It’s been awhile since I posted about the strip and now is a good time since I just introduced Lian. Here’s a drawing I did of her for one of my ads:

So, as I had said Lian has been waiting in the wings for literally 6 months. Way back when I began to think about how I wanted Marooned to be a story strip, I started to think that my cast was too male dominated. In some ways, Ril was a response to that (and even Atha to a lesser extent). But I really wanted a female Human character – I felt that a woman in the cast would help balance some things out. Obviously posed a problem because, well, John came to Mars alone.

When I began laying out the second story, that’s when I had the idea of how Lian could appear, and I knew that it would take awhile to happen. I also knew, if I handled it right, that it would be a real surprising and unexpected twist, and it seemed to work. You have NO idea how hard it has been in the weeks leading up to her reveal, with the conversations between John, Ugo and the Dark Ones to not give away any part of the secret. I even made sure I never said that the Listener was female – I didn’t want to give you any hints.

In any event, she’s here. But she looks a little different, no? Something has clearly happened to her. But at this point we know precious little about her. She’s female, human, and claims to have been captain of the Destiny mission. For those of you who pay real close attention, there’s at least one clue in that statement.

John says she crashed and died. So he clearly knows of her somehow from his time on Earth. And he also stated she’s wearing an NFF uniform. (For those of you who don’t know, NFF is the New Frontier Federation – the private company that has sent John to Mars.) Well obviously she didn’t die – and somehow she is living with the Dark Ones, and has even become the apprentice of She-Who-Hears. Well there must be a story there, eh?

Developing her as a character was fun and challenging. I’ve never really drawn women at all. And although I had 6 months to work on her, truth is I didn’t spend that much time, because frankly most of my time goes to the current strip. I have very little time to spend on things outside what I need for the next installment. My early sketches were different than she is now for sure. Now and then I would pick up the sketchbook and do some designs, but honestly it wasn’t happening.

Then a couple weeks ago I knew the reveal was coming up, and I had to figure it out. So I finally drew a couple designs that seemed to work, but that I knew would still need some work. I can tell you that you should expect her appearance to be refined over the coming months. She is already changing and solidifying as I work on Monday’s strip (in which she appears in all 6 panels). So the consistency won’t be there at first, but hopefully soon.

And what does a female character do for my readership? Well only time will tell, but the results this week were unreal. Now often I advertise on update days, spending $5 on ads. A couple times I’ve spend as much as 10 or 12 bucks. Monday I spent $9.50 on ads, so I expected a little bump – and I even figured because it was a woman in the ad that it would garner a few more clicks, but holy moly people.

Until Monday, my best pageviews reported had been like 6,500 on one day. Well Monday shattered that going to 17,150! Nearly triple the amount. Even Thursday, where I only spent like $3.75 on ads (what was left over in my Project Wonderful account) garnered 7,000+ views. It will be interesting to see if the trend continues. The return visitor numbers are up for this week too, I hope that continues.

So, what to expect from Marooned in the near future? Well, I expect we’ll soon find out what John’s fate will be – the poor guy is clearly on death’s door. And there’s quite a bit of mystery surrounding Lian, that you can bet John won’t let just slide by. And we’ve learned very little about the Dark Ones so far, including why they live separately from the rest of the Martians.

Meanwhile Ril, Atha and Asimov are waiting around at Vita, wondering what will happen to John and Ugo. Poor Asimov has angered the ladies with his comments about Ugo, and is now all alone in his room. I’m working on what I hope is going to be a really cool and unique strip for Asimov’s next appearance. It will be different, but will fit into the story as a whole. That will have to wait though, until we find out John’s fate.

There’s a good chance that exploring all these stories and mysteries could take us to the end of the year, if not farther. So I hope you are enjoying the strip and the story. I’m definitely having fun with it, with the new characters and the new coloring technique.

I got started on the next comic book, but I think I’m going to need to start over. My plan now is to recolor all the earlier strips up to a certain point (and then selective fixing from there). Then to produce a full-color strip reprint of Marooned in a larger book. I’m not sure what size yet, it depends on how many strips, but I will keep you posted. Ideally I’d like to make the book the opening two story arcs – the arrival and meeting with Ugo and the Saga of Bob.

I might potentially do a pre-order for the book. Doing it that way might allow for a higher quality book. A lot depends on how many readers I have when the time comes.

Lastly, I’d like to leave you with a little tease of the side project I’ve been working on. It’s going to be an anthology of children’s stories for charity, featuring lots of talented artists. It’s still a bit early to spill too much on it, but here’s a little shot of what I’m working on.

Lastly, if you like Marooned and you’d like to help promote the strip, the best thing to do is just tell people about it and have them visit for themselves. I really appreciate it. Have a great weekend!