Hi there and welcome to “Epic Fail.”  (As you can see I have high hopes for this  web comic!)  Thank you for coming, I really hope you bookmark this page and come back often, for what an adventure there is to come!

I have many thanks to give this day.  Firstly is The Webcomic Beacon and its hosts Fes and Tanya.  These are lovely people who do a webcomic podcast on a weekly basis, providing lots of useful information and inspiration to webcomicers.  Without them I would not have had the courage to start this project.  Every episode was encouragement for me.

I also owe gratitude to Zander Cannon mainly for this page with its fantastically-useful comic template.  It made drawing frames 100% easier and I use it for every page.

I’d also like to thank the friends whom I role-play with.  Their creativity is the basis for much of the plot and characters.  They also help me by reviewing new pages and giving me feedback.  Their support so far is amazing!

On the technical side I’m grateful to ComicPress for its comic publishing theme (their hard work has made publishing a comic online easy for me) and by extension Wordpress for its priceless publishing platform.

Last, but not-at-all least, is Xepher.net who has wonderfully provided the hosting for this website and all its content for free, with practically zero limitations.  They do this for many other creative individuals too, therefore I encourage you to support them to the fullest.  They are very friendly and their service has been impeccable thus far.  Cheers!

I have joined Frumphs WAR! which is a promotional competition between webcomics. I joined it late, so I’m very behind. This is an appeal to you to help me to win it!

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

Copy this and paste it somewhere:

HELP Epic Fail, a comedic fantasy webcomic, to win Frumph’s WAR! Go to http://epicfail.xepher.net – please copy this message and pass it on :)

You can also:

• Tell your friends about this great webcomic you found called Epic Fail at http://epicfail.xepher.net Pop it into twitter or messenger!
• Link to http://epicfail.xepher.net from your website, blog or anywhere on the internet. Even add it to your forum signatures.
• Add http://epicfail.xepher.net to your social bookmarks. There are handy buttons below every post on the website to make it quick and easy.
• Write something about the Epic Fail webcomic. It can be anything, but reviews or interviews are good.

It helps if you tell me what you have done. If you have other methods I have not listed to help promote my webcomic please get in touch and let me know what it is.

Thankyou so much!

Some people have asked me how I make my webcomic.  So when I did the Valentines Day bonus page I used a free screen capturing programme called CamStudio to make a video so I could show you.  It wasn’t a 1oo% sucess, so unfortunately you cannot see the whole process from beginning to end.  It should give you a pretty good idea however.

What you see is me scanning in the hand-drawn page of the comic into photoshop.  It’s not perfect so I make the lines sharper by increasing the brightness and contrast by 30, then I clean up any mistakes or fuzzy edges.  Once that’s done I select the black lines and use them to create two new layers, one called ‘linework’ the other ‘colorfill.’  Then I bucketfill the colorfill layer, saving various selections as I go to make things easier when I get to the shading.  Once this is completed I reload the selections one at a time and add shading using various brushes and the dodge and burn tools. That’s pretty much how I make Epic fail!

Anyway, I hope you find the video useful/interesting.  Hopefully I will have better luck next time I make one.

I’m either popular or an incredible net whore… I wonder if you can work out which?

Tonight I am going to be on the Webcomic Reviews and Interviews Podcast, broadcasting at 6pm EST or 11pm GMT. If you make it you can listen in live, join the chat and have the opportunity to ask me questions. If you miss it it will be available for download afterwards.

My next big news if that Martin has a cameo in Between Places, a lovely webcomic with truely beautiful artwork. The story is complicated, and a little confusing at the beginning, but as it develops it all starts to come together and is a very engaging read which I thoughroughly recommend. It seems likely that Martin will cameo in future pages if that’s any incentive.

I also received a new piece of fan art.  This was done by Steve who runs the game this comic is based on.  He also wrote a review to try and help me in Frumph’s webcomic WAR! Thanks Steve!

Finally I have decided to have so cameos in my comic. There is a crowd scene coming up which currently looks pretty pathetic (see below). I think cameos would brighten it up nicely. Due to the setting I am requesting humans or close-to-human characters. However I am also planning to make a larger wallpaper of this scene, which could have extra characters in it including aliens, furrys or whatever. So if you want your characters to appear in Epic Fail get in touch, otherwise I might not include them.

I have new fanart kindly done for me by my friends to help me in the webcomic war. Okay, it wasn’t spontaneous, I bugged them a bit. It’s great nonetheless.
It’s prompted me to try and get the Fan Art Gallery sorted out. It isn’t quite to my liking yet, but you can see some of the fanart I have done for other webcomics and I will be adding more.

Concerning the interview I talked about in my previous post it was scrapped due to poor sound quality, but we’ll be trying again as soon as we’ve worked out what the issue was.

I have three new pieces of fanart to show you all. First up Barry Linck, of the webcomic Phineus: Magician for Hire, has drawn the whole team! His comic, like mine, has roots in role-playing. I suggest you check it out.

Next we have two peices done by friends of mine. ‘There is Clodin: natural state’ (which is to say he dies a lot) by Jonjo. This is something of a spoiler but not-really. I have begun to describe Clodin as a stick of dynamite: you can be sure he’s going to blow up; whether anyone goes with him depends on how close they’re standing!

‘Lady Clodin’ by Jason is just… wrong. It poses the question ‘Would Dwarfs die less if they looked like this… or would the beard still be a
problem?’

Interestingly this led to a whole debate on female Dwarves.  Are there female Dwarves?  Do they look just like the men?  If they are so indistinguishable could Clodin, in fact, be a woman?  Our favorate theory was that Dwarves are like bees: they only have one female – the Queen, who is an enormous, fat Dwarf that all the others ’service.’  Have I given you disturbing mental images?  I’m so sorry.

Epic Fail has had a really lovely, positive review at The Soulless Machine, a review blog covering short stories and other stuff. It’s a good place for discovering new literature that’s somewhat outside the mainstream, and is very supportive of small press and self-publishers. You can read their review of Epic Fail here.  I hardly need add that I’m chuffed as ninepence.

In other news, I’ve registered the domain name www.comicofepicfail.com which I think is more memorable and easier to pass on to people verbally. I tried to get epicfail.com by preorder but, alas, did not succeed. I fear it is just too popular a term for me to stand a chance.

I’m still looking for webcomic cameos to appear in a crowd scene on page 11. I’m mainly looking for human characters since these are the dominant race in my world, but I will accept a few from other races. The sooner you let me know that you would like your characters included the more likely it is they will be. I will also be making a bigger version of the scene as a free wallpaper.

Just to remind you I still need support in the webcomic WAR! I’ve already promised to post a picture of myself in my underwear if I win, but there is likely to be some other kind of extra content to reward my loyal fans in the event of a victory! So please do a little something, and thankyou all.

I’ve made an animated video as a final appeal in these last few promoting days of Frumph’s WAR! This week we can only gain points for promotion done outside the webcomics community, so I’m hoping this’ll get spread around different blogs and websites. Viral videos FTW!
This is my first attempt at lip-syncing. It didn’t go too badly :p
I had some technical difficulties with this, but Dungeonwarden helped me.
I’d also like to thank Dave Brendon for reposting this video alongside a review on his weblog. Cheers!

I just got this fabulous piece of fanart from Sean Harrington of Spying with Lana. It’s of Martin, with his shirt off, looking extremely buff and attractive – as indeed he should! It’s nice for him to get the chance to show his muscles off as they are usually hidden by his armor.

Inked in black & white with red as an accent colour Spying with Lana is a titillating action webcomic with a hint of humour. It throws you right into the middle of the plot, with storys told on a case-by-case basis, generally involving sexy Lana getting naked along the way! The comics are grouped as a storyline per page so they are easy to read by scrolling down. So far they seem pretty stand-alone so this is easy to get into. You should definately check it out.

Today I recieved this brilliant, action-packed piece of fan art from Phil Shaw of Sacred Pie. It’s of Martin, Clodin and Amuletts versus a Cave Troll. I really appreciate the attention to detail here and especially the character nuances. It’s a wonderful mix of action and humour – I only hope I can do as well when I get to the big fight scenes! At least I know who to go to for advice.

Sacred Pie is an epic science fiction webcomic. It begins with a mysterious traveller stumbling through a portal into Sid, Roonas and Bob’s living room. Following a portentous demand involving the fate of the universe, he disintegrates on their carpet leaving a stain and several artifacts.

It’s the story of ordinary guys turned super-heroes with resemblances to Star Wars and The Last Starfighter. The art inproves as the story progresses with some experimentation along the way. There’s a lot going on which can be hard to keep track of sometimes, but if you are looking for variety and a comic that doesn’t take itself too seriously this is the perfect read.