So after a glorious moment of total idiocy - in which I forgot to pwd before executing a rm -rf * - old.atc has been repaired and is back to its former glory.

"Former glory" being the site as it has been since July. Hopefully I'll have something new squatting in the domain root before too long. It'll probably look a lot like the current site, with some navigational changes. I'd be contemplating a complete aesthetics overhaul, but I really haven't been able to improve on the current flavor and I really, really hate dealing with CSS.

The site's been mothballed this way to (hopefully) make the Second Edition of The Dualist easier to implement. We'll see how true that turns out to be in the coming months.

old.atc is up and running, thanks to eric.

This is mostly for archival use, though this will be where DCR and TV continue to live while I'm hacking away at the second edition of The Dualist.

Unless it isn't.

I seriously hate web work, and I've got a pile of it to choke down before I can move any project on this site - any project other than moving the main site to the old. subdomain - forward.

Tick, tock.

The Website

1. I'll need to coordinate with my webhost on this, but right now The Plan is to "burn down" ATC and effectively Start Over.

2. The current site will be moved to old.old.amongthechosen.com (which doesn't exist yet) so I can continue to access it throughout the rework. Given what the rework entails I may keep it around after, though I may Burn It Down completely.

3. The existing MT 2.x install - which handles everything on the current site - will almost certainly be replaced with an MT 4.x install for the news blog, comics, etc. and a mediawiki install to handle the cast, timelines, technology, etceteras. Edit ability won't be a public access thing for obvious reasons. Comic pages may have comments enabled, on a trial basis.

4. All that will make for a lot of re-work and effort, but will also clean up the site and lay groundwork for the pending redux of The Dualist.

The Comic : Hardcopy and Cleanup

1. DCR.1 has been readied as a vanity press document. A "first edition" at any rate. I'll be moving on this as soon as possible.

2. Transitional Voices : Earth needs a cleanup pass followed by vanity press pre-production. The intent is to make the chapter available as a grayscale comic (for price reasons) after DCR.1 has been put through the wringer.

3. The Dualist will be remastered from the ground up. See below.

4. The current plan is to split the hardcopy I produced last year into two volumes (roughly 180 pages each) with no "extras," flush it to grayscale, and vanity press the thing into existence for whoever wants the "original" 3x4 First Edition. This will be a bit of work - probably a bit more than prepping 3.1, but we're talking straight conversion with no new text or artwork. Almost a batch job. I will be keeping the existing color version - it's Not Cheap to vp, so there'll need to be some demand to justify the setup fees.

5. After all of that -^ is taken care of, work will begin on Remastering The Dualist. There will be a new introduction/prologue (already written, 4-5 pages). The pages will be re-tooled from their existing 3:4 aspect ratio to the "proper" 6:9 aspect ratio. I can do this at either 300 or 320 dpi, depending on how much downsampling I want to do. I'll need to play around with some of the more difficult pages before I come to a final decision.

The Dualist : Second Edition

1. Already detailed above, to some extent. From 3:4 to 6:9, which will involve some degree of cropping and scaling and whatnot.

2. What I didn't go into above is that I'll also be revising a lot of the dialogue. The story won't be changed, but it will be kicked around into continuity, some of the "light" conversation will be changed completely, and everything will be changed to fit with sane vehicle models while also fitting in more of the backstory if possible.

3. Speaking of, the new prologue I've planned out serves as a transition between DCR and The Dualist, providing plot-critical background to key DCR events while also giving context to the Sabrosa's mission.

4. Art will also be overhauled. I'm done with redrawing - the only new linework I intend to create for The Dualist 2e is a page in the prologue. However, I'll be doing a "scrub" of every page to correct/tweak/rebuild bits that really piss me off. Most of the effort in this case will be focused on the first four chapters, since they need the most work.

5. TD2e will be deployed in Chapters 1-8 instead of 0-7. There may be new, more "comic" covers for each chapter, or I may just retool a couple of covers that have been pissing me off. It depends. This is the main case for keeping the current site around as old.old.amongthechosen.com - all of the existing metadata references the 0-7 framework in the original out-of-sequence production timeline. While posting cleaned up 6x9 pages into a new blog install, I can simply link to the old pages for anyone who wants the old metadata. In many respects, TD2e will be a "new" comic.

6. TD2e will be cleaned up one chapter at a time. As each chapter is completed, a grayscale (and color if there is demand - both will be produced but the cheaper version will be made available, as I can afford the setup fees) version will be released through vanity press. The grayscale version will probably be censored (substitution of foul language, benzedrine instead of cocaine, etc). Both versions will include some back-pages "bonus" material - at this point, I'm thinking a formula of a ship or vehicle stat sheet, a couple of major character bios, a few minor character bios, and an Alan Moore-esque "excerpt" in the form of a Heirotus or Templar mission report which will help to develop the story. Since TD2e is an effective "relaunch" of The Dualist, there may also be a letters page. I like letters pages. While shades of the "extras" will be available on the site, you'll need to buy the hardcopy to read all of it. ;-)

7. The four page "interstitial" isn't part of the TD1e hardcopy document. It will be included in TD2e.

8. Since The Dualist naturally falls into two four-chapter books, TD2e will also be collected as two trade paperbacks, each with some extra bonus material that won't be in the chapter issues. Again, censored grayscale for sure and color if there's a demand for it. Setup pricing for a grayscale edition is really favorable for a single volume that plays by the formatting rules, so a fullblown 340-360 page edition with Even More bonus stuff isn't out of the question.

9. Yes, this is a lot of work. A minimum of six months of grind if everything goes well and I can Make The Time to progress at an acceptable clip.

10. I'm doing this because I'm really, really unhappy with a large volume of little largely-fixable things in The Dualist. I'm happy with how DCR.1 came out post-cleanup, and with the above-detailed effort, I know I'll be happier with The Dualist. So will you.

Order of Events

1. The site gets "burned down."

2. TV gets cleaned up. This may happen before the site gets nuked from orbit.

3. After that, work begins on The Dualist (Second Edition).

4. While I'm working on TD2e I'll be continuing work on DCR.2.

5. TV.2 is on hold for the indefinite future. Getting all of the above-mentioned bits done will put me in a position to make the story much, much awesomer than it is at this point in time.

So.

One step back, two steps forward.