Flirting with continuity

I've gotten to the point where I've webpublished enough NIGHT LIFE stories that continuity may become an issue. I've got the comic going on the main site. I'm getting ready to wrap up the third short story here on Blogger. And I did a story on Twitter. That's not including the original NIGHT LIFE story that I did back when I was a student at JMU. Also, there were a few short stories that got written for classes that featured characters that should be very familiar to my readers, all five of you. So that's five different stories on three different sites, a couple of short stories and one college newspaper. Multiple mediums to boot. So which ones don't count?

Well, all of them do. Although the college one, you can pretend doesn't exist, especially since I have the only complete collection of those strips which I occasionally go back through just to cringe at how terrible they were.

When I did the college strip, Wade Granby was already well established as the Night Rain. Keith Sheen didn't come in until the final year I did the strip, but it was clear that they had a history. If you were to get your hands on the old strips and pour over them, you can even spot Danny Blade in a flashback scene. When I wrote the short stories for classes I set most of them in the NIGHT LIFE world. While the professors weren't terribly thrilled with this, it turned out that a few of the students that read these stories for the classes followed the comic and got a kick out of it.

Continuity is a double-edged sword to be certain. It's great when things are clear. However, with enough people involved and if things go along long enough it can turn ugly. That's why the major comic companies with their metric ton of characters and stories supposedly have editors. Someone has to keep it all straight.

My first brush with continuity happened at a very young age. It was an issue of THE INCREDIBLE HULK and the big guy was on some alien planet battling The Gardner. Now this was a major threat because this dude was in possession of one of the "Soul Gems" which we now refer to as the "Infinity Gems". Insanely powerful, and I as a reader got to learn about this due to a quick flashback to another story. It seems some major big bad got his hands on one and it took the Avengers, Captain Marvel, The Thing, Spider-man and Adam Warlock "Reincarnated as the Ultimate Avenger" to stop him. It was nearly twenty years later that I actually had a chance to read the story that the flashback referred. It went down in an old AVENGERS annual and a MARVEL TEAM-UP annual. But referencing that story in the Hulk story I was reading gave me a glimpse that this was something major and this huge battle had gone down. I really wanted to read that story. So there's where continuity was a major bonus.

It turns into a problem when you have two stories directly contradicting each other. Then the writers have to jump through hoops. Problems like that should be caught before books go to press. Back in the day Marvel gave out "No prizes" to readers who caught things like that. Now they just try to avoid the meteor shower of bitchy comments that descend upon them via the internet.

How much danger am I in from this unwieldy beast called continuity? Not much. When there's only one writer it's much easier to keep things straight. I'll be putting in footnotes for people as necessary. Besides, this is the internet, it's easy enough to get a hold of me on here if there's any questions?

You want to know what I think about having enough content out there that this topic warrants a blog post? I think it's a damn good start.

Lost to Chaos: the F.A.Q.

What is this?

This is a NIGHT LIFE story that will be told on Twitter. It will mainly prose driven with supplemental artwork by Kat Hogan. It will begin July 18, 2009 and conclude August 9th, the weekend of the Chicago Comic-Com. The story will take place in pseudo-real time. It will be a mystery story with some horror elements.

What is "pseudo-real time"?

The story will follow NIGHT LIFE cast member Phil Escobar and the Twitter is set up to be his account. Readers will be getting updates as to what Phil is doing as he investigates the mystery. When Phil finds clues, he will post them. I will not be making updates between midnight and seven AM EST. I know some people have Twitter set up so that new 'tweets' appear as text messages on their phones. No one likes a text message at three in the morning.

I don't have Twitter. How do I read this?

Twitter is completely free and pretty painless to set up. You can create an account and set it up to follow the story at "twitter.com/nightlifephil". Once it's over it's a simple matter of deactivating the account. You don't even have to post anything on the account. Once you log in any updates made will appear.

How would this story be rated?

I'd say PG-13. I'm not planning on using a lot of profanity, but it is a police mystery and some of the imagery won't be for children. Basically, if you're OK watching shows like CSI, you're fine.

Why should I follow this?

This is summer reading for people who don't really like summer reading. The updates will be short and to the point, making it easy for readers to keep up with the story.

Do I have to read the webcomic or any of the short stories?

Absolutely not, but it would be nice if you did. Phil Escobar is currently appearing in the webcomic so you can see him a bit before the event. This story is completely self contained, but it's also in the NIGHT LIFE continuity.

The story is wrapping up the weekend of the Chicago Comic-con. Coincidence?

I think not! Chris Johnson and I will be in the Artist's Alley at the convention. If you find us and have the correct solution to the mystery I'll have some prizes while they last.

Why on Earth are you doing this?

Because it just might turn out really freakin' cool. That's plenty of reason.