sheet for the protagonist of Black Hole Wizard.
I’m actually not super happy with these but I lost about two weeks to The Void recently and crawling back out has been slow going. Right now I just want this to be posted and done so please forgive the problems.
(=_________= ) o O ( p r o b l e m s )
This is page 1 of 2 pages of emotive prompts just to help me get used to drawing Qutaybah. As you can see I’m not super settled yet, and he’s still pretty off-model in a lot of ways ugh
Anyway I think the hair/beard style will change in-story. Not from panel to panel obviously, but I braid and style my hair different from day to day in real life so I have never really been on board with dressing Qu in a “uniform” in the traditional cartoon sense. Curly hair in particular is a thing that lends itself to being fucked with, if only to keep it out of your way.
a-love-letter-to-atrocity:
This past weekend I finalized the script for issue #1 of Black Hole Wizard, barring minor dialogue changes and a few adjustments and consolidations of panels during illustration. Writing this first issue was something of a torturous experience as I needed to not only familiarize myself with comics scripting and the attendant complications of engaging with a new medium but also hashing out not only the plot, but the world of Black Hole Wizard.Our initial story spans six issues of the 22 page comics format which I promptly blew through with 28 pages on issue #1 — digital publishing means never having to say you’re sorry. However, the implications of our initial arc echo across the bigger story and its characters, hopefully to be continued in future story arcs. All this meant that I drove my collaborator, Eliza, somewhat insane in early January as I redrafted the script more times than was probably rational.
One of the greatest distractions came from my innate desire to hash out nitty gritty details of the setting. Professionally, I write for tabletop role-playing games and wargames at Privateer Press, and in that field it’s not only necessary but desirable to figure out the minutiae of a world to a painstaking degree bordering on symptoms of mental illness. As such, when I began drafting the first issue script from my core setting documents I had to fight the urge to explore these details in lieu of storytelling.
But now, with issue #1 finalized and my plans for issues #2-6 solidified, I have time to indulge myself. In the coming weeks, between working on my outline of issue #2, I plan to write essays on the metaphysics and environments of the world of Black Hole Wizard. Of course, prioritizing those is difficult. A summation of the art of Wizardry and the summoning of Demons from the Void is clearly of paramount use to us, but I’m desperate to explore the Amplifier of the Creed and the Library/Labyrinth of Thelemenaus in excruciating detail.
For now, though, here’s a sneak peek at the script from one of my favorite pages in Black Hole Wizard #1. On this page Qutaybah of El’anscopé, the Black Hole Wizard, is engaged in his perilous Parley with the demon Alastor and is enjoying the upper hand.
PAGE 17
Panel 1
Alastor is bound tightly with both Tunes, prone at the feet of Qutaybah as they once more hover in outer space. Qutaybah gestures mightily into space, towards a constellation in the shape of a dragon.Qutaybah
Volac! High Praeses of the Void, once more I call your name into Nowhere! Grant me your legions, your host!
Panel 2
The dragon constellation roars, disgorging a stream of tiny cherubs riding tiny dragons, each with a mouth of vicious fangs and horns on their foreheads.
Panel 3
The cherubs and their dragons swarm the demon. The cherubs bite, the dragons spit fire and venom. Alastor roars in pain.Panel 4
The demon struggles to rise, not quite free of his bonds but rending any cherubs unfortunate to come close to him with his talons. His tongue curls around one unfortunate cherub
Qutaybah
You were foolish to underestimate me, Alastor. You will do my bidding still!
Panel 5
Alastor retracts his tongue, the cherub pulled into his gaping jaw. The cherub’s awful little face is filled with fear.
emporio armani s/s 1994, by christian moser for emporio armani magazine march 1994
When I first contemplated turning my setting notes for a never-to-be-produced RPG into a comic, I began by thinking about just what a Black Hole Wizard might look like. My eponymous character didn’t have a name, or even much of a backgrou