"Wait, there was a comic before this. What happened?"
Fifteen years ago, a couple of college students got a crazy idea in their heads to make a comic book. They had a lot of fun playing D&D with their friends and thought someone should write this stuff down and while they're at it draw it too! It was a great idea and looked to be successful, but what happened? Well, several things became apparent quickly.
First, making your own comic book isn't cheap. Quality printing in the 90's was ridiculously expensive and color printing exponentially even more. I had the idea of putting the comics up on this thing called the internet. But, who was going to see it and how were we going to make money off of it? Google had been invented a year before but capitalization of ad space was a relatively new concept that we really had no grasp on. So, peddling print books at local comic shops and cons it was! We had a blast doing it and met a lot of interesting people and a few idols along the way. But, the costs were too great and the comic book was doomed without a steady revenue.
Second, I wasn't as original as I thought I was. The original story was based on our D&D games and our D&D games were a little loose with the things we borrowed from. I outright stole some things when I thought I was being clever. You'll still see traces of that in the new Chronicle. There's an organization of wizards divided into three orders who strictly keep a hold on magic and hunt down sorcerers and unaffiliated wizards. With apologies to Weis & Hickman, I've kept them in and changed up the tenets on which they divide themselves. "Good artists borrow, great artists steal." I think W.H. Davenport Adams got it right the first time, "great poets imitate and improve, whereas small ones steal and spoil". Hopefully I've done that.
Third, making your own comic takes time. Time is never on your side. But, when a creative team gets divided between several states, time just goes out the window. Or at least it did back then. This was the days of long distance calls, calling cards, and 10-10-321 (look it up kids, it'll blow your mind.) Time cost money and as covered in point one, funds were limited. High-speed data connections were just starting to take off and emailing large image files was not an option. This made things very difficult. Too difficult for the partnership to survive. Time moved on and so did we.
So, why now? Why again?
Second question first. I always intended to come back to Chronicle in some way. I have notebooks full of world ideas and gaming material. I wanted to publish that in some way. Maybe a novel, maybe an RPG sourcebook. It was always just writing. I had convinced myself that Chronicle as a visual medium was dead. I was the writer on the comic and the artist was just too good to attempt to imitate or follow-up. That was a mistake on my part.
First question second. The answer is, why not? We live in an amazing time when the cost to publish your own content for the world to see and advertise it is literally pennies on the dollar compare to what it used to be. I hope this gets rolling. I have a lot of great ideas and I would love to hold a printed copy of my work in my hand once more. But, if not, that's okay. Chronicle's alive again (as long as Josh Trank doesn't come after me with Hollywood lawyers).
So, what now?
Well, the strip's going to come out weekly at first so I can get a buffer going on my productivity. I'm going to be updating this blog with any cool gaming/comic related news I come across. Also, I'm going to start posting up that world-building content I've been doing for years and sharing it with the gamers out there. It's going to be put out under the Open Gaming License and designed for Pathfinder, but I'm always up for talking conversions to some of the new systems that have come along (coughFATE).
There's a ton of content coming your way and if you like what you see, PLEASE leave a tip in the jar in the shop or even better buy a sketch or merch when it becomes available.
Also, please share this site with your friends and followers on social media. That's the key to getting a comic going and show me I have some support.
Thanks
Finally, I just want to thank a few people. First, I want to thank Julie Collins for her part in the first leg of Chronicle's journey and being gracious enough to allow me to continue forward with the name. She's super-talented, go check out her work.
Secondly, I want to thank all of the friends who have played in the Chronicle campaigns over the years and helped me build this world. You guys have given me a channel to keep the idea alive and allowed me to see that I've still got what it takes.
Thirdly, I want to thank my family. My parents have supported me in so many different ways over the years, that I just want to tell them to stop it some times, but they keep on anyways and I love them for it. My brother and sister have been great supporters as well even though my likes are pretty different from their own sometimes. That's okay, you guys are still the best. To my grandparents, thank you for the example you have set before me. To all my extended family, I thank you all for the kind words over the past few months as I got ready for this.
Finally, I want to thank my wife Rachel and our two precious boys. Rachel is my compass. She keeps me on course when I drift off to Neverland too often, but she also makes sure that I don't forget the way there. I am thankful everyday to have her at my side and love her without end. To my boys, you are both too young to read this right now. But, I hope that someday you'll read this and see that this world I am creating is for you. I hope to give you a place to let your imaginations soar with dragons and fight with monsters. I also hope that it shows that truth, justice, and courage take many forms and are not always the most obvious things to find.
Thank you all,
Than Gibson