Webcomic Wonderland discussion

The Q&A with Madeleine Holly-Rosing will be held here in this topic on Saturday, February 23 at 3 PM PST/6 PM EST.

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A TV, feature film and comic book writer, Madeleine is the winner of the Sloan Fellowship for screenwriting, and the Gold Aurora and Bronze Telly for a PSA produced by Women In Film. She also won numerous awards while completing the UCLA MFA Program in Screenwriting. She has a short story featured in February's edition of eSteampunk Magazine called The Clockwork Man. She currently has novelettes and novellas for Kindle, Nook and Smashwords based on her webcomic Boston Metaphysical Society. Her goal is to eventually develop a series of novels based in this world.

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Please be polite, use spoiler tags if necessary and stay on topic in this Q&A. Any posts that are deemed inappropriate or off-topic will be deleted and you will receive a warning.

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Remember to refresh often!

The Q&A has now officially started!

I'm here and I'll try not to screw up the spoiler tags if I need them. :)

I'm sure you'll do great!

I'm here too. :)

Also, let my apologize up front for any typos, punctuation errors, etc. as I will be typing quickly.

Hi Alex!

My first question is: How did you start working with you partners on the webcomic, Emily Hu, Troy Peteri, Gloria Caeli and Fahriza Kamaputra?

Do you have a question?

Madeleine wrote: "Also, let my apologize up front for any typos, punctuation errors, etc. as I will be typing quickly."

That's fine Madeleine :) Also, no need to rush! Take your time!

OK. Emily I met thru a friend in my sequential art class after nine months of searching for an artist.

Troy I met at Image Expo when he came over to say hello to Christina Strain (Fox Sister) who I was sharing a table with.

Gloria and FAhriza are from Stellar Labs in Jakarta. I got them through Dave Elliott (Atomeka and A1) who I also met through a mutual friend. So it's was quite a thing to put this team together.

I'm here, the birthday celebration ended early.

Q: What makes a story "steampunk" instead of Jules Verne-esque science fiction.

I had met 6 other artists who I liked besides Emi, but they all fell through. Lucky me!! I liked her art, had her do two sample pages (which I paid her for) and off we went.

I make a point of paying whoever works for me on time and fairly as I'm just starting out in the industry and want to have a good reputation of someone you want to work for.

Hi Bill! For me it has to do with the social mores and values of the time. It's not just about the gadgets, but about the relationships and how they struggle with the cultural restraints of the time.

Meeting these people seems like it was so circumstantial. I guess we're lucky that you managed to get your team together!

The tech stuff is just fun. Trying to visualize the tech at the time and amping it up a bit or in the case of my short story THE CLOCKWORK MAN, quite a bit. LOL.

Hi Madeleine :)

Madeleine wrote: "So it's was quite a thing to put this team together."

Wow, that is quite the long journey to get the crew together. The art suits the story wonderfully. Did you have a set visual style in mind or did it evolve based on seeing Emily's art, etc?

(Devil's advocate) But what is different about the relationships in a steampunk story than in a regular novel set in Victorian times?

I had help. :) But it all came together because of relationships I had developed. Dave Elliott loved the story and the art, but I also came through a trusted reference. Very important.

@Mike I like clean lines and not a lot of fussy stuff. That's just my personal taste. I wanted the art to enhance the story not bury it. Emi did just that. :)

Madeleine wrote: "The tech stuff is just fun. Trying to visualize the tech at the time and amping it up a bit or in the case of my short story THE CLOCKWORK MAN, quite a bit. LOL."

Do you do a lot of research to get an idea of what steampunk gadgets would look like or how they would work?

@Bill Victorian times had much defined social classes. To try to break through one or the other brought real consequences unlike today. And yes, we do have social classes in the present, but it's much easier to slide into one or the other.

@Kristen Yes, I do a lot of research. I have to understand how something works so my readers can understand it as well. Or at least understand it well enough they get the gist.

Oh, yeah. Bertram and Lady G. have to deal with exactly that class stratification. ;)

Q: Any significance to Boston instead of New York, London, San Francisco or Detroit?

I'm fortunate to have a rocket scientist for a husband, so if I have questions we can sit down and discuss it. (Or I can just yell the question from my office to his. LOL. I still have to understand it though.

Madeleine wrote: "The tech stuff is just fun. Trying to visualize the tech at the time and amping it up a bit or in the case of my short story THE CLOCKWORK MAN, quite a bit. LOL."

The tech details in what I've read so far have been really awesome! Everything's well grounded and explained. Really looking forward to "The Clockwork Man"! (note for others - this is a new story in the BMS universe exclusive to this month's issue of eSteampunk Magazine)

I found the tech in "The Steampunk Rat" particularly impressive, especially when it came to Tinker. :) How did you stumble on the idea of a "cyborg" rat as a central character for a story?

@Bill Yes. I had already done the research for a script I wrote at UCLA about a late 19th century astronomer by the name of Mina Fleming. She worked at the Harvard Observatory. (The script was called STARGAZER and won the Sloan Fellowship.)

Madeleine wrote: "@Mike I like clean lines and not a lot of fussy stuff. That's just my personal taste. I wanted the art to enhance the story not bury it. Emi did just that. :)"

Totally agree. It looks great!

I'll second how well the tech is done. As a retired factory rat/engineer and machine-controls designer I haven't had heartburn yet. As someone fascinated by marine technology, too, ya' done good, Kid. ;)

@Mike My husband's partially to blame for that. On the first page of chp. 2, you see a small steampunk rat coming out of frame. Well, originally Emi forgot to draw the rats in which were in the script. So, after three passes, ti still wasn't right and my husband says, "you should have a steampunk rat coming out of frame." He was right. I liked it so much I wanted to do a story about a steampunk rat and found the cover art by Elizabeth Jackson. Then another reviewer suggested I do a story about Jonathan Weldsmore in happier times and STEAMPUNK RAT was born.

@Bill. Thank you. I try.

Q: How important are second-tier publishers (e.g. Smashwords, Kobo & al.) when publishing your stories, novellas and hard-copies? What market do they address that Amazon + Barnes&Noble don't (or don't address well)?

Did you plan Boston Metaphysical Society as a webcomic from the beginning?

@Bill Back to the Boston question...yes, I was lazy as I had already done the research. :) But I also liked how it sounded.

That's awesome! I completely missed that rat - I need to pay closer attention!

Having read Steampunk Rat first I was a bit shocked at Jonathan's portrayal when he appeared in the comic. Can't wait to find out more about him and the other supporting characters.

@Bill I think hitting all markets is important just because, well, you never know. I have had sales on Apple, Kobo and Diesel thru Smashwords, but they don't have the market share like Nook and Amazon do. I think it's important to have your stories available in all formats just so you don't annoy potential customers.

@Bill Thinking about it some more...most of my overseas sales have been thru Apple (Smashwords). (Note: I use Smashwords to distribute to everyone but Kindle and Nook. For them I upload directly.)

Back to "steampunk" -- is the steampunk world already defined by convention or is the world in BMS strictly your own creation? Snow By Night for example has created an entire fantasy world that parallels Canada and France but is complete and complex unto itself. No conventions to follow. What about BMS?

What is good/bad about the various mediums you've worked in (comics, short stories, screenwriting, etc)? Do you have a favorite?

@Kristen No. BMS was originally a TV pilot I wrote while at the UCLA MFA screenwriting program. It was well received, but hard to sell because of the cost involved. It was suggested I re-create it as a webcomic/comic to use as pre-existing material. This is marketing speak in the entertainment industry for having making a project more attractive.

In the meantime, I discovered I really like writing comics and I have ideas for BMS as well as other series.

@Mike I do know how Jonathan becomes the man you see in the comic, but I'm not sure when I'm going to write that story. A novel maybe?

As for a medium I like...well they all have their pros and cons. I really miss writing screenplays (due to time) because they are lean and clean as are comics.

What's great about comics is you can write what you want without worry about a production budget.

As for prose, it's hard, hard, hard, but it allows you to explore the world and your characters much more fully. And I love that.

@Bill Yes BMS is my own world with it's own conventions. Any resemblance to our history is entirely coincidental. LOL.

@Mike I'm currently in the middle of a fantasy middle-grade novel so that has been a challenge of a different kind.

@Mike BTW, did you get the book?

I have a sneaking suspicion I maybe a closet novelist. :)

Speaking of history, why did you choose to use Bell, Edison, Tesla and Houdini in Boston Metaphysical Society? How did you go about characterizing them?

The problem with comics is the expense of hiring an artist, colorist and letterer. You would think you could get one person to do the whole thing, but you quickly learn they are different skill sets.