‘Vote’ Articles at [messenger]

Updates, minicomics & fanart

March 9, 2014 Bugbyte

Messenger is back! Weekly updates should resume on Saturday as usual from here out. Follower will continue to update on Wednesdays. Ask a Chio updates…whenever.

I spent part of this weekend updating the layout for both Messenger and Follower. Both comics are now more mobile-friendly, and should look nice on things like iPads and phones and whatever other crazy touchscreen devices people are using these days. I am still making a few tweaks, but the big changes are all done. If you spot anything that isn’t working, don’t hesitate to let me know!

The “Light” minicomic continues – you can view the latest page by voting for Messenger on TopWebcomics! I’ve also put up all the back pages in a new minicomics section as thanks to everyone for supporting the comic so far.

I also have a couple of new fan art drawings to share:

Thanks, Spartan!

And thanks to everyone else for your continued support and readership! See you next Saturday for more!

2013 Ursa Major Awards Nominations

January 29, 2014 Bugbyte

The nominations for the 2013 Ursa Major Awards are now open, and this year I’m hoping to see Messenger and Follower nominated in either of the Best Graphic Story or Best Other Literary Work categories! The Ursa Major Awards are, as written on their site:

More formally known as the Annual Anthropomorphic Literature and Arts Award, the Ursa Major Award is presented annually for excellence in the furry arts. It is intended as Anthropomorphic (a.k.a. Furry) Fandom’s equivalent of the Hugo Award® presented by the World Science Fiction Society, mystery fandom’s Anthony Award, horror fandom’s Bram Stoker Award, and so forth. Anyone may nominate and vote for candidates for the Awards. These Awards are decided by the fans, not by a committee.

I feel that both Messenger and especially Follower qualify for these awards due to the Chio storylines in both comics. Although I don’t identify as someone in the furry fandom, I know a lot of my readers do — and being nominated could help the comics reach a new audience. While I don’t think I stand much of a chance competing against some really big webcomics as have been nominated (and won) in the past, even being nominated would be a huge honor, and help both Messenger and Follower become more known.

How can you help? Visit the Ursa Major Awards site and click “nominations page,” and then either enroll to register or login if you’ve registered before. Then, add Messenger and Follower under Best Graphic Story and/or Best Other Literary Work. For clarity, you may want to submit the comics both by name with their URL, so there is no confusion – for example, “Follower – http://follower.messenger-comic.com”. Submit the form, and you’re done! It’s easy. You can (and should!) nominate other comics and media you enjoy for the other categories, as well. You can even nominate multiple things for the same category, if you like.

What’s next? The nomination period is open through February 28th. After that, if the comics were successfully nominated, you can then start voting for real on them!

If we can make it into the nominations category, I’ll come up with some kind of small reward comic. If we can get even further than that, I’ll have to think of something bigger!

As always, I appreciate your ongoing support. Thanks for reading my comics!

Comic Feature: Star Cross’d Destiny (and other news!)

April 27, 2013 Bugbyte No Comments

Star Cross’d Destiny Creator Blair (@junobean) and I agreed to swap blog posts about our respective comics, which I was rather excited about since I remember reading it “back in the day,” not too long after I started Messenger. She’s taken a long break from working on her comic to do some other awesome things like, oh, I dunno, be part of a band, go on tour, and release a couple of albums. But now that she’s back, SCD is more epic than ever, with new art, a new look, and lots to look forward to.

SCD is a sci-fi/action comic started in 2003 as a black and white, manga-styled webcomic. The story follows Juno and a band of her misfit companions, each of whom has a hidden power based on a particular element – Air, Water, Fire, and so on – in a dark future New Orleans. The comics were later colorized and updated with fresh art, which really brought a new dimension to the story. Blair often works in bits of photography as part of the background, which lends a really slick, authentic look and feel to the comic, especially since many of them are from real locations in and around New Orleans. The comic’s art has a really neat grungy-yet-stylized aesthetic, and many of the elemental visual effects are simply gorgeous to look at on their own. One of my favorite parts of reading any webcomic is watching the evolution of an artist as it happens, and SCD is no exception. Blair’s art has really matured over the years, and I personally am looking forward to watching the rest of the story as it unfolds.

I can really only recommend checking it out for yourself, as you certainly won’t be disappointed. Read the whole comic at starcrossd.net, or check out Blair on Twitter and DeviantArt. I wish her tons of luck in getting her comic started up again! (And thanks again for the opportunity to swap posts! If there are any other comics out there interested in doing a news swap, drop me a line at bug@messenger-comic.com!)

In other news, I’m still working toward my goal of making it into the top 100 comics on TopWebComics! If you vote for Messenger, you’ll be able to view the latest page of a short minicomic I’ve been posting as an incentive for voters – it’s a short story about a Chio named Teir from the same village Eldora and Finn came from. Teir is a very curious Chio, and is about to discover something not seen by her village before. If we can get into the top 100, I’ll post an archive of all the previous pages (4 so far!) of the minicomic for everyone to see. Let’s do this!

Other than that, Chapter 12 of Messenger begins today. Stuff is gonna happen. I’m excited.

Thanks for reading!

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