#where even when it came up in 1 + 2 it was usually ancillary (2-3 excepted but like. ppl regard that case as a fluke in most regards) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

comicteaparty · 4 years

Text

March 7th-March 13th, 2020 Creator Babble Archive

The archive for the Creator Babble chat that occurred from March 7th, 2020 to March 13th, 2020. The chat focused on the following question:

What is your overall marketing/promotion strategy for your webcomic?

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

I don't know if this counts as a strategy, but these are some of the things I do to promote my comic or my work in general. 1. Most important from what I've noticed (which I have been failing at due to stress and self-doubt lately) is to post updates to your comic frequently and consistently. It seems somewhat silly that simply putting your work out there is the best way to grow an audience, but it really is. Newly posted chapters frequently get shown on more pages and thus detected by the algorithms and potential readers. It also helps to establish trust with current and returning readers. 2. Participating in art/comic events, forums, and other comicking communities (such as this one). In a way, this isn't really marketing directly, but it is good to build connections with other creators! 3. Conventions! I actually have gotten a several new readers/followers from attending cons. It's also nice just to talk to people, get your name out there locally, and to make a little bit of money while at it. 4. Social media promotion. Tbh, this hasn't been super helpful to me, but more eyes is always a win in my book. I try to post almost every day, even if it isn't art or comic related. Having some kind of social media presence at all, even if it's small, shows people that you are working hard to connect to others. Also finding the right hashtags definitely helps with visibility.

kayotics

Overall, my strategy for marketing is to be authentic and just keep plugging my stuff. People will come if they like it. I work as a marketer for my day job, so I know what I COULD do, but I really don’t do that much since a whole marketing plan would take a lot more time than I have available to me. Some of the stuff I do otherwise: - regular updates. This ones pretty important for retaining viewers I already have. Any good marketing strategy is thinking about retaining people, not just getting new ones - self promo: this usually is on top webcomics or on social media. I get a LOT of traffic from top webcomics, and I get a good handful of people from social media. - conventions, like mentioned before, can be a great way to get people’s eyes on your stuff. I have a postcard that I hand out to people if they come by or they purchase something. - the thing I don’t do enough is post more art outside of the comic, or even just little previews. If I were dedicated to marketing, I’d be sharing sketches or illustrations on social media to grow my audience.

DanitheCarutor

Ah you know, I don't really have much of a strategy. At some point I promoted as much as I could on Twitter, adding my comic to those share/promo thread, getting in on relevant hashtag events, participating on WebComic Chat (whenever I remembered to). I've done a little promotion on forums, but there is really only so much you can do since only so many people hang out there and if your work is super niche like mine, they will pretty much avoid your promos at all cost. Lmao Other than those I don't really do much, at some point I attempted to use Instagram but the site/app is very stingy about offsite links. I also started a Facebook page, although if you don't have the money to boost your promos and don't usually have a lot going on with your comic outside of weekly updates, it won't get a whole lot of attention. I've also tried to be more active, but I'm not a good conversationalist, and I tend to be kind of a thread/conversation/mood killer so I try to avoid talking outside of Q&A prompts like this.

eli [a winged tale]

Same Dani, I used Instagram for a while too and I just don’t think the platform is a good fit for my vertical scroll comic (see exhibit 1) Twitter is a mixed bag as well and I think unless you have a solid following already, it’s hard to gain traction. What really helped was being on Webtoon’s staff pick for a couple days. I’m not sure how Tapas picked up but it’s reassuring that there’s a couple of followers gained every week when I posted regularly. So it really does sound like the first step is to have a steady update schedule (working on the buffer! Got a month’s work down today). It’s just challenging because while I could upload one page a week but on the vertical scroll sites it seems like a longer episode (6-7 pages) is valued more as a solid update. Love hearing everyone’s thoughts and hope to learn from y’all! (edited)

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

Consistency and con attendance were big ones for me, but something I learned worked well (and was really fun to do) was creating really fun, really dumb, non-canon bits of art every now and then. Following meme prompts or funny ideas from other people. If your comic can afford some humor being thrown its way, making people laugh is a great way to get some attention. No one needs to know the details of your story - they just need to relate to the characters/humor somehow. I had more than one person come across my dumb, meme-y ancillary art and go “Welp, I want to read your comic now.”

eli [a winged tale]

Memes to the rescue! What has been your favourite to do? And which one has surprised you in its relatability/popularity?

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

Two shots of vodka.

Also that terrible sweater meme. Everyone is required to do the terrible sweater meme. People eat it up.

eli [a winged tale]

Too good

Ahh I can’t wait till I can actually write silly adult characters

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Now that you mention it, the nice thing about the terrible sweater meme is it works with a WIDE variety of comics.

eli [a winged tale]

I would love to do a meme with y’all

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

"Came for the story, staying for the sick memes"

Spring-heeled Jack

I try to post updates every friday when my new pages go up on Patreon. And then I make my big post when my tapas and website update at the end of the month. Between all that, I have little flyers that I carry with me and if I'm ever in a shop that has a little self promotion section, I plan on tacking up a flyer. I do conventions, and this will be my first convention season while actively making a comic, so flyers will be handed out then as well.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

My comic isnt very comedy-heavy, and even for the funny scenes, my sense of humor isn't compatible with most people's. So a lot of the memes out there just don't work. But terrible sweater meme doesn't have to be hilarious. It can be just cute, or even weird.

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

For me, uh lmao. I sometimes make some funny strip panels and it was received well even though it's not polished for my liking lmao

Spring-heeled Jack

Keii, I feel you. I'm not good with comedy and my comic isn't meant to be funny, either, so I don't know how well a comedy meme will help me.

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

overall, I try to be honest with just self promo and asking when I have a chance "Hey pls check out my comic lol"

eli [a winged tale]

Or maybe just something relatable? Seen a couple caption this on tumblr

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I think instead of memes, what I'm gonna do is my characters cosplaying more well known characters from works that have some tonal similarities with my own. This isn't just for advertising purposes; it's something I've been wanting to do for a long time for myself. But I'm realizing it can serve some of the same purposes that memes do.

Spring-heeled Jack

That's extremely cute!

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Keyword being "SOME" Tonal similarities... Some of them aren't very similar but have a couple of parallels, etc.

Spring-heeled Jack

Oh for sure. Even if you could find that 'perfect match', it might not be a great cosplay for them, and give too much away

Are "draw the squad" prompts still a thing? I love those

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

The One White Dude and the Tiger Dude in my comic will definitely cosplay Calvin and Hobbes at some point.

Spring-heeled Jack

LOL

omg please, Keii

eli [a winged tale]

YES

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

Yeah, not every comic will have super memeable humor - but whatever you can do to break down that wall between you and a potential reader and go “Hey! Look at this. Is this relatable? Do you get the reference? Etc” Is a very good bet

Also yes squad memes are PERFECT

You can boil down your comic’s relationships so simply.

Spring-heeled Jack

I have four couples in my comic so those "ship dynamic" posts might be fun

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

What are squad memes?

eli [a winged tale]

I also need to be educated about squad I mean all the memes

Spring-heeled Jack

OH MAN!! They are fun as heck. You can find templates and it's a very simple character design in the template, but the poses are super silly. And then you just draw your characters in place of those simple figures(edited)

If you google "Draw the squad" you will find a bunch

renieplayerone

Oh! Ill have to try that! These squad bases look fun!

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I still have one of those I need to finish Back when I first started sharing my work, I was surprised and delighted at how quickly people shoved it through a meme filter.

Maybe that’s another thing! If marketing opportunities present themselves as a surprise, try running with them and see where they take you Within reason, of course. Never feel forced to follow anything that people respond to in a particular way. Just take it into account and see how you feel about it.

renieplayerone

(Im here to lurk on this week's question, i have no strategy and need ideas haha)

eli [a winged tale]

Omg draw the squad looks

too many to choose

mariah (rainy day dreams)

I love draw the squad poses so much TuT I wish I had more time to draw within more of them. I think I always get a little dishearten about making memes because I feel like I need to make my jokes full illustrations but I never have time for much extra content beyond ballpoint pen sketches :T

Mei

Honestly I don't have a marketing or promotion strategy for my webcomic. I make updates every week, and I post it on my twitter and kinda plug it there. I'm actually god awful at trying to make people read my comic because I'm a little bit nervous about it, to be honest. So I just sort of leave it there and see if people find it, half the time. That being said, I tried to promote it pretty hard at conventions last year. But that didn't go as well as I'd hoped. I'm hoping to make flyers with QR codes so that people can scan it, and it'll take them to the landing page/tapas for the comic. That might be a bit easier than getting them to just search the title, plus having a flyer is a nice bit of promotion if I get the opportunity?! Making memes and drawing characters in different clothes or in squad things sounds like super fun tho and I might look into that in the future

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

It's nice to hear everyone talk about this topic. TBH I had completely stopped promoting my comic because I got too scared of backlash, being a disappointment, etc. (Initially I'd attracted a number of people who weren't actually my target audience, and that led to some less than ideal results.) But some time last year, it occurred to me that 1) I'm making this comic for my reader self (or my "hypothetical taste twin" as I like to call it)... which means 2) I only have to appeal to people like me. So I started asking myself, "What would I have to say/do to get me to read this comic?" and that made it significantly less intimidating. I haven't actually started doing self promo (though I did start plugging my updates on Twitter at least). But most future self promo I do will be based on that ^ question.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

(oh god, I was just checking out the latest update for one of the Korean webcomics I read, and the new episode is about a hikikomori... who says "I want to change, but I can't step outside because... maybe there isn't a single person out there who will understand me." THAT WAS ME but with comic promo. Well, I'm getting better and I also hope this character will, too, though knowing this comic his chances aren't so great lol...)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I hope that wasn't too awkward to share! Tl;dr I really think the "what would I have to say/do to get ME to check out my comic" is a good approach for anyone else feeling intimidated about doing self promos.

In the same vein, but on the opposite side of the coin: I'm curious to know, what were some things that got YOU to read someone else's comic?

Some of my own answers to that aren't very relevant to what we can do for our own comics: e.g. I'm Korean and when Naver has a new comic in their pro comic lineup, I may check it out. I'm also a member of SpiderForest and I check out the applicants' comics during the app season. Stuff like that aren't really good promo options that we can take. But things that may be relevant: - 'Evocative scenery shot that doesn't show the face/ doesn't focus on the face.' MY WEAKNESS. That kinda pictures feel subtle and kind of lonely to me, even if it's a group shot. And I like stories with those vibes. -Promo includes an evocative quote. Could be from the comic itself, or from something else like a classical literature or whatever. The creator of Ark (https://www.arkcomic.com/) does this sometimes and even though I'm already following Ark, those promos get my attention.

eli [a winged tale]

Definitely the art promo now that I think of it! Merch, posters, banners etc. If the art intrigues me, I definitely take a look at the site/blurb/first chapter

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I wonder if we can semi-workshop promo art at some point? Not really intensive like "change xyz" because that's not always feasible with art, but just impression feedback like, "this pictures gives me these vibes, and makes me expect this kinda story"

I would be curious to see everyone's even if we don't workshop

eli [a winged tale]

YES

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

Yesssss

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

Yes please. I don‘t promo besides update notices simply because I have no clue to start.

Mei

Sometimes I get really attracted by the style of the story? I immediately started reading Wolfsbane because the art was cool and different from a lot of whta I'd seen on Webtoon up until that point. And then the story was perfect for me. What keii said about writing for yourself is right. Patrick Ness once said you should write the stories your younger self would have loved to pick up on a shelf

and I think that's a pretty evocative thing. At the end of the day, you should be enjoying what you're writing (hopefully). And if you enjoy it and you're having fun making it, that can rub off on the people reading it, or you find the people who like that similar vein of story?

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

(It's also 100% legit to write stories for your current self )

Mei

(oh yes 100% that's what i'm doing HEHE)

Tolkein wrote LOTR because he was like

in love with worldbuilding

was there a market for such a strange type of novel at the time? No. Definitely not. Did he write it anyway? YEAH HE DID

Deo101 [Millennium]

I really wanna do an art workshop yes.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Aight, anyone who wants an impression feedback from me, post your promo art in #art_help

Warning, my impressions may be totally off lol

Deo101 [Millennium]

Also I don't do much marketing. Mostly I try to get in with communities and learn about making comics, I just want to improve my craft. All I really do is make my updated every week, and share whatever art Ive made on my Twitter or whatever

Okay! I think I only have my cover on my phone, but on my computer I also have my banners and icon. So I'll share all those in a bit when I'm at my computer

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

(off topic but I'm sick, and when I'm sick or very tired I constantly misread words. I read "my banners" as "my bananas" and I was very confused for a couple seconds.)

Deo101 [Millennium]

My bananers

Feather J. Fern

I am terrible at marketing my own work, but I am very good at marketing other people's work. I use the "you would like it for this reason" to grab people. Unfortunately I can't do it for my comic because I am bad at seeing the good in my own work oof. I am getting better at it though.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

That's a really good way to do it!

And I can relate. My own hangup is a little different, but it can be extremely difficult to be brave for sure, whether in front of other people, or just in front of your own brain that constantly judges you.

Feather J. Fern

Yeah I was talking about a friend's comic and then the person I was talking to was like "Don't you write comics" and I was like "ahfoofjw yeah but don't look at them"

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I was thinking a lot about the whole "it's like [well known work] meets [another well known work]" approach that was discussed earlier. And I think that could be relevant here. Like, think of something that has either influenced your comic significantly, or just happens to have some core similarities. How would you market that thing? Could you market your own thing using a similar approach -- since there are similarities?

I'd thought of a really good example to compare HoK to. Then I got sad because the said example is extremely obscure outside of Korea. But now I'm like, hey, people don't have to KNOW that work. I can do this differently. I can talk about HoK the way I could talk about it.

('it' as in the other work that's obscure outside of Korea)

Feather J. Fern

I do think that's a good fast shortcut but I don't like using it becuase the shortcut sometimes makes people angry when they don't get what they like out of those two things

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

That's why I said to NOT actually bring up the comparison work

Don't name it

Just list the traits that are shared in common

Feather J. Fern

Oh sorry

I miss read

(And my name changed colours all the sudden?)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

It's a confusing topic, so no worries

It means you leveled up

Feather J. Fern

OWO!

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Say you want to compare your work to... I dunno, DBZ, because it's got super strong aliens duking it out barehanded, blasting ki-like energy attacks, etc. Don't name DBZ. Talk about your work the way you'd talk about your favorite aspects of DBZ. "My comic has super strong aliens duking it out hand-to-hand! YEEEAH!"

OH MY GOD I NEED TO DO THIS NOW.

Feather J. Fern

Yeah! That's what I would do. (But it also helps for me that my comic has no hard reference points) but for my new comic, people are gonna compare it to Zach Bell, and Angelic Layer i think

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I'm gonna write up some drafts that I will revise and tweet at a later time

Feather J. Fern

So I jsut got to you know, not promo it as such XD

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

I want to do this too for a quick pitch

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Do it (shop talk or story help maybe?)

I'm writing a vomit draft for mine

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Yee

Feather J. Fern

I think I will do it for Story help

(Also so I can help flesh out my new project lol lol)

eli [a winged tale]

Kei I might be suuuuper off since I read only the beginning but I sort of thought inuyasha but Korea and handsome boys

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

Sometimes you don't even realize your story can be marketed as "blah meets blah" until much later down the line - I've only started realizing the number of existing properties I've absorbed unintentionally into my comic. It's not how I'd market it on a serious front, but to a friend for story help, heck yes.

But a lot of people on Twitter seem to do that strategy for PitMAD and it works great for them, so... shrug

I guess it still belongs in a "pitch arsenal," as it were

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeah, the one "blah" I just thought of is something I hadn't realized for all these years. But it makes so much sense now that I look at it.

eli [a winged tale]

See that’s where I got confused but I think this is what I’m gonna aim to do: - pitch to readers: inspiration but this awesome unique thing in the comic - pitch to other comic makers: the Logline - pitch to agents: comparison works if requested and longer pitch depending on their format - pitch to family: just read it plzthanksbye

renieplayerone

or alternative pitch to family: Please dear god never read this

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

That's me

Oof... Writing the 'promote your comic by talking about the traits it shares with Another Person's Work,' I made myself cry, and that is definitely a sign I'm on the right track.

eli [a winged tale]

Right track is good!

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

It took me years to even think of an 'other more popular work' comparison for Children of Shadow. XD But at the same time, it's really different from the works I compare it to, so it's hard to say 'Read this if you like X or X because it has a few similarities in theme and tone, but is still very much its own thing'.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeah which is why I'm not even gonna namedrop my X.

I'm just straight up gonna talk about 'My comic has [this trait]' (and X shares that trait, but no one needs to know for the purpose of that pitch)

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

To answer the weekly question... I really don't have a marketing strategy. Marketing is my achilles heel, so I generally just throw pages up and hope someone sees them. I don't really understand social media nor do I have the energy to sink tonnes of time into it, which seems to be one of the biggest requirements for being picked up by algorithms. So my marketing strategy is just.., keep making comics and talking to other creators and hope for the best

eli [a winged tale]

I think that’s still solid Capn

Ultimately you need a product to promote

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

It's something that helps me, because while I can talk about my favorite works done by others, I feel stuck when trying to do the same with my own. So it's basically telling my brain, 'hey, you already know how to do it with other stories. Do the same thing with your own.'

eli [a winged tale]

So true Kei

renieplayerone

thats my strategy too. best case you market it great, worst case you've made a new friend so win win :3

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

My incredibly low numbers after 14 years of making webcomics beg to differ but... maybe someday I can hire someone to help me market.

eli [a winged tale]

I’m using the comic platforms rather than my own site so... sort of relying on their algorithms. I imagine it can be harder if you just post on your own website?

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Sometimes the platforms don't help much if their audience isn't into the type of comics you make

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I post on both my own website and on platforms, but the algorithms for WT and Tapas don’t seem to like me, haha.(edited)

renieplayerone

yeah same

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

One of my top favorite webcomics got a front page feature on Tapas once, but it wasn't the kind of a story that gets a lot of traction there, so it still didn't get very popular. And that was in no way a measure of its quality. It is an excellent comic, just not a good fit for that particular place.

renieplayerone

I get far more views on my site, but I get way more engagement on Tapas and WT

I actually treat those two mirrors AS marketing for the main site(edited)

eli [a winged tale]

Exactly renie! Good perspective!

I never know what different platforms tailor to...

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

Yeah, what Keiiii said. I make dark fantasy comics and both WT and Tapas favour romance, especially comics geared towards a female audience and drawn anime style. My comics aren’t particularly feminine and romance isn’t much of a focus, so they’re just not what that demographic is into.

eli [a winged tale]

I’ve been trying to remember how I came across my favourite comics and usually it’s through the art (interesting characters, unique dynamic style that I enjoy) and the first chapter holding promise (able to see what the character wants/will have to change into)

Romance has always been the best seller in the story world I think

Oh and most recently hiveworks and other web publishers have great recommendations too per genre

And comic conventions are always fun to meet creators. Sometimes If I feel I jive with someone I’m an instant fan

renieplayerone

I absolutely need to get better at having confidence enough to make friends at conventions x_x

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I have noticed my audience grow a bit since joining Spiderforest. They’ve helped me get a bit better at promotion, though marketing just isn’t my talent, lol.

renieplayerone

im always terrified haha

eli [a winged tale]

It’s a big step for sure renie! It took me like... three years going to VanCAF as an attendee before actually exhibiting and making friends(edited)

Mei

I know i'm late but i personally detest the 'this book is X meets Y!!', even though I get why people do it. I just wish they'd describe it to me like what if I'd never read either of those books......

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I would really love to get out to cons, they sound like a great opportunity for connecting with other creators. One of these years I’ll be able to get to one!(edited)

Deo101 [Millennium]

yeah im usually kinda like "okay, well are you doing anything new or are you just doing those things :/"

renieplayerone

I exhibit with the Boston Comics Roundtable and I still havent gotten the courage XD

Mei

yeah, cons are really fun even to attend or to make friends! I find it really tough though, I'm so intimidated;;

yeah Deo... same... it's like

sure, I could pitch a story as two things. Like I don't know "The Walking Dead meets Shaun of the Dead" which is semi redundant anyway

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I only use it to give people a framework for the kinds of tones and themes they can expect from my work when I have to keep my explanation short and sweet.

renieplayerone

they should have badges that say "Hi i want to make friends but you are all so awesome its intimidating be kind"

Mei

or you know... use those words to just describe the story? It may be a personal preference, some agents LOVE comparisons

Yes renie, yes!

i'd love a badge like that like

pls talk to me i'm scare

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

Sometimes a few words can’t fully describe a story as well as saying: ‘It’s a little bit like X meets X but if you add [insert unique thing your story does]’

Mei

I personally find that it depends a bit too much on people having read those books or stories before. BUT if you're pitching to an agent, they've usually read those books

so then they get a sense or vibe of like, what the genre is

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

It’s all down to preference, really. Your own and the person you’re pitching to. If you don’t want to use comparisons to describe your own work, that’s valid, but try not to dismiss people who do.

Mei

so I get it, I just don't like it personally xD I think a lot of the times it takes away from your own voice and story

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

That too is part of the reason why I'm not namedropping the works

Just having my self-promo self learn from my 'promo other people's stuff' self

Mei

yeah for sure, it adds that level of excitement to your own work that you'd give to others?

eli [a winged tale]

I think a cool exercise might be to check out someone’s work here and see how you would promote it

It’s always good to see from someone else’s perspective

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

yessssss, all of my friends have been much better at promoting than I am

mostly because they have no shame regarding it but they also just... know what sounds cool

Mei

Oh i'm very good at promoting my friends' work

I sold his DnD book to a kpop stan who doesn't like DnD and doesn't play, and it was a crowning achievement

eli [a winged tale]

Like for yours I’d probably say... Manta Ray princess finds herself very much dead but is given a second chance to revive her friends and save her kingdom... just need to find someone very much living and very much not afraid of the seaghosts they have become

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

SOLID

though now I imagine Phaedra as a Manta Ray in a dress which is... not entirely untrue

eli [a winged tale]

LOL omg I haven’t even thought of that! Just thought manta Princess is a hook

Mei

Me, pointing at Cheth "I mean look at him, LOOK AT HIM and tell me you don't want to read this"

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I guess for my work I market it from four potential angles: 1) The princess is cool and has a sword, 2) The villain is the best character, 3) The environments ain't bad, and 4) THERE'S A DOG

again, you gotta know who you're talking to and what they already like

eli [a winged tale]

In a world where a fallen god became trapped in the sea, a dead princess is given a second chance to fight for her life with a mysterious sea-bitten boy and undo the sea ghost curse that plagues the world.

Dammit I repeated world

Mei

hey... the environments are GREAT

eli [a winged tale]

Yeah Lady your environment shots are

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

ok I do try BUT BACK TO MARKETING

The number of times I see someone marketing their comic with very epic-sounding descriptors or broad generalizations... then that one day where they're finally like "oh, I have a character who turns into a hamster at nighttime" and people are like 'I'M SOLD'

And then they go ".... THAT'S WHAT YOU ALL WANTED???"

often it's those little weird details that get people interested

Deo101 [Millennium]

I wanna read about the were hamster please

Mei

sometimes I think the simplest and maybe slightly silly lines are what grabs people?

when things sound TOO epic i feel a bit intimidated

eli [a winged tale]

takes notes

Mei

but if someone were to sell me a big adventure epic as "it's hamsters and they fight the forces of evil" i'd read it

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

god yes

"Four small creatures band together to defeat a great darkness overwhelming their homeland."

No.

"Hamsters fight evil."

YES

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I.... I have no idea how to snappily describe my comics. XD

eli [a winged tale]

Same... I got to kids with wings for hair then my brain short circuits

Mei

i'd say it's the way you'd tell the story to a close friend

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

The best I came up with was 'Teenagers with supernatural powers team up with woodland critters to defeat monsters' but it sounds more adventure-y and doesn't really get at the fact that it's a dark story with horror elements and everyone's mentally ill.

Mei

like they come up to you and go "what's your comic about" "oh you know, my stupid comic's about mutant hamsters that take over the world" or something

(don't call your comics stupid none of your comics are stupid they are great)

Deo101 [Millennium]

"plant man and his goth boyfriend babysitting a ton of bozos" would probably be mine then

Mei

BEAUTIFUL

i'm sold

Deo101 [Millennium]

ghsakgjhgkhkgahgk my target audience...

Mei

i do think tho like this form of comedic one-lining may not work for something dark?

Unless you go "Spooky horror about cats that become humans at night!"

would need experimentation

eli [a winged tale]

It’s a balance I think.

Kids stranded on an island with weapons explore the darkness in human nature - Lord of the Flies

Mei

ooh yeah that's a good one!

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

A space explorer stranded on a foreign planet must join forces with the indigenous population and save his ship before his life support runs out.

Alternately

Small man goes to war with small carrot people

Pikmin

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

@Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios) I wonder if one could describe CoS the way how people might describe Evangelion, but with magical powers instead of mechs.

Teens, monsters, mental illnesses

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

Probably. Though I've never seen Evangelion, but those three words work very well.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

The relationship dynamics are way different, but yeah, those three things...

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

Also add trauma and cute lil animals and you have Children of Shadow. XD

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Evangelion also has trauma (though I don't know if you'd like it; this isn't a rec, just a promo discussion!) and it was refreshing to see at the time

A teen trying to fight huge monsters, even if he was doing it inside an equally huge mech, could lead to traumatizing experiences, and it was the first time I saw that seriously explored

Hmm, so I guess "teens, talking animals, monsters, mental illnesses feat. trauma" ?

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I don't know if it's similar at all, but that description reminds me strongly of Eureka 7. Wow, was that series intense,

🌈ERROR404 🌈

I really liked how the end happened - it was a nice solution to the lack of budget issue and told the story of his psyche reall well

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

Though Eureka 7 was intense in a good way. I found the ending kind of unsatisfying, but admittedly I find the endings of 90% of animes unsatisfying (probably a cultural clash). But I enjoy them for the journey more than the ending.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I haven't watched Eureka 7, but the storyboard artist (one of the storyboard artists maybe?) for that anime is one of my favorite artists.

DanitheCarutor

Ah, a little late, but regarding the snappy promos I'm in the same boat as Cap'n with not knowing how to make one. At least one that would be ridiculous and totally not fitting the darker themes. I agree with all the people who have a generally hard time coming up with a pitch for their work, while having an easier time promoting other people's comics. Honestly my comic can be super boring to people who don't like pretentious, non-fantastical, angsty, character study types of stories. So it's really hard to think of a way to make it sound interesting without spoiling anything. Man! That thing when people come up to you, asking what your comic is about! Me: "Oh! Ah, it's uh, kinda sad and it has uh mental illness" -trails off with uncomfortable laughter- Them: Oh cool. -has a look of complete disinterest- Someone was actually extremely enthusiastic about the vague description of my comic, which somehow made me a mix of uncomfortable and excited.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I saw the conversation about blurbs and I just thought of one for a comic I'm working on! "An ecologist and a bird have a conversation about ethics"

I haven't started the comic yet so please send your critiques(edited)

and first impressions

(of the blurb)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

"Angsty character study with a heavy dose of mental illness" <--- Could this descriptor work? @DanitheCarutor

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

kei said exactly what I was just typing

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Great minds

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

oh, i just realized i've read dani's comic

I think your description is fine?

The artsy, angsty comics I follow all have kind of short, tongue in cheek descriptions

it's hard to capture the tone of an emotional comic in one sentence so they either joke about it or make it intentionally misleading

for example Drop Out's description is something like "two friends go on a road trip" and Fritz Fargo's description is "a human dumpster fire in the 90s"

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

The dumpster fire one is insta-effective

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Dani, maybe make your description shorter if anything?

Something like, "An emotionally stunted alcoholic attempts to make amends"

and then follow it up with kei's line about it being an angsty character study

RebelVampire

Im not gonna stop the convo cause it is on topic. However, i do want to remind ppl these #creator_babble chats are permanently archived. So thats something to keep in mind if youre gonna workshop.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I asked before in this discord about making my own blurb better. The main critique I got was that I included too many things that I thought were interesting and unique that a new reader probably wouldn't care about. Like how the mc's powers work. But though it's unique and important to the story, it's not going to be a main reason someone reads the comic. I revised the blurb to remove extraneous info and make the tone of the comic more apparent, and I think now I didn't lose anything and made it more concise.

I think maybe agtahr could also be summarized a bit more succinctly

DanitheCarutor

Yup, you did once upon a time but said you stopped reading it a while ago. (which is totally fine, the reason is understandable.) The mix of yours and Keii's descriptions do sound a lot better than mine. Lol Thank you Fish and @keii’ii (Heart of Keol)! I've noticed people really like the word 'angst' when you describe heavy stuff. At least when I was a teenager everyone found it appealing. I'll tinker with it a bit and use Drop_Out and Fritz Fargo as a reference. Anyways, I'm going to stop talking now, don't want to bog down the main topic.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

That's a good point; 'the best things about this story' and 'things that should go in its blurb' have an overlap, but they aren't always the same.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Yeah, I did but I'll probably pick it up again eventually. I remember enjoying it. If you do want to keep talking, we can move to shop talk?

mirandalorian

babbling I have the first three episodes of my webtoon ready to post tomorrow and I’m really excited and feel kinda proud that I made it this far...even though it’s not very far. It’s far for me without posting immediately end babbling

Feather J. Fern

I forgot to ask, but if people are tabling at cons, do you guys have promo stuff at your con tables for your comics?

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Mostly a business card, but yes

carcarchu

i never did but my table partner one year had free postcards she gave out with purchase / to passerbys with her comic info and an illustration on it

kayotics

I always keep free postcards to advertise my comic on the table right next to my business cards.

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

Yep, the free postcards did wonders for me last year. They disappeared quickly!

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

Buisness cards and postcards~

Feather J. Fern

Seems like Business and Postcards are the way to go.

Mei

business cards!!

i might be making flyers/postcards for my comic next time though! :D

sagaholmgaard

I haven't done much to promote my comic but I've gotten some good ideas reading through this, thanks! I currently plug my updates in twitter and instagram with a cool/fun panel from the new page. I do also share WIPS and try to engage through my instagram stories (Asking things like, 'what type of benders would the Reclaim squad be in an avatar au' and making doodles for the answers), but that only reaches those who follow my IG. its good fun tho. I've done memes with the characters a few times but I didn't get much attention, LOL. But it's fun so maybe worth trying again

Spring-heeled Jack

Today I went into a locally owned comic shop and went to the guy that owns it and said "I'm a local artist and I'm writing a comic. Could I give you some small flyers to let people take?" And he said yes, and then asked if I have any physical copies. I don't yet but told him I'll bring some by when I have them. He then let me know he carries other local artists! Something cool to think about if you have a local comic shop.

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

ooo that's good to know

I droped off my zines at my local comic shop but maybe I'll drop flyers of my webcomic too lmaooo

Spring-heeled Jack

I also just ordered a business card carrier so I can tote some around with ease. I carry my flyers in my sketchbook. You should totally ask, it never hurts! Carry a few extra just in case you find yourself in a new area and find another cafe or comic shop.

I ran mine off on my at home printer on some nice quality but regular weight paper. I might need to get some more professionally done.

Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)

I keep a handful of business cards in my wallet -- that way, any time someone says "hey, that looks cool, what are you drawing?" they get a card with the title and URL. Slowly but steadily burns through the supply.

DanitheCarutor

Seeing if my local book shops will carry copies of my comic when I print them eventually is something I'm kind of excited about! My town is hardcore into supporting local artists and writers, so that'll be something neat to try out. Although I'm a little nervous that the rating might be a little too mature for what the vendors want on their shelves.

I know of using postcards to advertise, but never heard of fliers. Maybe I'll give that a try.(edited)

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

I use double sided business cards, so on one side, it showcases some of my art, and the other side has contact info, a link to my comic website, and a QR code. It's been pretty helpful so far at conventions.

Nutty (Court of Roses)

You guys have all these sophisticated answers to this and my answer is just "scream on every social media platform I can reach and every person I meet about my comic."

Though I may not scream at people irl,,,

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

Let's see... I have a twitter where I repost my comic pages, and a couple mirrors that help reach different audiences. I've also carried around business cards that have my comic's URL on it. One fun strategy I've used is doing review-exchange things, in an I-critique-your-comic-if-you-critique-mine way (with the assumption that most people who read all the way through Super Galaxy Knights end up liking it). Though, that isn't really viable anymore now that the comic is 600+ pages, cuz nobody would ever agree to that trade lol. And... that's pretty much it? Though, I should note that my goal with Super Galaxy Knights isn't to make the most popular comic I can so that I can make a living off ads or patreon or print sales or whatever. If I ever do manage to make money off the comic, it'll be in "spinoff tech" (basically, video games or other media based off it). (it's the reason why a bunch of early Starstuff Stories fleshed out the abilities of the characters they focused on) I would like people to read the story because I think people would like the story, but it's not like my future depends on its popularity.

Holmeaa - working on WAYFINDERS

We (me and Q) are gonna (hopefully) tabeling at cons this year! I thought about doing free non permenant tattoos with our comic things. Also we have beautiful zines of the first chapter to sell. but a free postcard is also good

Desnik

promotional strategies...ah...the biggest thing I did for my first webcomic, RAWR! Dinosaur Friends, was simply update on a general platform (tumblr), using a consistent schedule and the same tags every time. That allowed some of the bigger biology/humor/critter blogs on tumblr to find me and I got a lot of people reading from their generous reblogs. I found some more niche crossover from sci-comm blog comments and dinosaur toy collector forums, because sometimes I'd have a comic that would coincide with paleontology news. It was mainly about finding my niche and bringing my stuff to that niche. To those struggling with finding readers, I would recommend distilling the contents of your comic and then reaching out to people who buy/read things like your comic. I've definitely made friends from general 'webcomic' forums and discords, but in terms of building a readership it's all about finding the niche and catering to it in a human way

In general I highly recommend shopping around for stuff like hobby blogs/forums/groups/discords that have some relation to the content of your webcomic. Those people DO want new content related to their hobby, but they don't really deal well with salesy pitches. Just be human and also a nerd for that hobby, too (nerdy enough to make webcomics about it)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeah, it's like fan comic for an existing IP with an existing fandom, except it's a fan comic of a 'thing' rather than an IP (e.g. you make a pirate comic? Great! Nobody owns pirates, but there are lots of pirate fans out there!).

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

The very first customer I had at the first con I tabled at, came over and said "I like ghosts! I like the ocean! I'll take it!" And wrote me later saying it was exactly what they were looking for.

And honestly it's all because I make sure every cover has something spooky and something watery, and the genres are in the title I make it very easy for people to understand what it might be like.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

omg the genres are in the title

that's genius

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

Definitely not planned But it helps so much!

I think if authors have a rule on certain symbols/motifs they MUST make sure come across on covers/posters/etc, that can be a good marketing strategy. With some wiggle room, of course.

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I... I feel like I can barely even describe what my comic is, which makes it so hard to market. 'Do you like comics with cute animals and eldritch horrors and angsty teens that have superpowers and hidden religious symbolism everywhere?!? Then my comic is for you!' What even is that demographic, because I sure don't know.(edited)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

@Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios) If you take away the cute animals part, that actually sounds like stuff a lot of teens are into/ a lot of people were into when they were teens. And most people love cute animals, so adding that to the mix, in theory, shouldn't reduce the accessibility too much. Buuuuut CoS has its unique flavor that's decidedly different from all the "angsty teens, eldritch horrors, religious symbolism" stuff I consumed when I was younger. I don't know how to describe that flavor, nor how to utilize it for marketing. But yeah, maybe some food for thought?

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I've used short phrases that are sort of representative to describe my comic. Examples include "consensual mind control" "a guy whose ideal life is not being entirely alive" "friendship" and "anticlimactic conversations"

I have no idea how effective any of those are

someone tell me pls

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

As someone who just started reading your comic last night I think consensual mind control is a really cool descriptor. I haven't heard that too much before.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

that makes me happy

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

@keii’ii (Heart of Keol) Heh, I'm not sure what that unique flavour is, either, but it might have something to do with me avoiding the typical 'chosen one' structure that most teen fantasy literature has. The characters are all (except Fawna) a part of the hidden world already rather than discovering it, and everyone's pretty much running around like chickens with their heads cut off rather than having any power over their situation (which is kind of a huge part of the theme of the comic). It's definitely different than the typical urban fantasy, so it's been really hard to find which audience that appeals to. From what I've gathered based on the people who comment on my website, it's mostly academics in college or beyond, for whatever reason. XD

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Honestly I think for almost all comics their first pages were what convinced me to keep reading. Even with Phantomarine I was ambivalent about the description but then I saw the first page, and though, yeah, I'm into this.

Maybe my own comic can be the same way

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

Exactly the same with me and your comic - I was also all about that first page It's a powerful thing! I think for anyone about to delve into a comic - which is, by nature, a very visual thing - it's going to be that visual that ultimately pushes them over the edge.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

maybe my description should just be ascii art of my main character O-O | -(edited)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

^ It's why I tinkered with the first page of HoK soooo many times even after it went live. But it wasn't enough; it still gave off the wrong impression as to what kind of a story one should expect. Finally, more than a year after I started posting it, I redid like 1/4 to 1/3 of chapter one from scratch. Even though it will never be perfect, I can live with it now. chapter 2 on the other hand... It's an imperfect intro to the right story, rather than an intro (good or not) to the wrong story.

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

To be honest, my intro probably doesn't hit the right notes to explain what my comic is about, which may be part of my problem. It starts out seeming more like an anthropomorphic fantasy than a dark urban fantasy / horror story. That's just something I think I'm going to have to live with, because I'm tired of reworking old pages (I already do it far too much). I think my best solution is drawing a new cover that showcases the tone and subject matter better than the one I'm using now.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

oh god, you reminded me of the 3 cover pages I spent hours on only to later scrap. Then my current cover page I did in one hour after it came to me at 4am(edited)

and it was perfect

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

and my page redoings were after the reboot.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Cap, I don't know how representative it is of the story but I looked up the Ashes cover page and it's very impressive

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

Yeah, I already redrew my intro once.... and this is the third iteration of this comic. And I'm currently redrawing the first two chapters of my other comic. I'm so sick to death of starting over. -_-

@Eightfish (Puppeteer) Oh, thank you!! I like to go all-out on covers, heh.

Kabocha

Promotion... ... is that a thing you can eat? ... A few things I've tried is business cards -- tweeting about it -- posting about it on dA... I try to stay away from services like Tapas and Webtoon because I'm not formatted for those sorts of things, and I fear I'll probably just frustrate myself. It's a delicate balance right now between remaining happy with my work and getting it seen, but overall, I guess I'm not too stressed about it since it's not a source of income for me... I just... like making comics. I've also done conventions -- Conventions are fun, don't get me wrong, but nowadays they're a really low return on interest for many shows for original stuff (except slice of life and "oh no I did a bad" types of zines -- people seem to really enjoy things like that since it's often pretty easy to relate to). They feel like they used to be easier for selling original work, but the market's gotten rougher because there's so much competition and only so many dollars. if I ever print, I'm probably going to have to lean on some marketing-savvy friends for help... Hopefully things haven't changed too much by then. I think the tool that's worked best for me in the past few years has been doing guest comics here and there, as well as using topwebcomics, oddly enough. TWC was pretty good for referrals when I started doing comics way back in 2006~2007...

sagaholmgaard

Since the topic is about promotion... Do yall know if there are any twitter hashtag events for webcomic creators? My friends in the indie game industry have certain hashtags that people can post in during specific times every week - do we have anything similar?

Kabocha

#Webcomicchat!

https://webcomicchat.com/for-creators You may also find this page helpful

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

#webcomicchat is great because you get to talk shop while talking about your own work! It's not just "look at my comic"

sagaholmgaard

Ahh!! Thank you!

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I know some people do #WebcomicWednesday - not sure how official it is, but it gets some attention!

sagaholmgaard

I'll check that one out as well!

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

There's also #comicartistsunite too

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

webcomicchat always looked like fun, but I definitively am on the wrong side of the globe for the times it's going on

mirandalorian

Promotion is difficult. I always feel like I'm being too pushy, even for something that's free. I also feel like I built up a following that had nothing to do with comics or art and so when I switched directions to head that way, i don't get the response I would like. Reading all the thoughts here has been really helpful tho. Just got to put them into practice

Feather J. Fern

I think my current attempt for promotion is at least being more willing to promote. I have to force my fear of "I shouldn't tell people because it's not as good as (blank)" and just shove my comic into a spotlight

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

If anyone is worried about bothering people, putting variety into your promotions will make things more palatable for people for sure. I have one person on my timeline spamming the same exact post over and over again, almost daily, and it doesn't seem to be doing them any favors There's no need for a promotion every day. The people I see that do a more-obvious promotion tweet, like, weekly, or every two weeks, seem to get good results from that Sometimes less is more

mirandalorian

I need to get to that point Feathery. And ya, daily is a bit extreme imo. But I have to figure out the good balance

Feather J. Fern

Even weekly I don't do it because I feel like I am spamming and I feel awkward

Oh! Speaking of promotions, one way I found I got my comic promoted was by doing guest comics for other people! I got lots of viewers after each guest comic I did

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeah, for social media promo, e.g. on Twitter, you want to make your actual tweets have value -- not just things being linked off the tweets. (This is where gag-a-day kinda comics have an advantage, because each strip has entertainment value and you can just post the whole strip in a tweet.) Obviously this doesn't apply to every promo tweet; so like, weekly promo tweet that's solely about the links, as mentioned by others, is fine. But yeah, aside from those, you wanna make your promo tweets fun to read.

Feather J. Fern

Also cameos! Cameos are a great promo

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Not gonna lie, I am lowkey paranoid about doing cameos. Someone I know had to remove their cameo of someone else's character, because that other person objected to their character being in the print version of the comic.

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

Uff

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

oh rip

Feather J. Fern

Oh man, that's rough.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I'll never even print HoK but I can still imagine someone being all "NOPE, I CHANGED MY MIND" at a later time

Feather J. Fern

I am planning to do some cameos for other people, not that Go Figure will ever be in print but I can see that problem. I think what I would say is that if you want a cameo you have to be 100% certain

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Might be a good idea to have a very simple agreement thing you can have them sign

Feather J. Fern

Yeah I was going to have a written consent form

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

"I agree to let you do a cameo of my character, and to not be a jerk about it at a later time. Signed"

Feather J. Fern

Signed and dated by both parties XD

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

There's also the broad hashtags like #webcomics and even things more geared to genres like #drama and #fantasy and so on. Doing art memes helps sometimes, too.

mirandalorian

What do you think the best hashtags to use are? Is webcomics too saturdated?

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I'm not sure about the best hashtags, but my biggest thing about hashtags on Twitter : don't use a bunch of hashtags in a single tweet!

For broad hashtags like #webcomics or #fantasy, I gotta wonder if anyone's actually checking those out...

mariah (rainy day dreams)

Yeah, I usually tag my update posts with #webcomic and my comic's name, but honestly I have no idea if #webcomic has ever helped out my post ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

mirandalorian

Ya, I typically keep it to two or less, but i always wonder if webcomic is actually useful lol

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

takes note to use something more specific than #webcomic in my next update tweet

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I think it may potentially be useful as a label for someone who's just found you on that platform, and is not sure what you're promoting. But beyond that...

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

I usually use #historicalfiction and #webcomic. Not sure which one helps more, but well, there it is.

mirandalorian

Ya, I should use the genre tag too.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Do people even search genre tags for that matter lol (a bit pessimistic, but still a genuine question)

like, I'll be the first to admit, I don't hashtag search to look for new comics to read. I don't think I ever hashtag search ANYTHING, unless it's like..... a very active trend that I am interested in (e.g. an upcoming video game that I'm looking forward to)

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

Well, the tags are popular enough to be suggested by twitter so I'd think some use them, probably likeminded folk.

mariah (rainy day dreams)

Same keii. I mostly use hashtags to look for fan art, exclusively on Instagram.

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

There's also a trend of "art sharing" tweets. I have found a couple of artists and webcomics through that kind of event, but again, the turnover isn't anything to write home about.

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I wonder if readers make use of the search more than us creators do?

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I doubt it, Lee

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I never use it as a reader, at any rate, though I don't know if others are like that.

mariah (rainy day dreams)

Though, actually that's not true, I have used hashtags to look at more things being posted within art events. So inktober, mermay, hourly comic day, etc.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

But art event hashtags are useful, because -- like I mentioned before -- those tweets provide entertainment value without anyone having to click on offsite links. e.g. the #StartToFinish tag that's hot right now.

mariah (rainy day dreams)

I have followed new artists from those tags though and then checked out their off-site stuff. It's definitely a more round about way than someone specifically looking for comics to read via hashtag

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

From my limited observation, when people are looking for comics to read, they tend to ask for recs rather than do hashtag search?

"Anyone know of some good magical girl webcomics?" etc

which is a bit of a bummer for us creators, because that is completely outside of our control. Nothing we can do about it.

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

here's the popularity for the #webcomics tag

So SOME people use it.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

@Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight) I'm gonna guess it's mostly creators using them to promote, rather than readers using them to search.

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

Also it seems to be peak in popularity in the USA

@keii’ii (Heart of Keol) the graph implies interaction, really.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

What counts as interaction?

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

tweeting it and searching it

what I'm saying is we can't know.

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I don’t so much in Twitter, but I personally DO search hashtags on Insta to find new art.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

It's true, we can't know. I just personally can't imagine anyone searching for #webcomics to find stuff to read

mariah (rainy day dreams)

Insta is definitely hashtag game city.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeah, IG is a different beast

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

Comics don’t generally gel so well with Insta’s format, though, so I’m usually seeking art and not comics.

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

just to be safe, occasionally use it

To be honest, I'm probably more likely to find and become a fan of webcomics here on this server than any social media

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeah, I wouldn't say "don't use #webcomics" -- use it if you have no other, more specific tags to put. But on Twitter, you don't want too many hashtags, so if you got more specific ones... use those instead!

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

I feel somewhat self conscious in getting an instagram. But I'll get one most likely.

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

It might be a good idea to switch up your tags regularly? Choose two or three from a relevant list each update and see if any of those tweets get a noticeable boost in engagement.

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

Yeah that sounds a good strategy

speaking of, any other creators into historical webcomics?

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I don't seek them out, but there's some that I read.

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

yours is touching upon the historical keii with the joseon-style elements.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

It's definitely not historical but yeah, got the aesthetics going for it!

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

Yeah!

I must admit, I'm a bit starved for like-minded creators. I mean people that create historical webcomics. I know and follow a few but that's not nearly enough.

(if I'm babbling too much for creator babble please tell me!)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Babbling is fine! But this might be better for #general or possibly shop talk as it's not related to this week's topic?

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

oh sorry, there's a specific topic here too?

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeah, all the channels under CTP Activities have a... topic thingie that changes weekly

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

okay got it. I'll take it there. Sorry :/

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Don't be sorry, be glad to chat about this stuff in another channel

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

With insta please be mindful that if you‘ll always post with the same hashtags, their algorythmn likely will assume you‘re a bot.

mirandalorian

Oh really?

I definitely did not know that.

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

Yup, it‘s a big annoyance. At least it was that way half a year ago, how is the algorythm now? Nobody knows.

I kinda hate insta, but it‘s the platform with the most interactions for me, although I don‘t know if it goes beyound liking my panel cutout.

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

Instagram does it‘s darnest to lock the user into theor own ecosystem.

mariah (rainy day dreams)

Yeah, hard same. I definitely get the most likes there, but I get very few referrals from insta.

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

Funnily, the only social media where I KNOW I got at least one reader from is pillowfort and their teeny-tiny webcomic comunity!

mariah (rainy day dreams)

I keep wanting to hop over there, but also starting a new social media sounds exhausting TuT one day.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I need to start using PF

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

It‘s pretty chill, reminds me of the hey-day of livejournal, with great filtering - more intended to create many small communities than one giant pot like twitter.

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I don’t think any platform’s algorithms like me. I get very low engagement no matter where I post. I’m just not good at figuring out what these platforms pick up.(edited)

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

I still have three invites left for this week.

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

Does cross promotion work for you guys at all?

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

A little bit? But I think my comics are a hard sell, so I generally don’t get a lot of referrals when I cross-promote with other creators.

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

It‘s how I found this community; but otherwise, nope.

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

Now I need to check out your comics Lee. I'm intrigued!

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

Haha, if you want to! If they’re not your cup of tea that’s a-okay.

mariah (rainy day dreams)

I still have three invites left for this week.

@chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa] if you don't have plans for those invites, I would definitely take one and follow you first

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

About the hashtag thing on Twitter..... I have found the hashtags #webtoon #webtooncanvas and #celebrateCANVASday to be particularly useful for those of us publishing on Webtoon Canvas. I have gained a few new readers from this, and the official Webtoon Canvas page often retweets when these hashtags are used.

mariah (rainy day dreams)

That's good to know. I'm planning to start mirroring on Webtoon so I'll have to be sure to remember to use those tags.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I need to fix my series on WT first. But I'll give those hashtags a try once that's been done

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I tried using webtoon hashtags a few times, but their page never retweeted me. It seems either random, or there’s some hidden requirement for getting a rt.

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

i use the tag sometimes but I found it more responsive if you have a vertical scrolling format comic

then they're more likely to respond to you

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

Oh, yeah.... I use a traditional page format.

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

same rip

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I do combine all my pages into long episodes at the ends of chapters, so it’s kinda scrolling, but they’re just traditional pages stacked on top of each other, lol. WT definitely doesn’t like that, but I don’t have the time to reformat hundreds of pages.

Feather J. Fern

Also promo thought, I randomly joined people's streams before and then got hooked on their comics after seeing them draw on twitch or something like that

Pistashi

I struggle a bit with promo stuff, because I get too self-conscious about self-promoting and I'm the type of person that ends up doing too much of it or none of it

at the moment I'm working on making a press kit and sharing it with some blogs and networks about comics

but still, what I usually do is join groups and try to talk with people that works with art and comics

this is kind of more inclined to networking and meeting new people to talk about what we like than promoting my work to potential readers

nothing wrong with that, but looking with a more critical eye I still have a lot to learn about building an audience and reaching people who could become future readers

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

I wonder HOW much a large social media following is worth. Insta‘s shown me that it isn‘t necessarily translating into readers.

carcarchu

in my experience followings on different platforms are non-transferable. same goes with having a large following on your comic itself, doesn't necessarily mean having a lot of followers on your art accounts. that's why they say "don't build your sandcastle in someone else's sandbox"

Pistashi

that makes a lot of sense

kayotics

If you’re building your following around your own content (original art, comic updates, etc) then the likelihood that the following is transferable is higher, but it’s still not 100%. You’re competing with everything else on their timeline too.

RebelVampire

i think a thing to consider with webcomics especially when it comes to social media is that a good portion of people who follow comic creators on social media are other comic creators, not people who are just readers. and the good majority of comic creators do not have a lot of time to read other webcomics. While there are certainly exceptions, I see those very few and far in between. So the conversion rates for social media right now are super low until the dynamic of the communities on the platforms changes.

kayotics

I’d agree with that, but also having a social media presence has definitely opened up some doors to being seen by other creators, many of whom are professionals. It’s good for networking, might not be the best for gaining and retaining readers.

RebelVampire

Oh yeah for sure. My point was about conversion factor

its factor in networking is a whole other matter entirely

and is indespensible

kayotics

One thing that I didn’t mention for myself is that networking has helped a LOT with getting new readers. Word of mouth, is always the best way to advertise, and other webcomic people giving you a plug can see some really strong results

#ctparchive #comics #webcomics #indie comics #comic chat #comic discussion #comic tea party #ctp #creator interview #comic creator interview #creator babble

1 note · View note

davidmann95 · 5 years

Note

This week’s comics?

SPOILERS, fairly casually

The Immortal Hulk #23: It’s Immortal Hulk. If you’re not getting it you’re doing comics wrong.

The Amazing Spider-Man: Going Big #1: Hadn’t actually planned on picking this up but found myself to my own surprise pulled in by the cover. Main story by Conway and Bagley was predictably quality, the middle by Macchio and Nauck wasn’t, and Larsen’s wrapup was the most fun but that villain was...a choice if she had existed before, even moreso if she hadn’t. Passable for die-hards, but I’m baffled why this exists when we’ll also be getting Full Circle; I guess this is for major past talent while that’s more the current hotness?

Fantastic Four #14: Best issue of this volume yet, especially with Paco Medina in tow, and a jumping on point I’d recommend even to those who’d already understandably written this run off. Might not come off as a total embarrassment next to the ‘ancillary’ FF stuff coming later this year, which actually isn’t a small compliment given the talent stacked on Grand Design, 2099, and Negative Zone.

House of X #4: At long last the X-Men doing X-Men stuff, if not quite how anyone would have expected it. Lot hanging on the implications in the margins of Hickman’s grand plan at this point in terms of parsing what happens here, and even that leaves more questions than answers (clearly clones are involved, but what does that mean for the current and future situation?). Also it rules.

The Wicked + The Divine #45: I look forward to now being able to reread this series to learn whether or not I particularly like it. I’m sure I will, it’s Gillen and McKelvie and I usually enjoyed individual issues well enough even if I could never remember what the hell was going on, but I often need to reread Gillen’s stuff before it properly clicks with me.

DIE #7: This however grabbed me right off the bat and has yet to let go, even though I’m still not positive I know what’s going on.

No One Left To Fight #3: The ‘romance’ subplot I wasn’t sure about has wrapped up about as well as could be hoped for even if it feels kinda like a sour note to me, and otherwise this remains a load of fun and I’d like to see it pick up more attention.

Doomsday Clock #11: Hahahaha they actually did it, Superman’s on panel with a dick in DC’s biggest comic. Beautiful. GOSH there should not be a comic where Superman’s defending an all-but-explicitly Trump-occupied White House from a revolutionary brown man, though. And the heck is up with ‘Nibiru’? Is that a throwaway thing, or a setup for something coming up in the regular books? Anyway, this book remains ridiculous, shockingly entertaining and ‘significant’-feeling, gorgeous, and fundamentally broken, having squandered the legitimate potential of its concept at virtually every turn but still fascinating in spite of itself, maintaining a veneer of high-minded ‘mature readers’ structure and ambition laudably far beyond anything Johns has ever approached in the past overlaying a truly dumb as hell event comic core. My main question at this point is whether the ending will be ideologically rancid, ideologically null, or the former attempting to be the latter, and how interesting it’ll be along the way. And as I noted on Twitter, it remains hilarious that Good Doomsday Clock was conceived of almost certainly in part in response to this, created, announced, and released in full entirely within the lifespan of Actual Doomsday Clock.

DCeased: A Good Day To Die #1: Fun comic, absolutely get it if you’re getting the main mini, but how on Earth did they net Darick Robertson for this? I’m thrilled to see him, but the hell? Has the guy even done anything with Constantine or zombies before?

Lois Lane #3: Rucka can spend all the time he likes picking up Gotham Central/52 threads as far as I’m concerned, and the Lois (and Clark) stuff in here is as on-point as the first two issues.

Legion of Super-Heroes: Millennium #1: A lot of fun, jarring as it is to pivot from quoted Kirby dialogue to Bendisspeak on a dime, but this and #2 clearly should have just been a big one-shot.

The Green Lantern #11: Still a ton of fun. Is the ‘Golden Lantern’ gonna tie in at all with Legion? Also I’m going nuts here not being able to recall who the Lantern with the prism chest and Yondu-fin is. Is she new?

Doom Patrol: Weight of the Worlds #3: Um...wow. Wow. What a hell of a high concept when presented as it is here, and as good an execution as could possibly be hoped.

Superman: Up In The Sky #3: I talked about the first story that may well hold this title back from otherwise deserved perennial status when it came out in the Walmart issues - maybe the most hideous misfire of King’s career - but the second here’s an all-timer.

Justice League #31: Fuck the geezers, the REAL stars of the show are officially onboard after what felt like 83,000 years of waiting! Shame about how Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Kamandi are definitely doomed now, I’ve always liked ‘em, but I’ll call it a fair trade-off for the return of Justice Legion Alpha. I’ll admit though, much as I’ve traditionally been fairly ambivalent on them it really was charming to see the JSA again, especially now that it’s clear that their new setup won’t interfere with the position of Superman and the Justice League.

Batman vs. Ra’s Al Ghul #1: From page one this is every bit as ratfuck baying-at-the-moon out of its goddamn mind as I could have hoped of any self-respecting sequel to Batman: Odyssey, and it might be the book I’m gonna be most excited for every month now. God bless Neal Adams for doing whatever the hell it is that man does, and sharing it with us undeserving wretches.

#Week's Comics #Opinion

12 notes · View notes

dork-empress · 5 years

Text

Hive Minds Vs. The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals

So I’ve been increasingly loving Starkids’ latest musical “The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals” I’ve seen all their musicals that are on youtube, and I’m a bit hit or miss with them. Overall I think they have improved with time, so if the only one you’ve seen is “A Very Potter Musical” go check out some of their other musicals, but first check The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals.

The Premise is Aliens have landed on Earth and are slowly infecting people’s minds, taking over their bodies to be part of elaborately choreographed musical numbers. It has a Zombie Apocalypse sort of feel to it, following Paul (a guy who, you may have guessed, doesn’t like musicals) and his friends as they attempt to escape the alien spores.

What I love about it is the Hive Mind presented in the story, and I’m fascinated about how it works. From what I can tell, the aliens take over a person, and have them express their feelings, unwillingly, through song and dance. It IS the original person’s feelings, though. So theres a question of balance, is the alien a single mind, as it were, reading the memories of the drones and then making them recite them? Or do the drones have some semblance of themselves hidden in the hive?

There are two real thoughts to hive minds. First and most well known is the Borg.

The borg evolved through the series’s, but I’m going to go based off their Initial introduction. No Hugh, no Queen, no spheres, nada. The borg are not a species, they are a force, like a storm. There is no reasoning with them because there’s nothing to reason with. Every drone you see is just one part in a grand machinery. Essentially what’s happening is, there are so many minds that the individual mind gets drowned out into the one thing all life forms are built for: Expansion. Procreation. Because thats essentially what assimilation is, isn’t it? making more of itself.

The other is the Braniac/Ultron version. Neither of those are thought of as a hive mind, because, well, they’re not. They’re a single mind, just put into different bodies. If even one piece of Braniac is maintained it can rebuild, because its all just a bunch of minds working together simultaneously. Read Ancillary Justice if you’d like to see an interesting version of this, where the minds have to deal with stupid realistic things like, communication over great distances. Anyway, Braniac and Ultron have a similar goal as the borg: Expand, make more of itself, absorb information.

Now, the meteor in TGWDLM is considered to be kind of like Braniac. It came crashing down, spread its spores, and is now controlling them through the central hub. Professor Hidgens describes it as: On one level, they are individuals, but on another they are all appendages of a much larger organism all connected by a central brain.

He and Emma theorize that if they destroy the meteor, they’ll make the drones fall Night King style (Game of Thrones joke)

So Paul attempts it and, spoilers, blows up the meteor. But it doesn’t work!

We don’t see what happened after the bomb went off, so here is what we know. Emma got off the island. Paul got infected. Paul and several other infected souls also got off, to infect the hospital Emma was staying at, before or after Paul is revealed to Emma is unclear.

Emma talks with a couple of people before Paul is revealed. One of them is clearly infected later, but the other isn’t seen again. I am going under the assumption she is also infected. The infected have shown they’re CAPABLE of speech, it’s just usually in sync

So why would they try to hide it from Emma by speaking? Because this hive mind has the one thing no other hive mind has.

Several times the hive is foiled in its attempt to expand and take over because it/they were so busy with their dance number, they didn’t get the chance to assimilate. Paul is especially immune to this given, well, he doesn’t like musicals. This is why the Hive takes such an interest in him.

Compare with Charlotte. She, Bill and Ted (and their excellent adventure...sorry) only realized something was up watching people come and go out of their bosses office singing. They didn’t get the full presentation themselves, like Paul did. When Charlotte does get serenaded by her infected/dead husband, she argues, but is eventually pulled in and killed, then infected herself. We don’t know if Emma would have been taken, she only avoided it by not drinking the coffee at her work, but it was Paul who told her to run. Paul isn’t intrigued by the Hive’s musical shenanigans, not for a minute, which gives him power, and makes him the Hive’s worst enemy.

The hive wants more than to just expand and conquer, though thats certainly part of it. The hive wants to expand so it can Put on its show.

Theater kids, amirite?

The idea of not liking your individuality taken is reasonable, but not liking MUSICALS? Heresy! thats what makes Paul special to it, and what makes this hive special in the grand schematic.

I wanna talk about 2 moments. Moment one is the One That Broke My Heart.

So, here’s your trivia question of the day: is this Alice? Or the hive?

The key of musicals is taking peoples thoughts and emotions and expressing them for the audience in song, steps, metaphors. Characters can have secrets from each other, but not from the audience, in song.

There are several theories here. 1) Alice is clutching her head just before this verse, so perhaps a little bit of the real her is breaking through the hive, singing this song. I find this one unlikely.

2) The hive has absorbed Alice’s memories and has turned it into a theatrical heart breaking production.

3) The hive has absorbed Alice’s memories and is singing a song it knows will enthrall Bill, leading him to his suicide, which he only doesn’t go through with because Paul stops him. This is supported by the song “untie me now” where Charlotte’s husband sings what he needs to in order to enthrall and infect her.

4) human emotions have infected the hive and now its feeling pain and love and all sorts of things.

That last one is most interesting to me, though #3 is most likely. One way or another the Hive is a Dramatic Bitch and I Love Them.

But how much individuality is maintained. In Paul’s words “Is this me? Or is this you?”

Paul is such a unique main character. I'm a script writer and reader and let me tell you, the main thing you want for a protagonist is a motivation. A goal, a stake, something. Something to show how the story will progress.

We don’t get a whole lot of that from Paul. Sure, he likes the Barista and flirts with her, but he doesn’t exactly do a lot to pursue her. Even at the dramatic conclusion, he is disgusted enough by her blood vomit to just Nope out of there.

He’s a normal guy. He likes black coffee, money from his job, not to be harassed by green peace. He’s not Bill, whos trying to get his daughter back. He’s not Charlotte, who’s trying to make her marriage work. He’s not Emma, trying to grow a pot farm in her sister’s memory. Everyone AROUND Paul has great motivations and stories, but not him. Not until he’s just a little infected by spores.

He’s a main character finally. He fits into the Hive Minds narrative. He wants something (to be happy). But is this him? Or is this the hive just working through him? And if so, for whom? Is Paul still in there, watching himself come to this realization? Is this even his real feelings, or is this what the Hive is projecting through him, trying to convince him to join in on they’re/it’s fun?

Keep in mind, everyone else that we’ve seen has been dead when they were infected (that we know of.) So this song sung BY Paul is FOR Paul. And it ultimately doesn’t matter because Paul blows the thing up. And then....

Presumably, Paul died in the explosion. And, while its possible he was just unsuccessful in destroying the meteor, I find it more likely that Hidgins and Emma were wrong. The spores are more like Braniac, they carry on without a central hub.

But how much choice is brought into becoming a drone of The Hive. Did Paul eventually side with the Hive? Probably not, but thats what he sings to try and convince/serenade Emma.

So, what do we know about the Hive?

The hive came down in a meteor. I presume that it killed many people, but no one knew because they got up immediately after. This certainly includes Sam and Zoe, possibly Deb, Paul’s boss, and Greenpeace girl.

The infected went in relative disguise, trying to sucker people in with musical numbers. Most people probably assumed it was a flash mob and were entertained long enough to be killed and infected, except for Paul who noped the fuck out.

Once revealed, their songs were to get you to do what they want, follow police, untie person, etc.

They have a strong sense of narrative. They like love stories, strong motivations. This is why Paul drove them nuts, and they took a special interest in him, making him the main character.

They use people as puppets, getting them to do choreography, play out stories, etc. because....that just be how writers are my dude. They use the real emotions of the people they inhabit to take other people. The audience is their next supposed victim.

They want to conquer, but not for the sake of conquering, maybe its for the sake of exploring these interesting narratives. Resistance isn’t futile. But the Apotheosis is Inevitable.

#here take this mess of a meta #the guy who didn't like musicals #tgwdlm

10 notes · View notes

starlitesymphony · 6 years

Text

Novel Prep Tag

@imani-writes tagged me, thank you!!

Rules: Answer the questions and then tag as many writers as there are questions answered (or as many as you can) to spread the positivity! Even if these questions are not explicitly brought up in the novel, they are still good to keep in mind when writing.

Tagging @woodhouse-jay @tachycardick @drabbleitout @dimawriting @mgcorvo-author @meteorwrites @stormbeyondreality @writingrosesonneptune @thesingingsunflower @altheathewriter It’s pretty long, feel free to pass :)

(For my sci-fi WIP, Ark of the Timelost)

First Look

1. Describe your novel in 1-2 sentences (elevator pitch)

A young woman leaves her privileged life as a spy-in-training to rescue her mom from the midst of a rebel uprising on another planet.

2. How long do you plan for your novel to be? (Is it a novella, single book, book series, etc.)

Somewhere around 120k words. It’s currently a standalone, but I could easily do a sequel or series.

3. What is your novel’s aesthetic?

Vast, lush utopian cities. Ocean waves crashing. Deep black space beyond tall windows.

4. What other stories inspire your novel?

Many sci-fi books and movies, naturally, but if I had to name names—Snowpiercer, Dark City, and Blade Runner. The books Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie and The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. Most of all, Banner of Souls and Winterstrike by Liz Williams. Obscure, weird as hell, and totally engrossing.

5. Share 3+ images that give a feel for your novel

(Quin aboard the stolen starship)

Main Character

6. Who is your protagonist?

Quin Gadara

7. Who is their closest ally?

Her mentor, Maddox. Her implanted armor came from his, and he’s training her to become a spy like him. They share a subconscious bond, so he can sense if she’s afraid or in pain no matter how far apart they are.

8. Who is their enemy?

Primarily Nadira, a silver-tongued hacker.

9. What do they want more than anything?

To reach her mother before anything terrible happens to her.

10. Why can’t they have it?

It’s going to take three weeks to travel from Gallanthius to the planet where Quin’s mom is being held. Quin can only hope she’s all right, and that the wrong people haven’t gotten there first.

11. What do they wrongly believe about themselves?

She doesn’t always have faith in her abilities, and doesn’t always believe she’s spy material.

12. Draw your protagonist! (Or share a description)

She’s tall, like 6’5, with very long curly hair, brown skin, and a surfer’s physique. She has a warm smile and dark eyes. She often carries a sniper rifle, but thinks it’s a bit overkill.

Plot Points

13. What is the internal conflict?

Is this my fault? Is it hopeless? Am I hopeless?

14. What is the external conflict?

Quin, Maddox, and Ash go on the run from their handlers when they’re forbidden from chasing after her mom.

The starship they steal may have been taken over by gigantic squid creatures.

Nadira has been sent to track them down. She’s also after them for reasons of her own.

15. What is the worst thing that could happen to your protagonist?

Nadira intends to capture them. If she succeeds, they will be tortured and their memories wiped.

16. What secret will be revealed that changes the course of the story?

Maddox and Ash’s mentor, Aneke, has to do with everything.

17. Do you know how it ends?

Yep!!

Bits and Bobs

18. What is the theme?

Learning to trust. Facing trauma and the past. Learning the truth even if it hurts.

19. What is a reoccurring symbol?

Butterflies, bees, birds, black/white, monochrome/color, ancient/modern, a single bullet

20. Where is the story set? (Share a description!)

There are three main settings,

Gallanthius—the heart of the empire, a city grown in the impact crater where an ark hit the planet. From space, it looks like an enormous eye surrounded by ocean. A rocky mountain range rings a shallow sea, which encircles the city. The cream-colored marble buildings are still growing although some of them reach past the stratosphere. Pink-blossoming trees are ubiquitous year-round.

The starship—a labyrinth, the size of about 5 Enterprises stuck together. It’s been abandoned for centuries and in most places it’s impossible to tell humans were ever there.

Sancta Salubria—a city on planet Hale, where Quin’s mom has been taken. It’s situated between ocean and desert, centered around a famous shrine, and covered in apple trees.

21. Do you have any images or scenes in your mind already?

Yes, lol. I’ve been working on this book for 2 years and some months now. Currently slogging through the second draft.

22. What excited you about this story?

The world. The stakes. A small cast, so the character arcs are complex (sometimes overwhelmingly)

23. Tell us about your usual writing method!

I have a disaster of a notebook that I jot down ideas in, and iron out issues when I get stuck. I started with a general outline, but I still wing it pretty often. I like to listen to music, mostly industrial and electro.

#novel prep tag #writeblr #my novel

16 notes · View notes

highschoolharrier · 5 years

Photo

Mark Stenbeck is the head coach at Dakota Ridge High School in Colorado who recently finished 3rd at Nike Cross Nationals.

High School Harrier: Your boys program is coming off a 3rd place finish at Nike Cross Nationals a few weeks back. What did it mean to your program to finish that high?

Mark Stenbeck: I think there are two angles here. First, the meaning and context for us who lived the experience and were fortunate enough to succeed together and second being the long term effect on the program. For the first, it was an incredible, memorable ride. It meant a great deal to the guys and our staff and school. Winning State was a big deal and that was amazing to us, then to win NXR Southwest and ultimately have the NXN experience like we did, it was really really special moments for all of us involved. Like any team that gets there it was a ton of hard work so to reap the rewards was really special. Long term we hope it galvanized our program across the board. I am eagerly awaiting track season to see how the stimulus of the NXN racing experience will impact those who ran it. For those that didn’t run I am hopeful they will find the needed inspiration to put in the work and race with the intelligence and passion necessary to improve.

HSH: While many expected you program to be a national caliber team this year, very few expected for the boys to be just 38 points out of first place when it was all said and done. What was the driving force this year that propelled your team to achieve these heights?

MS: We knew we could be special this year if we just stayed with our process. The outcome would take care of itself. So we made “Process over Outcome” our mantra. September 21, 2018 at Dave Sanders Invite was a massive day for us. We went in wanting to finally prove ourselves against Mountain Vista. Jon Dalby and Eric Selle and I are super close friends and we have been chasing them for a few years now. We finally had the talent and passion to get them and yet going into that race we were down Ben Morin from our lineup. So we had some nerves, but yet we had tremendous resolve. We had to have 5 guys get the job done that day and they did so big time. To beat Mountain Vista that day was immense. You have to understand how great they have been for years now in Colorado to appreciate that moment. They hadn’t lost by more then 10 points in a meet where they ran their top kids in six years and only had been beaten by 2 points on two occasions the last 4 years. They were 3rd in the nation at NXN in 2017. They are…”the bar”. Mountain Vista has made everyone in this state better by showing us the way to get there. So we owe them a ton in terms of inspiration and setting themselves up as the “mountain top”. We were able to ascend to the top this year because we had them as muse. Beating them by as much as we did and really just keeping our foot on the gas pedal when we faced them was key all year.

There was a moment this year when we finally cracked the top ten on Flo50 at #7. I came to practice that afternoon and said to the boys…”if you can be 7...you can be 1”. We knew we had an outside shot at Loundon Valley and Great Oak. We had been watching them all year and on our best day we felt we had the right mix to have a shot at winning the whole thing. Jacob White’s ascension to super sophomore and Ben Piegat’s rise this season was integral in that thinking. I honestly wonder if Ben Morin had been able to be healthy all year if we could have pulled it off. Ben was capable of finishing ahead of Jacob White and being our three. So we will always wonder what could have been if he had been healthy all year. He missed about 6 weeks at the worst time late August to Early October. At the time he got hurt he was fitter and had more experience then Jacob so we have every reason to believe he was going to be our number 3 this year. In the end we are very happy with what transpired. Our season was so special.

HSH: What was the race strategy coming into the race and how well did the boys follow it?

MS: There was no “strategy” other than to be ourselves and race like we had all year. We knew we had to have 2 guys in the top 10 of the team score, and Jacob and Ben Piegat be close together and we felt like Ben Morrin and Riley Abrashoff were capable of being special enough to give us a chance to get on the podium or win. After NXR, we did a few things to get ready. I had the boys watch a few past races on the current course. They had input, based on what they saw, in what we thought it might take to succeed in the race. It wasn’t so much strategy as it was looking for common themes in successful races there. Races are never the same and they are random. I strive to have our kids ready for anything. In so doing you never box them in with a specific strategy. When you tell a kid to do this or that they get in their head that that has to take place to be successful that day. So while we talk about basics of racing, we also talk about not freaking out if those things don’t happen like you expected. Keeping things simple is best for high school kids under immense pressure to perform at the levels we get them to nowadays. Probably the best “strategy” we talked about was having fun, enjoying the moment and running for each other. We spent some time talking about our inexperience as being our strength going in. When you’re “experienced” that can mean a couple of things. If your experience is frustrating or bad in previous contests, your worried about the outcome being the same. So you take measures to reassure yourself that it won’t be the same again. Be it psychological or physical you're trying to eliminate the bad experience from your mindset. If you had a great experience and you “know what to do”, you tend to try and recreate that again. So your mental models good or bad better or worse are based on the previous experience. When you’re a blank slate with no experience your a bit more “anti-fragile” in my opinion. It’s basically the “we have nothing to lose” mentality mixed with the “I have no idea what to do here so let’s keep it simple...and race your guts out and see what happens” strategy. I told the guys a bunch of times that inexperience is our friend here and in fact told them that it was an “advantage” in many ways. It eliminated any detailed “strategy”. About the only thing we settled on doing was to get out fast like everyone else. We had a great conversation over Thanksgiving break with our alumni Danny Carney who is now at BYU and ran a different course but talked about the overall “experience” of NXN. He helped our guys a ton with little tidbits here and there on racing well there. Essentially he gave us some “process” type thoughts on handing the experience. Our guys got a ton out of that for sure.

HSH: Coming from Littleton Colorado, how much do you think training at over a mile at altitude helped the boys when coming to Portland to run at sea level?

MS: No question we have a great thing in Colorado. So much of success in High School Cross Country is based on simple things like environment. When you can run out your back door and run on trails at 6000 feet, it gets pretty simple after that. No doubt we are a product of our environment as is Mountain Vista, Battle Mountain, Broomfield, Niwot, etc etc who have competed well at NXN in recent years.

HSH: What is the weather generally like during the summer and fall for your team?

MS: Our weather is perfect. Truly hard to beat honestly. Certainly helps in training. Don’t tell anyone. We have enough people moving here now as it is.

HSH: Do you think any boys had a breakout year for you that allowed your team to be as competitive as they were?

MS: Jacob White and Ben Piegat for sure. Ben gave up Lacrosse his sophomore year going into track/field season. He ran his first full spring track/field season with us in spring of 2018. I knew when he gave up lacrosse that was a huge piece of the puzzle for us. He answered the bell right away this fall. He was a different animal coming into the season for sure all because he had about 12 weeks more specific training with us. Jacob White was the big breakout. Once he started going off we started thinking about not just making NXN, but possibly going there to podium and or win the whole thing. He was super special starting at Dave Sanders meet September 21st.

HSH: You had one senior in the top 5 at NXN. What type of program can we expect to see in 2019?

MS: Certainly this is a huge challenge for us. Can we go on a NXN run here and be competitive for a few years nationally? You just never know. Life is random and we are not that deep to survive injuries and sickness. For our program we just need to be us. Stick to what we do, follow the process and have fun. It’s high school cross country. You run, you bond over team dinners and hard workouts and long runs. Keep it simple, get better everyday and enjoy the ride.

HSH: What is a typical week of fall training for your team?

MS: We go easy on Monday 98% of the time. We try to workout based on when the race is during the week, Saturday race means workout on Wednesday usually and Friday race means Tuesday Workout usually. Long run on Saturday if we don’t race. Outside of that I don’t adhere to any one way of business.

HSH: What amount of mileage does the typical varsity runner max out at?

MS: Good question...not even sure honestly. You read that right. I go by minutes for our training. Top level varsity guys run about 50-60 minutes 5 days a week and 70-90 minute long run based on time of year. For the ladies it’s about 40-50 minutes daily and 60-70 for long run.

HSH: Does your team do any ancillary work and if so, what do you do?

MS: We do a bunch of stuff I use from Jay Dicharry books and other physical therapy stuff. Not a ton of lifting usually but that is something we will add in here this winter. Jay Johnson is a friend of mine from a way back and we have done his stuff for years and years in our program.

HSH: How do you help to build the sense of culture in your program?

MS: Talk about the past, discuss the future, preach about caring for one another. We do this big at Team Camp over the summer. We also have as much practice as we can get. Doing fun things outside of running helps for sure. Team Dinners are essential.

Culture is built over time and it’s a never a finished product because you rotate kids out every four years right? So it’s always ongoing. Creating situations and building the capacity for culture to take hold is something coaches forget to consider I believe. Asking small logistics questions are the first step. A small thing is considering where you meet for practice everyday. How does that impact your visibility and your impact in the school? What are your daily conversations like? Are you standing in front of your kids talking for 20 minutes everyday? Are you talking just to hear yourself talk? We had a coach do that here at Dakota Ridge years ago. He just dragged practice on and on. Kids hated it. They want to get to work and talk to each other. They have homework and lives outside they need to be responsible for. You can’t waste their time with your bloviating if you’re a coach. That being said, I probably talk too much myself. Amazingly enough... small logistical things set culture as much as anything.

HSH: What was your biggest learning moment as a coach?

MS: Easy….2013 5A State Qualifying Regional here in Colorado. We show up and our team is off the wall at our team camp. Throwing frisbees, tackling each other, making weird noises. Kids were in sleeping bags doing worms in the grass and wrestling. It was more middle school then high school then anything. So here we are State qualifying on the line and racing some tough teams and we acting like it doesn’t matter. I was livid. They looked like a bunch of undisciplined immature student-athletes. I was so upset I had to walk away from the team camp. I couldn’t watch it. I could have easily blew my lid and started yelling at them and frankly I wanted to. But I walked away and went to walk the back part of the course.

Gun goes off ...those kids did the job. Girls won, first meet victory for me as head coach in my career. Boys were second. Go figure.

So the lessons I took from are:

1.Let the kids be themselves. They blow off steam and pressure in various ways. They are teenagers so sometimes the will act a fool and then go set a PR.

2. When and where and how you interject your coaching is key. Instead of yelling and creating a different scene in front of everyone I just walked away and let them be. I wonder if I had gone off if they would have been thrown off mentally? Hard to say. Sometimes what we think is right may not be right.

3. Life and coaching...it never looks the way you think it should. You can try to write the script all you want and in the end you have far less control in your life and in your coaching then you think. We search for control all the time and think things have to look this way or that because “we won’t succeed if it doesn’t look this way”. BS. Take care of the small things, be foundational at the micro level. Be adaptable, flexible, and roll with the punches. Let go of your sense of control. I figured that out that day in 2013. Been relearning it over and over.

HSH: How much parent involvement do you have in your program?

MS: We have a tremendous booster club and parent involvement. Over the years we have had such a solid family foundation because of our parents being involved. It’s a hallmark of our program if you ask me. I also talk to parents and leave my door open to them. Over the years I have learned that parents are allies. Very few are against you as coach. Open up your door to them and talk about their child and what makes them tick. If you “collaborate” instead of “wall off” with parents your going to find it a tremendous asset. You want parents at home supporting you. They will do that more when you talk with them and include them in the right way.

HSH: What advice would you give to other aspiring national level coaches?

MS: If your goal or intention as a coach is to become a “national level coach” so that you can feel good about who you are, then your in a lot of trouble as a leader of young people.

Don’t worry about become a “national level coach”. The essence of the job is creating better runners and people. Stick to reality. The large majority of coaches won’t even win a state title in their state let alone have a chance at going national. Does that make them “bad” or “unsuccessful” coaches? No way. My friend Karen Smidt who does Camp Isaiah with me, she is one of the most incredible coaches I know. She coaches in a place at Brighton High School that has immense challenges to create even a State qualifying team. Yet she dutifully and passionately does the job for her kids. She loves running, loves coaching kids to being better people and runners. She inspires me as much as anyone I know. But the real kick is when you meet her team. Every year I meet kids she coaches and they are as passionate and hungry to get better as any kids I ever meet. They mirror Karen’s passion and energy all the time. That’s what you want as a coach. That is the essence of coaching in my opinion and coaches should strive to be great in their own context. Winning awards is overrated. Winning hearts is underrated.

#colorado #crosscountry #markstenbeck #highschool #nxn

2 notes · View notes

camelfuselage2 · 6 years

Text

Fuselage Fit Out 1

Building the fuselage framework is fiddly at times, but straightforward.

The fuselage fit out is a different story.

1. Engine Ancillaries

The rotating part of the engine is in front of the firewall. Behind the firewall are the ancillary components that supply the air, fuel and spark to the engine. These are mostly cast metal, and a few are brass. I photocopied the parts legend and stuck it to a cork tile and ran double sided tape over the outlines of the parts. then I tipped the parts out of their bags, identified them and stuck them down. In this photo the engine parts have been painted, while the cockpit parts are still in white metal.

The engine parts are attached to the back of the engine mount as shown here.

I painted the centre part of the engine mount to match the engine (which is what it is representing here) and attached to it:

The air and oil pumps (top)

Twin magnetos either side of the central hole

In the actual engine these are driven from the gear wheels on the back of the crank case. I drilled shallow holes in them to take various tubes and wires.

The colour scheme is based on photographs of actual engines, with the gold parts representing brass.

The engine mount/firewall is glued to the double-thickness ply former at the front of the fuselage. This was easily done after some sanding and filing. The back of the engine is supported by the engine bearer, which is fixed to sockets in the diagonal plywood engine braces in the fuselage sides.

This is the firewall from the front.

I couldn't resist a dry fit of the lower wing.

The carburettor assembly comprises the carburettor proper, two air intake tubes, the fuel/air delivery (engine mounting) tube and the end cap. The tubes are brass and the carburettor and end cap are white metal. The air intake tubes must be bevelled on their outer ends - easy with a Dremel. The engine mounting tube is specified at 1 1/2″, which makes it stick out in front of the firewall, preventing proper engine alignment. I placed the end cap on the tube, slid the tube through the carburettor and firewall, marked where it would be flush with the front of the firewall, and cut off the surplus.

This is the carburettor assembly.

It was then a (relatively) simple matter of sliding everything into place and gluing the various parts together.

The kit contains (most of) the parts for a fuselage assembly jig.

The jig lets the builder rotate the fuselage, making it easier to add internal parts. The builder has to supply the baseboard.

This should work...

The jig is a brilliant idea spoiled in the execution. The front of the fuselage is supported by the crankshaft and can turn freely. At the rear the tail fits into a metal socket and, while it can turn, can be locked in any position by tightening a wing nut. The wing nut is the problem. The instructions caution against over-tightening as this may strip the thread on the bolt, which is actually cast metal(!) and not a steel bolt. In my kit there was no chance of that, as the bolt casting was too thin to even touch the thread in the wing nut. Perhaps a wrong size nut was supplied?

To remedy this I cut the cast bolt from the socket and glued on a steel bolt. I also had to grind out one end of the cast socket as the stern post (extended earlier to level out the tail plane) was now too long to fit in it.

Now it worked. It is a very good idea - and perfect with a proper bolt.

2. Pilot Controls

The primary controls are the rudder bar and control column, which are each made from a number of components and are hinged.

These attach to the fuselage with brackets that mount on wooden cross members at fuselage floor level. These cross members are easy to miss if you rely on the full size plan used to build the fuselage frame. I certainly missed them and for a while I couldn’t work out how the rudder bar and control column fitted in. It’s all clear in Fig.17 in the instructions, but I missed it completely. Once I fitted the missing pieces it all came together with only a little difficulty.

3. Fuel and Oil Systems

There are two fuel tanks and one oil tank. Each is made from two castings. They were simple to assemble and fairly easy to clean up. I painted them with a mix of metallic grey and semi gloss black The filler caps are brass. The oil and auxiliary fuel tanks simply drop into place. The main fuel tank is an odd shape and sits in the fuselage at an angle and is secured with metal straps. The kit suggests the copper tape used in the wings for the straps. This didn’t look right, so I used some self-adhesive silver tape instead.

The oil tank connects to the oil pump with a short pipe. The fuel tanks connect to a fuel tank selector valve with copper pipe (wire). The selector connects to the throttle/mixture controls and a pipe runs from there to the carburettor.

This is all very fiddly work.

The throttle/mixture controls are on the left of the fuselage between the main tank and the carburettor.

The pilot had to know what was going on - and so we come to the instrument panel.

I stained the plywood walnut and varnished it. The instruments are metal castings. I painted them semi gloss black and buffed the edges back to bare metal. The dial faces are simple paper cut outs. The photo is of the second attempt. I decided to make instrument ”glass” out of thick CA. I used far too much and as it cured it destroyed the dial faces. I undid everything with acetone and started again.

The instrument at the far left of the bottom row is a pulsometer that indicated engine oil flow in a glass tube. In the kit this is a metal casting, and there’s the suggestion to paint the top silver “to represent glass”. I couldn’t imagine that working. I took some of the transparent “sprue” from the windscreen of a F1 car kit, heated it gently, stretched it to make it thinner and cut it to length. This would be the glass. Then I cut the imitation glass off the top of the pulsometer and painted the bottom in brass colour. Finally, I glued the clear plastic to the metal base.

The instructions now call for installation of the ammunition boxes and rear gun supports, followed by slipping the instrument panel into the narrow gap between them. Since the backs of the instruments have to be connected to various cables and pipes, I decided to fit the instrument panel first, cable it, and then fit the ammo box and guns.

This is the piping and cabling diagram. Easy, eh?

Then, the guns

The fuel gauge and a piping T-connector were missing from the kit, so while I waited for replacements I decided make a pilot’s seat. How hard could it be?

The missing parts arrived - usual fabulous service service from Model Expo - so I put the seat on hold and finished the “plumbing”.

Left side.

The fuel gauge is the tubular device attached to the second vertical wooden spar from the left. It comes as a white metal casting. In the actual aircraft it is a glass tube between two brass fittings. I simulated this by grinding away almost all the central part. I drilled out the ends to take the copper pipes and painted them to look like brass. Then I glued clear plastic tubing over the ground down centre section to simulate a glass tube. I think that it’s quite convincing. Remember - it’s MUCH smaller than it appears on screen. The fuel gauge was a simple “liquid finds its own level” system and is connected to the top and bottom of the fuel tank by copper pipes.

Right Side

The missing T-piece is directly under the rear end of the guns. It is in the line that pressurises the fuel tank. This was done by either a “windmill” pump on a wing strut or the brass hand pump with the red top. The top of the T-piece will be plumbed into the windmill pump later.

4. Pilot Seat

The pilot’s seat was made of wicker work like a veranda chair!

In the kit it is represented by two white metal castings that have to be joined and painted to look like wicker work.

It looked pretty horrible to me, so I decided to make a real wicker work chair.

I used the seat base as a pattern to cut a plywood seat. I framed it in 1/16″ aluminium tubing and drilled holes for the “wicker canes”.

Then I had to make the upper frame. I cut another piece of tubing, drilled it and bent it. Bad idea! It cracked and broke.

In my second attempt I bent the tubing and THEN drilled it and fitted it to the seat base.

Starting the “wicker” weaving. The vertical “canes” are copper wire.

Some time later...

For the horizontal canes I raided my wife’s embroidery thread collection and made up 2-ply threads with in appropriate colour.

Then I painted the metal and started weaving.

Later still...

Then I added a buttoned real leather cushion (padded with tissue). Here it is compared to the kit item. No contest!

Finally, the seat belts, which I made from masking tape and aluminium and copper.

The instructions call for the seat to be installed now. There is a lot of control cabling between the cockpit and the tail, all of which goes under the seat, so I decided to leave out the seat for now to give me as much room as possible when installing the cables.

I installed the tail skid into the socket at the stern post. The skid is steerable in parallel with the rudder, so it has to pivot. However, It was a loose and sloppy fit, so I sleeved it with aluminium tubing to take up the slack. The skid suspension was by elastic bungee cord - simulated here with string.

The instructions now call for cross-bracing each fuselage bay with cables and turnbuckles. As with the seat, I decided to leave this till the control cables have been installed in the interest of access.

5. Tail Control Cables & Fuselage Bracing

Fitting the tail surfaces was a simple task. I lined up the tail plane/horizontal stabiliser on the fuselage drilled two holes to take tiny reinforcing nails and glued it on with thick CA, making sure that it was at 90 degrees to the fuselage. The fin and rudder simply glue into sockets on top.

Control cables run from the rudder bar to the rudder and tail skid, and from the control column to the elevators. The connections are shown in diagrams in the instruction manual.

Unfortunately, the connections are incorrectly labelled!

The control column when pushed forward (dive) should pull on the bottom control horns - a & c. This is reversed in the drawing. Similarly, the rudder connections are also reversed. Just as well I checked...

To make life easier, I built a simple jig to hold the fuselage steady - and vertical - while I ran the control cables and the fuselage bracing.

I connected the rudder first as it looked easier. I clamped the rudder and rudder bar in “neutral’ and then it was relatively easy to feed the cables (thread) from the rudder bar to the rudder and tail skid. I used (very) short lengths of 1/16″ aluminium tube to simulate cable fittings. I was pleased that I’d left the fuselage bracing off as it certainly improved access when feeding in the cables

This shows the model in the jig with the rudder and tail skid cables installed. The jig keeps the gun muzzles off the bench.

Rigging the elevators was more difficult, as can be seen from the cabling diagram. I made a tiny hook from fine gauge wire and used that to work the cables through the fuselage and onto the various fittings. It was very painstaking work. The cables have to be tight, exit the fuselage in the right place, loop over “pulleys” on the rudder bar and attach snugly to the control column. I got there eventually with the help of my little hook.

It got very busy in the cockpit floor...

Then I glued in the seat.

And rigged the tail plane and each fuselage bay with bracing wires and turnbuckles.

Back to start https://sopwithcamelbuildlog.tumblr.com

1 note · View note

zenosanalytic · 6 years

Text

Star Wars: The Last Jedi: Impermanence

So like I said, Rey’s story was probably my favorite part of the film, and it was my favorite because it played most to what I thought of as the film’s strongest points, which I identify as: dialogue, interaction, acting, its characters and, always very important to me, its Philosophy and Worldbuilding >:]

So Rey and Ren’s stories are pretty deeply intertwined, but I didn’t really get any Reylo vibes from TLJ. I def think that’s something to be worried about given that this is Disney and how that pairing would snap into convention, and the moment when they started fighting side-by-side did confuse and annoy me for a bit before I realized what it was about from Ren’s perspective(just your usually Sith assassination graduation). Part of why I didn’t get that feeling from it was that Ren’s story, while Driver’s performance was excellent, struck me as so limited and passively responding to/reflecting on Rey’s that it was practically ancillary to it. He was less his own character in the movie than a foil; a narrative device for Rey to bounce off of. Her desire to redeem him didn’t strike me that way either because Her motivation always felt to me to be about placing herself in the universe. Like: She didn’t want to redeem Kylo for his sake, or because of her feelings for him, she wanted to do it because that’s what Luke did. Which she directly says: “you ended the last war by redeeming Vader, so that must mean that’s how I will end this one, by redeeming my Vader, Kylo!” This gets into some larger ideas so I’ll back-up a bit for a sec.

Rey came to that island to find Luke, but that was really just a means to an end. Her real motivations were three-fold, two minor ones, getting Luke to go fight and getting Luke to train her, and one core motivation: finding out about herself. And these two minor ones are actually related to the core one:

if he trained her she would be his Apprentice, following his lead and teachings rather than having to figure out her own place and way; her confusion about her feelings and ignorance about herself wouldn’t matter, because he’d be giving her a purpose and clear social place. She wouldn’t have to struggle to figure out where she feels she belongs, who she feels she is and should be, and what she should be doing and why because he would be giving her all those answers.

if he went to fight she’d be the person who found Luke Skywalker, brought back The Legend to set everything Right again, and she’d have done her part without ever having to face the challenge of measuring up. Her anxiety about herself and her power wouldn’t matter because she wouldn’t be at the front of things; her role would be in the background, supporting the Real Heroes and Legends and following their lead.

So Rey’s main hope and fear, the source of both her drive and her anxiety, was always finding out about herself and orienting herself in this, for her, new social world she has dropped into, and in which she feels partly to be a stranger and a phony. That is made explicit when Luke questions her on who she is and why she’s there; iirc, her first two answers(”to bring you back, to train”) are stilted and awkward and he easily dispenses with them while her third, her confusion and fear about herself and her desire for him to help her make sense of it, is honest and heartfelt, and gives Luke real pause(and fear). Obvsl this is, on top of everything else, an analogy for becoming an adult so I’ll just get that out of the way as it’s pretty basic and not really what I find interesting about it. So her desire to redeem Ren was based not in sentiment for Ren but in her desire to fill Luke’s place. It is mainly an expression of her anxiety over feeling disconnected and socially adrift by attempting to solve it through role-modelling and repetition of her defining narratives; by abstracting her life via metaphor to the Legends she holds dear, and out-sourcing the anxiety of decision to the surety of history, though she doesn’t really understand the people involved in those events, and their experiences don’t really map to her circumstances.

So the whole “redemption” thing never struck me as romantic, because her interactions with Ren and desire to Redeem him were pursued for abstract immediate reasons in service to psychological primary ones. Affection and attraction had nothing to do with it. She does come to share a common feeling with Ren(quite directly in that they, as aware Force-Sensitives, can feel each others’ emotions and thoughts), but this is never affection; never sexual or romantic attraction. Rather it is true Sympathy; a recognition of emotional and contextual similarity. She sees her conflict, confusion, and unmooredness reflected in his own, though distorted by his different particulars.

And not only does she see his confusion and chaos(mirroring her own), but she also feels the stability and control he can exercise within that via his ambition, sense of purpose, and historical nihilism[1]. As someone in conflict, she wants that stability so she seeks to understand it where she finds it(Luke certainly isn’t displaying any). In a similar way and for similar reasons, though with some morbid inversions, Rey needs to understand how he could choose to throw away the family, friends and easy affection -the connections- which she most wants because she’s never had them. Her social universe, made up largely of people who knew him and who he abandoned, is filled with all these potentials for the affirmation and acceptance which she most desires, and which he destructively rejected. She has little idea how to cultivate these connections which he was born with -has never even been able to have them(until Finn[2])- and so she’s anxious about Fucking Up and, in one of these morbid inversions, is partly drawn to Ren as someone who has had them. As, I think, has been clear since TFA(and is powerfully and repeatedly reinforced in TLJ), Rey sees herself as abandoned and thrown away; she conceives of herself as an outsider but, more than that, as one who was rejected as “not good enough” and “not wanted”. Ren threw others away, chose to be an outsider, and she also needs to understand that because it’s inconceivable to her that anyone would make such a choice. That he knows Han loved him, and doesn’t hate Han(even, in fact, still says he loves him), makes this even more incomprehensible to her, which makes her need to understand stronger. And not only in an abstract sense of curiosity; by understanding why he threw away people and how he feels about that, she seeks to understand why she was thrown away, whether she was truly unwanted, and through that seeks the validation of her hopes for what her parents felt for her; seeks a morbid reflection of Ren’s murderous “love” for his father in an abandoning “love” in her parents. That’s why Ren’s “I didn’t hate him” line is so important, and why it hits her so true. That’s why she reaches out to him(beside the control and his place as foil to her own desires). In some ways he reflects her, but in others he is a surrogate for those who rejected her and her reaching out to him is part-and-parcel with her desire to understand them.

Which brings up another interesting part of her narrative, and this is where TLJ’s take on the The Force starts to get involved and developed. Luke defines The Force differently than Kanata did, not as an energy that “moves through and surrounds every Living thing”, but as the Energy between and connecting all things: its Flow, its Tension, and its Balance. Rey’s stated motivation, her greatest desire, is to know what her place is. But her real, unstated motivation is To Belong, because she’s never Belonged with anyone, she was always alone, and she thinks knowing her place will show her who she Belongs with[3]. This is her driving Tension -the source of Tension- in her story; the thing she wants most in the Universe. Which ties it to The Force; Tension is explicitly mentioned as an expression of it. Building on this, there is a place beneath the island associated by Luke with “The Dark Side” -a pool in a cave, one wall of which seems to be ice- which the movie explicitly aligns with this precise Tension: Rey is drawn to it, feeling that she will find answers about her parents(her Belonging) there. There are other metaphysical things about this place I’ll get to later: what’s important right now is this connection: Rey, to Tension, to The Force, to this Place, to the Dark Side. Taking this as an archetype and looking at the other Force users in the film, we can see a possible pattern: Ren’s Tension is the desire to be strong and measure up to, then surpass, then be free of, his heritage; to be without “weakness”, as he sees it: restraint, connection, and sentiment; To “Let the Past Die”, and be Free to pursue his own will/strength as and when he wishes. Giving in to that leads him to the Dark Side. Luke’s Tension was Anxiety over living up to his own Legend and being able to Defeat “The Dark Side”, and indulging in that Tension on one terrible night precipitated Ben’s final alienation. So the film seems to be arguing that this Tension in the Force is what the Jedi-culture(and thus Sith-culture) considers “The Dark Side of the Force”. This doesn’t just advance compelling worldbuilding; it situates Rey’s central conflict and motivation within that Worldbuilding; within her larger world. I find this sort of structural integration with character narratives really satisfying, and it brings an added meaning to conventional movie techniques for displaying emotion by projecting it onto the world(like placing her most intense moments of confusion, danger, and inner-conflict within environments of darkness, storms, cold, and wetness during times, for instance).

Thinking about it, I feel like maybe you could expand this(and thus The Force) to being a central theme of the movie? In each “Good” character’s narrative there is a Tension driving them which they, over the movie, learn to let go of(which, in turn, leads to their naturally fulfilling it). Luke lets go of his sense of failure at continuing the Jedi, finding peace and ensuring the Jedi continue. Poe lets go of his desire to Lead through Action and Heroics, which saves the remaining Resistance, especially their pilots, and in doing so becomes the leader he wants to be. Finn lets go of his myopic desire to get back to Rey and escape the First Order and starts to really fight for the ideas and people important to him, which leads him to defeat the FO personified by Phasma, brings him back to Rey, and ensures both their safety. It is in letting go that people achieve balance and fulfillment in this story. Conversely, Ren gives in to his desires for Power and Escaping the Past by destroying it, and thus ends up being entrapped by them, like the tragic, hubristic lead of an ancient Greek play. That idea of Enlightenment, Freedom, and Fulfillment coming from letting go, and suffering coming from holding on, is Very Buddhist and Very, Very Zen, which finally brings me to my Favorite aspect of this film ^u^ ^u^ ^u^

I’m obvsl not the first to draw a connection of inspiration between The Jedi and Zen(I’m actually pretty sure Lucas even said as much at one point, but I’m too lazy to look it up rn), but the return to a more Original Trilogy, Zen treatment of the Jedi and The Force is something I loved So Much[4]. The main Tension in this narrative is between the characters while the world is just... there in its Suchness, surrounding them, and they’re in it, and part of it, and their reactions to its Impermanence. Life lives and dies and lives again; matter is built, torn down, and built again; all physical things are locked within a Permanent cycle of Impermanence, and The Force is the sinew binding it all together, the Energy flowing permanently through the impermanent. And understanding and accepting that, even unconsciously, brings about release from pain, internal balance, and true fulfillment. Hence Rey’s Tension/Desire, and the Balance she achieves when she lets go of it; admitting her fears about her past and her desires for it without letting them control her. Hence Ren’s failure to achieve balance and freedom by giving in to the Tension of his Ambitions; his past, quiet literally in the projected “ghost” of his master, defeats him. Hence Rey’s Flow with The Force when she realizes the pattern set before her(the Rocks at the end; a clear callback to Luke’s earlier comments, and to Luke’s training with Yoda on Dagoba which the Island sequence is a reference to, and Luke’s line about “moving rocks” a direct quote from his Dagoba training).

And, in typically ironic Zen fashion, by giving up on her Desire to find where she Belongs, by accepting her greatest fears of the truth and meaninglessness of her natal rejection, Rey is inevitably brought precisely to where she Belongs: to the embrace of Finn and her new found family within the Resistance. I know at this point I’m repeating myself, but this is why the complaints about Rey “not training” never really flew[5]; one doesn’t need to “learn” how to “use” the Force, one already can “use The Force” because One is already attuned with it simply by existing. One is “Born Enlightened”, as it were. What one must do is “get out of the way”; not Try to move something with The Force, but allow The Force to Flow Through You and connect you to the universe such that your Will and its Will become one, and the thing you wish to occur occurs(and, conversely, you play the role you are meant to). TFA Got this, but TLJ both Gets it and explicates it explicitly to the audience.

The whole destruction/giving away/loss of iconic objects plays into Impermanence as well. Most obviously there is Yoda’s “the books don’t matter” comment to Luke, which is one of Zen’s most famous aspects; it denies a doctrinal, textual past, and gives primacy to the experience and learning through experience(though obvsl there ARE Zen books and doctrines; so another similarity :p). More broadly is the “suchness” mentioned earlier: Physical existence is As it Is, and also impermanent. TLJ confuses things a bit though because, while Buddhism acknowledges that all physical things are impermanent, it also recognized the impermanence of immaterial things like ideology, family and connection. Zen is particularly “rigorous” on this point through its (mis?)understanding of the doctrine of “voidness”, or Sunyata. Zen interprets the Heart Sutra,

Oh, Sariputra, Form Does not Differ From the Void,

And the Void Does Not Differ From Form. Form is Void and Void is Form; The Same is True For Feelings, Perceptions, Volitions and Consciousness

often taken as the primary text for this doctrine, as an affirmation that physical reality, identity, ideology -all Things- are “empty” projections of Void or “Nothingness”, which is the true reality which Enlightenment is direct awareness of and communion with.

TLJ, and SW in general, fumbles and commits the common Euro error of replacing a Buddhist conception of impermanence, and Zen conception of “Void”, with Platonic ideas preferencing the immaterial as “divine, immortal, and Real” in opposition to the flawed, illusory “mortality” of physical reality. So TLJ, while destroying or giving away important items, consistently ties that to the message that the ideals and concepts/feelings/ephemera those items symbolized or taught -Family, Relationships, Freedom and Justice and Democracy, oneness with The Force, The Resistance, Identity, Agency, Heroism, etc- are what is Truly Important and Lasting as opposed to immaterial possessions. That’s not very Buddhist and, in particular, it’s not very Zen, as Zen not only denies the permanence of both physical and ideal things, but makes a point of encouraging one to appreciate the impermanence of existence, material and immaterial, and to see an ultimate unity, rather than opposition, between material and immaterial, through their impermanence and Voidness. Star Wars includes many visuals that are true to this tradition(Luke’s final scene in TLJ, for instance, is an excellent example, especially as it is an obvious symbol of his life as a whole, and represents his attaining a final, complete community with The Force), but then it undermines it a bit with this far more prominent Idealism which, while |:T, is sadly expected and so I don’t let it bother me.

Though, from a fan perspective, I LOVE the idea of their being doctrinal disagreements about the nature of The Force among Force-sensitive and Force-using communities. It helps to make the world and its possibilities bigger if this fictional world reflects the uncertainty, and inevitable multiplicity of opinion, of real life. And, obvsl, it both creates more space for fans to fiddle around in, and presents an easy justification for doing so(well This, my own Personal Jedi Sect, thinks THIS...) >:] >:]

And, obvsl, Zen Yoda is Best Yoda, and reinforces the Zen treatment of The Force as well. Luke’s sarcasm and leaf-swatting of Rey was also a nice callback to the ole Swamp Hermit, and to Zen, which has in its history some pretty famously crotchety Teachers.

Ok, I think that’s it on this topic. If I come up with anything else about Zen, The Force, the TFA trilogy’s Force-Users, and TLJ, I’ll make another post and mutually link the posts. Thanks for Reading ^v^

[1]”nihilism” isn’t really the word I want here, but I can’t entirely metaphorically grab the term/concept I’m reaching for |:T I mean his whole insincere “let the past die” schtick

[2]Well there’s also BB-8, but I’m not sure if she feels that’s the same. She certainly knows her way around droids, and one gets the sense she likes them and gets on well with them, but at the same time she clearly doesn’t see her relationships to droids as being as fulfilling as those she has with biologicals; her responses to people are just much more intense and invested. Or Maybe this is just part of the Series Bible for SW: that bio characters generally not respond to droids like their equals, even if they are friendly and respectful towards them. The position and condition of Droids is a Whole Other Topic re: Star Wars, Politics, and Philosophy though, so I’ll stop there ftm.

[3]This is one thing about the story that makes Reylo worries understandable, I think, because one of the possible answers the film presents Rey as considering is “with Ren”, and there’s fundamentally a romantic implication in that. They’re both young Force-Users. They’re both, obvsl, very attractive and conventionally “fit”. They’re both conflicted, confused, and searching for answers which is a frequent romantic prelude in film. Moreover he presents himself as having answers to her questions and is obvsl trying to seduce and dominate her in ways that anyone who has ever dealt with passive-aggressive manipulators like him can recognize. Which are -again; sadly- common cinematic harbingers of romance and sex. The movie certainly plays with this, but while watching it I always felt that it was for effect, for characterizing Ren and their interactions, and I thought Ridley’s performance both completely refused to reciprocate this and presented a... unstated awareness of and resistance to Ren’s overtures. Which is why it didn’t ping me as “legit Reylo” and cause concern; she was aware of and quietly guarding against his bullshit even while seeking to understand him and learn from their connection. And this was all subtle and silent, conveyed purely through her physicality and line-delivery.

[4]Though, obvsl, it was rather shallow and aesthetical in the OT, like most early Euro attempts to adapt the concepts.

[5]aside from Luke’s training being all of “shot in the butt by a laser ball while blindfolded” before he blew-up the Death Star, and Rey getting more moments of Force failure than his missing the bullseye once and going for another pass

#Star Wars #The Last Jedi #Zen Buddhism #Buddhism #SW Worldbuilding #Movie Reviews #zA's Outside Viewing #analytic posts

6 notes · View notes

bmalegal · 5 years

Text

8 trends shaping today’s senior housing

The ranks of those age 65 and older are swelling by the thousands every day. Is there an opportunity for your firm in the seniors housing market?

Dana Strand Senior Apartments, a 100-unit New Urbanism complex in Los Angeles, designed by KTGY Architects for ROEM Development

With more than 10,000 baby boomers turning 65 every day, the demographics are smiling on the senior housing market segment. Although the overwhelming majority of boomers will continue to live in their own (or someone else’s) home or apartment, 5-8% of them will ultimately opt for seniors-only multifamily housing, according to David Schless, President of the American Seniors Housing Association (www.seniorshousing.org). Americans born between 1946 and 1964 number 76 million, so that small minority adds up to as many as six million boomers needing generation-specific housing.

To clarify, ASHA classifies senior housing—residential settings with a minimum age requirement, usually age 55—in five categories: senior apartments, independent living (IL), assisted living (AL), nursing care (NC), and continuing care retirement communities (CCRCs). According to the “2012 NIC/ASHA Seniors Housing Construction Trends Report” from ASHA and the National Investment Center for the Seniors Housing and Care Industry (www.NIC.org), there are an estimated 2,099,616 seniors housing units in the top 100 metro markets and 2.9 million nationwide.

The senior housing segment fell off the cliff along with the rest of the housing market during the recession, but it has bounced back in the past couple of years. In 2011, this market had its best performance since its peak years of 2006–2007, with more than $25 billion worth of transactions closed, according to NIC.

As of March 31, 2012, a total of 25,369 units for independent living, assisted living, and nursing care were under construction, with another 17,272 senior apartments in the works in the top 100 metros, according to the 2012 NIC/ASHA survey.

Another indication of the market’s strength is recent investment by real estate investment trusts. “Three or four REITs have been purchasing multiple properties, in some cases paying significant amounts,” says the ASHA’s Schless. One of these was Toledo-based Health Care REIT Inc., which last August purchased Sunrise Senior Living for $844.6 million in cash.

Given the favorable demographic trends, senior housing is increasingly seen as a relatively safe investment. Nonetheless, it may take a few more years for demand to fully crank up. That’s because the target population may choose to stay in their homes longer than previous generations did. “Due to advances in health and technology, the new thought is that baby boomers will not need assisted living facilities until around the age of 75,” says Trey Sanders, Regional President in the Kennesaw, Ga., office of contractor Brasfield & Gorrie.

1. Provide unique—or at least distinctive—amenities. 2. Overcome the negative preconceptions of senior housing. 3. Enable seniors to age in place. 4. Provide memory care services. 5. Integrate seniors into the larger community. 6. Accommodate ancillary services. 7. Play up the marketing value of sustainability. 8. Look into the Greenhouse Project model.

Simply because the sector looks favorable, however, don’t be fooled into thinking that means your firm can just keep churning out whatever worked in the past. Today’s seniors have a definite mindset about what they want in retirement communities. “It’s not a case of build it and they will come,” says Schless. “The project has to be well conceived, well located, and well operated.”

Following are eight critical points to address when programming and designing a senior housing project.

1. Provide unique—or at minimum distinctive—amenities.

Don’t underestimate the competitive nature of the senior housing market. Filling new or renovated independent and assisted living projects is no walk in the park. Average occupancy rates in senior housing have been hovering in the 90-93% range over the past few years, but owners would like to see those rates in the mid- to high-90s, says Schless. The more successful your development is, the more likely it will draw competitors—all the more reason why unique or distinctive amenities are absolutely necessary.

Sometimes a site comes with its own marketing edge—a location near a vibrant urban core or up-to-date suburban shopping mall. In such a case, adding a walking trail or sidewalk to connect to such an amenity may be all that’s needed. “In a perfect world, you would have a Panera Bread, a Starbucks, and a wellness center right in the neighborhood,” says Gene Guszkowski, AIA, Senior Principal with AG Architects, Wauwatosa, Wis.

Natural features are a big plus. For instance, Parkview Living, a new Los Angeles development built by Foursquare Foundation, is located across the street from Echo Park. “The park has a wonderful walking trail,” says Manny Gonzalez, AIA, LEED AP, Principal, KTGY Group. “Those sorts of nearby amenities are home runs.”

Hebrew SeniorLife, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School, was fortunate to acquire the largest piece of undeveloped land along the Charles River—162 acres of well-preserved woodlands and fields—for NewBridge on the Charles, in Dedham, Mass. Bordered on three sides by the river, the site is as close to a pristine natural area as you can get within 20 miles of Boston.

“In some ways, the site sold itself,” says Ruth Stark, Hebrew SeniorLife’s Corporate Director of Marketing. The project reached the 70% pre-sale goal it needed to obtain financing. Pitching the project to lovers of the outdoors, Hebrew SeniorLife preserved as many trees as possible and added walking trails that connect with public trails.

Opened in 2009, the development is now fully occupied, with 256 independent living units: 50 cottages (private homes grouped in clusters of two, four, or six units); 24 villas (large corner-unit apartments in small buildings); and 182 one- and two-bedroom apartments, ranging in size from 825 sf to 2,003 sf.

Projects not blessed with natural or man-made attractions have to create their own. In Portland, Ore., 12th and Burnside is a six-story, 132-unit development that lies several miles from downtown. The developer, Foursquare Foundation, added first-floor retail space, including a café, courtyard, and roof terrace, to make up for the lack of such amenities in the neighborhood.

Senior apartments Multifamily properties restricted to adults at least 55 years of age. Community rooms, social activities. No central kitchens or meals provided to residents.

Independent living Central dining facility offering at least one meal a day. Housekeeping, transportation, emergency call, recreation, social programming.

Assisted living State-registered properties that provide same services as independent living plus activities for daily living: medication, bathing, dressing, toileting, ambulating, and eating. Twenty-four-hour protective oversight. May include memory care.

Newer luxury and affordable senior housing projects are also adding interior common spaces for residents to pursue hobbies. “There’s been an explosion in amenities such as woodshops, arts and crafts rooms, and spas,” says David Hoglund, FAIA, Principal/Executive Director in the senior living practice at architecture giant Perkins Eastman, New York, N.Y.

At Heritage Oaks Senior Apartments, a 50-unit apartment community for low-income seniors in Oakdale, Calif., KTGY learned from focus groups it conducted in the pre-design phase that future residents—especially men—would miss the opportunity to tinker in their garages. So Gonzalez designed a hobby and craft studio that resembles a 1950s-era suburban residential garage. Adorned with workbenches, a dartboard, and a chrome table and chair set with 1950s-era Ford automotive logos, the garage, with its adjoining patio, has become a popular hangout.

Providing such distinctive elements could be even more essential to success as the senior housing market heats up. “Over the past 40 years, we’ve seen many different design themes used in the market—Tuscany, Williamsburg, Key West,” says AG Architects’ Guszkowski. He says he’s concerned that senior living could get commoditized––or what he calls “McDonald’s-ized.”

Innovation can provide a knockout punch to a project’s marketing efforts. For the Burbank (Calif.) Senior Arts Colony, a 141-unit apartment complex with affordable and market-rate units, KTGY came up with a unique offering to serve its local population of retired TV and film industry professionals—a studio where residents can make their own independent films.

“Having an identity is critical,” says KTGY’s Gonzalez. “Get the owner, the interior designer, the landscape architect, and the rest of the team together and spend a day brainstorming to come up with something different from what the competition is doing.”

2. Overcome the negative preconceptions of senior housing.

The stigma associated with traditional nursing homes, with their clinically stark semi-private rooms and shared bathrooms, continues to loom over the senior housing sector, particularly for assisted living. “Older people’s greatest fear is having to share the most vulnerable time of their lives with a stranger,” says L. Bradford Perkins, FAIA, Chairman and CEO of Perkins Eastman. “There are a couple of million skilled nursing units out there, and 80-90% of the existing stock is obsolete.”

Like traditional nursing homes, today’s assisted living facilities provide senior residents so-called activities for daily living (ADLs), such as bathing, dressing, and preparing meals. Unlike nursing homes, however, they offer more privacy, comfort, and home-like aesthetics.

Design can help erase some negative preconceptions. Conveying a non-institutional look through the building’s design vernacular and finishes is a must. Designers also have to tailor spaces to meet the demands of seniors who want to keep fit—in body and mind. For example, Michael Tague, Design Director in A/E firm Nelson’s Boston office, suggests creating a public space on a floor close to living units that can be used for yoga or exercise classes.

Says Hebrew SeniorLife’s Stark, “There’s a profound interest among seniors in staying physically and mentally healthy. That’s why our programming philosophy is ‘Try something new.’”

3. Enable seniors to age in place.

In general, today’s seniors want to stay in their own homes or apartments for as long as possible. “It used to be that people retired at 65, and you would live independently as long as possible, and then go to a nursing home,” says Guszkowski. With people living longer, there is a gray period that could last decades when seniors can live semi-independently. This factor has altered the makeup of 55+ developments in recent years. “You’re seeing a decline in the percentage of units dedicated to assisted living, since assistance is provided with ADLs in independent living units,” says Perkins.

To support the goal of aging in place, units are being built with larger bathrooms to give attendants plenty of room to aid residents with their ADLs. Windows need to be easy for arthritis sufferers to open. Factors like these can determine whether existing buildings, such as an old hospital, can be converted to senior housing. If the existing bathrooms are too small and can’t be opened up, that white elephant building may not be suitable for modern senior housing, no matter how cheap the asking price.

4. Provide memory care services.

As seniors live longer, more of them will become susceptible to cognitive disabilities. As a result, senior housing projects increasingly must provide memory care units for those with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. In the past, memory care units were dark, claustrophobic spaces, says Michael E. Liu, AIA, NCARB, Vice President and Principal in Charge of Design with The Architectural Team, Chelsea, Mass. “Now, we raise window heads and increase window sizes so residents can see the sky.”

Even if your firm doesn’t specialize in senior housing, this article raises questions that could apply to your work in other building types:

How closely is your firm following changing demographic trends—age, race, ethnicity, language, gender, mobility—that could be impacting the geographical markets and building types you specialize in? Should your firm be conducting its own research (online surveys, focus groups, individual interviews, etc.) to gain insight on end-user/occupant attitudes and needs—proprietary data you can take to current and prospective clients? What additional services or components—preferably those that would produce additional revenue for your clients—should you be incorporating into your specialty building type? Could your next library include a café—or even an adjacent brick-and-mortar bookstore? What are the “negative perceptions” about your firm’s preferred building types, and how can you overcome them? If these negatives result in neighborhood opposition to your projects, what strategies can you develop to gain the community’s support? In early design, is your Building Team taking into account the long-term operations and maintenance of the building? What about the ongoing service needs of its occupants and visitors? Which marketing-related factors are truly crucial to your firm’s success in its specialty markets? Client service? Professional reputation? Performance record? Sustainability leadership? How do you know these factors still hold true?

Designers also have to take into account the so-called “sundowning effect,” the agitation that dementia sufferers can experience at sunset. Large windows can bring this on, so adjustable shades and lighting have to be used to mitigate that impact.

Memory care facilities need to provide a wide range of safety features; in particular, they must prevent patients from leaving the grounds unattended. “The reasons for cognitive frailty vary, but many memory care residents have the urge to wander,” says Liu. “We try to design memory care so there is direct access to the outside, but in a protected, enclosed area such as a courtyard.” Screening parking areas from residents’ view also helps reduce the desire to roam, he adds.

One bold experiment in memory care is the House for Betty, a multi-year research project being conducted by the Perkins Eastman Research Collaborative. Daniel Cinelli, FAIA, Principal and Executive Director at Perkins Eastman, has been leading this initiative after experiencing his late mother-in-law’s Alzheimer’s condition.

With input from the spouses of dementia patients and experts at the Alzheimer’s Association, Cinelli’s team has designed a model single-family home that addresses more than 300 elements that make it possible for a healthy spouse or other family member to provide care with minimal outside assistance. For example, the design calls for a secure, double-sided doorway that would allow medical supplies to be delivered without the doorbell being rung—something that can agitate a person afflicted with dementia. A light signals the spouse that a delivery has been made.

The first House for Betty is on hold, pending the resolution of some site infrastructure and zoning problems. Once these matters are settled, the model home will be constructed in Gaithersburg, Md.

One way senior housing developers are weaving seniors into their surrounding communities is to open up the amenities within senior housing developments to the general public. For security purposes, these facilities—eateries, wellness centers, meeting spaces, etc.—should be designed with separate entrances, one for the public, one for residents. They can also be equipped with reconfigurable furniture to accommodate various types of events—lectures, musical programs, films, and so on—that create opportunities for residents to meet and mingle with their neighbors from the surrounding community.

Some developers feed the drive for lifelong learning. The Kendal Corporation, Kennett Square, Pa., a Quaker-inspired senior housing developer, has built several such communities near colleges and universities, including those at Cornell University (Ithaca, N.Y.), Oberlin (Ohio) College, and Denison University (Granville, Ohio).

Lasell Village, on the campus of Lasell College, Newton, Mass., is not a Kendal community, but it plays a similar role. It houses 225 residents in its independent living apartments and dozens of others in assisted living and skilled nursing units. Residents participate in hundreds of on-site courses, lectures, cultural events, and physical fitness classes each year. Intergenerational activities for residents, faculty, and Lasell College students are encouraged.

If you can’t bring the seniors to the students, bring the students to the seniors. That’s what NewBridge on the Charles did. Hebrew SeniorLife built a K-8 day school on its site that offers multi-generational programming. “Kids learn from seniors, seniors learn from kids,” says Hebrew SeniorLife’s Stark.

Building Teams and their clients in the senior housing field must keep foremost in their minds that the great majority of today’s seniors—and the millions that are coming online every year—are looking for a vibrant lifestyle that keeps them active and engaged and thereby healthy and happy.

6. Accommodate ancillary services.

In addition to memory care, senior living communities are adding new services to fill specific needs and, not incidentally, create new revenue streams. Short-term rehabilitation is one of these. Assisted living facilities already have the expertise to provide such care, so adding rehab units could be a natural extension for them. These units are likely to be segregated from other parts of the facility, but they can be designed as additions to existing structures or connected with other units via walkways or footbridges.

Experts predict short-term rehabilitation facilities will get a boost from federal healthcare reform. The Affordable Care Act calls for penalties for hospitals that readmit patients for the same or related conditions. “Hospitals are going to want to send patients to bulletproof rehab facilities,” says Perkins Eastman’s Cinelli.

Another potential revenue stream for senior housing communities: expanded rehab space that can be leased out to physical therapy providers, whose services would be made available to residents and nonresidents alike.

Prospective senior residents have an increasingly sophisticated understanding of sustainability and take an active interest in how their housing impacts the environment. NewBridge on the Charles is heated and cooled using 400 geothermal wells; it also has vegetated roofs for reducing urban heat-island effect. These measures, and the effort to preserve the natural state of the site during construction, are like marketing gold stars. “People are drawn here by our environmental sensitivity,” says Hebrew SeniorLife’s Stark.

This does not mean that senior communities must be LEED-certified. As green as NewBridge is, management chose to forgo certification. Whether certified or not, sustainably designed senior housing developments should play up the health and indoor environment benefits of sustainability, as well as the positive impact on utility bills—even if the residents are not paying directly for utilities.

8. Look into the Greenhouse Project model.

The Greenhouse Project, a model of assisted senior living featuring small, shared dwellings with a high level of care, is growing in popularity. Groups of 10 to 12 seniors share kitchen, dining, and common areas but have their own bedrooms and bathrooms. “Residents are taken care of like they’re a big family,” says design firm Nelson’s Tague. Staff members attend to the residents’ activities for daily living and cook meals within the Greenhouse living unit. “Residents can eat when they’re hungry, instead of just at a prescribed meal time,” says Tague. “It makes the setting seem less institutional.”

The newly opened phase of the Cottages at St. Martins in the Pines, near Birmingham, Ala., consists of three-story buildings, each 22,875 sf in size. Perkins Eastman is designing an urban high-rise in Manhattan’s Upper West Side for Jewish Home Lifecare. Eleven floors of the 20-story structure will have two 12-bed units per floor, with cooking facilities in each unit.

The Greenhouse concept has earned high marks from residents and staff on projects across the country. It’s an age-in-place strategy that balances independence with just enough support for seniors to be able to stay where they are as they become frailer with age, rather than having to enter a traditional nursing home. +

Additonal resources

“2012 NIC/ASHA Seniors Housing Construction Trends Report,” National Investment Center for the Seniors Housing & Care Industry (NIC) and American Seniors Housing Association (ASHA). $150. http://www.nic.org/store/Products.aspx?ProductCategoryID=4.

Design for Aging Review 11: “Insights and Innovations: The State of Senior Housing,” Perkins Eastman Research Collaborative, on behalf of the American Institute of Architects. http://www.aia.org/aiaucmp/groups/aia/documents/pdf/aiab096294.pdf.

Recurring themes from 50 projects submitted for this biennial report: 1) connectivity to the greater neighborhood and natural surroundings; 2) designing for capability, not disability; 3) affordability-driven innovations; 4) holistic wellness; 5) blurred boundaries.

“10 Top Design Trends in Senior Living,” by Bradford Perkins, FAIA (January 2010). http://www.BDCnetwork.com/10-top-design-trends-senior%C2%A0living-facilities.

Source Article

The post 8 trends shaping today’s senior housing appeared first on BMA LEGAL.

Learn More: http://www.bmalegal.com/8-trends-shaping-todays-senior-housing/

0 notes