All Good Bands Have Side Projects.

To you, Blank It is a comic. To us, it’s a taxing endeavor that yearns for completion but also eludes us. I say the comic’s not done and I stick by that (I’m not killing this story until Book 2 is complete), but in the meantime, to keep our juices flowing, Aric and I have started another comic called Kaleiope.

Kaleiope

It’s a Tumblr, so you may have to scroll to get to the beginning. Anyway, it’s something to satisfy us in the meantime, hopefully it’ll provide you some entertainment as well.

^ 42 Comments...

  1. NoriMori

    Neat!

  2. NoriMori

    I have a correction for the first comic. It should be “mor…”, not “mour…”. Because it’s short for “morning”.

    Seriously though, this comic looks really neat.

  3. Mike

    i am so excited anytime i see that you are still updating. i check this page every day so i do look forward to when you finally get a chance to finish it!

  4. Bluudwurth

    Yaaaaaay!!! Thanks for the update, I’ll be sure to check out the new addiction… I mean, project. :D

  5. 4td0

    Hey, I can wait for Blank It, even without the little side project. But I must admit, it is really neat, and I can see myself getting into that as well!
    “A comic about a girl and her castle. and dumb crows.”

    Love it already.

  6. WealthyAardvark

    Hey guys! In preparation for a future of hopefully many more pages of Kaleiope (and of course Blank It), if you tag the pages in some manner, then we’re able to use those tags to view the comic chronologically.

    Example: http://btothef.tumblr.com/tagged/bttf/chrono (Ryan North’s Back to the Future novel review, as available from the header)

  7. lemmo

    It’s hard to tell from the minimalist theme right now (I’ll be updating it) but yeah, apparently you can already do that like this: http://kaleiope.tumblr.com/tagged/comics/chrono

  8. macksting

    Good Sir Lemmo,
    You mustn’t forget. For some of us, to read a webcomic is to commit to a narrative, to seek in the work of its author a narrative. It is common in the art form for a creator to update irregularly, sometimes waiting for weeks, months or, on rare occasion, over a year for as little as three compact frames to bring us just a little closer to closure. Closure we often never see. It’s like gambling, a fever almost.
    It’s not just you two. Many creators fall ill, some even die; some lose their websites or cannot sustain a life conducive to creation; others lose their inspirations, and artists in general are known for depressive periods which provoke from them great art but tragic lives. Some of the world’s greatest works of art are incomplete, began and never finished yet beautiful even so. Life in general is without closure. Our choice to seek closure in such a delicate and easily disrupted medium is like putting a coin into a slot machine, where the coin is our emotional investment and the payout is the narrative. We don’t always get back what we put in, and we hunger for it.
    And sometimes, we wait a very long time.
    We’re a patient lot. You owe us nothing, or everything, depending on your point of view, and we wait.
    Do what you must. I’ll be here.

    Sincerely,
    Mackie

  9. Bright Eyes

    Macksting, that was absolutely beautiful.

  10. Bluudwurth

    Yeah… what mack said.

  11. macksting

    I dunno, I’d feel better about it if I hadn’t used ‘narrative’ twice in one sentence. No sense of poetry there.
    Thanks, though. Rereading it, I think I managed to show my love for the work he’s done.

  12. macksting

    Still checking in from time to time. Nothin’. Darn,

  13. sarssol

    You and me both, Mack.
    I certainly hope they come back to this eventually.

  14. macksting

    They may, they may not. We’ll keep checking back until the site goes down or the strip ends regardless.

  15. shaelyn

    doo doo dooooooooooo…

  16. Starreactor

    please bring it back!!!

  17. rickster

    Still kicking!

  18. Mike

    come back to ussss…….

  19. Anonymous Person

    Still here!

  20. macksting

    Same.

  21. macksting

    Happy New Year!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUTk61K4HFk

    Lyrics:
    Blood red skies in the morning,
    Pitch-black heavens every night
    Take them both as a warning
    That the winter fire need be bright.
    Fierce the blaze on the mountain
    Sheds its light for miles around
    While the stream and the fountain
    Lie frozen and locked in the ground.

    (Refrain):
    Now the leprous white Lady
    Leads Her train of the lost
    Leads the spirits through glade and wood
    And goodly fields of frost.

    Summer’s consort waxed brightly
    The tall and golden-haired prince
    And She came to him nightly
    With pomegranate and quince.
    Dead and gone is Her lover
    The most fair and radiant of all
    Now she’ll never recover
    The king cut down in the fall.

    While the climbing sun tarried
    As if his marches were stayed
    At midsummer they married
    Mortal man and immortal Maid
    But the king never reckoned
    What he gives for the boreal crown —
    To be god but a second
    Ere the sun starts his course ever down.

    Through the summer and after
    In the sere and brown of the fall
    Days were filled with their laughter
    And nights with their echoing call
    But as autumn leaves smolder
    And the smoke slowly drifts through the air
    So the young king grew older
    And withered and died in despair

    Nine white maidens attend Her
    Where she treads without leaving spoor
    As she seeks her defender
    Who shall wear the crown once more.
    By the light of the beacon
    You can see Her pass through the ring
    She’ll not weary nor weaken
    Till she finds Her wintertide king.

  22. Alex

    I can’t read it on tumblr! This sucks!

  23. Alex

    lemmo plz y u do dis aric yyyy

  24. Kudzuisedible

    Yep, still checking every once in a while.

  25. Anonymous Person

    Aaand back again.

  26. Anonymous Person

    Aaand back again.

  27. macksting

    Yeah. Aw well.

  28. Urban Garlic

    Checking my bookmarks. Refuse to remove this one, but I did move it to the “fallow” sub-folder. See you next Wednesday.

  29. mike

    still check this site twice a week. still look at the tumble each time. still waiting. please come back to us

  30. Kris

    Blank It still comes to mind as one of the best I’ve ever read.

    Miss you guys.

  31. macksting

    I suppose I could go back and read Lethal Doses. I never did get around to it.

  32. saege

    Guys, come on… PLZ come back.

  33. Albriech

    I started reading these a few years ago when they were on an iPod Touch app. Rediscovered them a few days ago, and to my surprise, they had added many more comics! Thoroughly enjoyed them. I understand the load it puts on the creators, but some closure would be nice. However, I understand “closure” doesn’t come in a few panels, so I guess I understand the creators’ decision to leave it open instead of ill-finished (if that is indeed what they decided).

  34. Anonymous Person

    October comment. Yeah.

  35. October Mackie

    Seconded.

  36. aric

    What’s up, October?

  37. November Mackie

    Mostly just dangerously broke and thinking of trying to move to another country. I mean, yes, things could get worse, but not surviving here isn’t much better than not surviving elsewhere.

  38. Muchuul_Mutculf

    I’ve come to a conclusion… this is dead… *snifff* so I have come up with a final comic strip in my head… I hope you all have done the same… and I hope it is good…

  39. Star1412

    Still here. :)
    I hope you guys get around to finishing this sometime, but it not, that’s okay. This is still one of my favorite comics!

  40. macksting

    Okay, the bots have taken over. I’m out.

  41. Rough Draft

    I was really looking forward to reading a few years of updates since I stopped reading in late 2012 when my life got kinda hectic, and I forgot about this comic for years. Looks like the artists did, too.

  42. Moraff

    Just found this after searching for anything…
    http://lemmo.tumblr.com/

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