Atonement (my webcomic)

[Donathin]

Goblins has been my favorite webcomic since the first time that I read the first page. It's been a long time now! While I've never been a chatter on the forums, I've ghosted around for years, and have come to really enjoy a lot of the discussions here. Now that I'm creating my own comic book (albeit, it's very different than Goblins), I sort of felt like it might be a smart move to get some thoughts and feedback from similarly minded Goblins readers/fans. So, this is my little plug and feedback thread for that.

ATONEMENT is a new webcomic created by myself and Kijori. It's a gritty Space Opera about flawed, beautiful, ambitious, frightening people struggling to ensure that humanity makes history before they become it.

I originally created The Atonement Universe in 2009, as the setting for a tabletop campaign style MORPG (Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) titled Atonement RPI. I closed the doors to Atonement RPI in 2012 when its story reached its epic conclusion, but I've long wanted to write a comic book follow-up to the story played out in the game.

The story takes place over 1,000 years in the future, and follows what might be the last surviving colony ship from Earth as it searches for a new, habitable world. The hope is to draw upon a lot of classic archtypes and legends for inspiration, and to create undertones of ancient mystery and horror beneath the superficial gloss of space opera. The first issue, currently in bi-weekly publication, centers on introducing the setting and some of key characters of the story. Subsequent issues will delve more deeply into specific characters, their stories and their psyches.

Kijori and I aren't new to writing or art on a professional level, but we're super new to creating comic books. Our goal, beyond creating a labor of love, is to make money. To be open and honest, we received a grant of sorts to pay us to create the first 22 page story, and our hope is that we'll be able to start to build a great following of folks who love stories and sci-fi as much as we do by the time our first story ends. Making a living, or supplementing our other work with this comic so that we could do it full-time -- well, that'd be quite an awesome thing.

I've shared some low-res samples from some of the first pages (we launched about 6 weeks ago), but if you'd like to see more (or better res), the website is http://www.atonement.space ... I would really appreciate any feedback or thoughts anyone here would like to share. Thanks for taking a couple of minutes to check this out!


(A sample from Issue One, Page One)


(A sample from Issue One, Page Three)


(A sample from Issue One, Page Four)

[PhoenixBard]

Oh wow, that's really impressive. It looks like you made it in a professional 3-D modelling program. Nicely done

[BadgeAddict]

This...is...

I find myself speechless in awe.....I find myself grasping for "fancy art words" to express myself and find them all lacking...(Mostly because I don't remember what they are)

[Donathin]

Awww. Thanks for the great feedback guys. The art style is a combination of hand-painted characters/background and CGI to try to invoke a sort of hyper-realistic atmosphere for the story. I've started publishing on Tapastic too, since there's an easy subscribe function there.

I'm still really early on in the story, but it's been a really fun and rewarding adventure so far. And, really, I owe it to Goblins -- it was the first, and still my favorite, serialized story webcomic that I ever read. My comic's not funny, like Goblins, but it still exists because Goblins inspired me. : )

http://tapastic.com/series/Atonement

[mortissimus]

It is really nice looking, and I like the little story twist.

That said, I think you might want to consider the pacing. When you read the story one page a week or in a forthnight, as you do with webcomics, I think it is good if each page advances the story a bit more then the prologue pages do so far. Or maybe publish a few pages at the time, whatever works.

Maybe you already considered that, or maybe you will find an audience who likes this better. This is just random advice on internet, use it or don't.

[Synch]

That latest page with the blood is excellent!

[Donathin]

It is really nice looking, and I like the little story twist.

That said, I think you might want to consider the pacing. When you read the story one page a week or in a forthnight, as you do with webcomics, I think it is good if each page advances the story a bit more then the prologue pages do so far. Or maybe publish a few pages at the time, whatever works.

Maybe you already considered that, or maybe you will find an audience who likes this better. This is just random advice on internet, use it or don't.

You're definitely right. Right now, one page every two weeks is the most that we can do until our work's generating more money and we can take more time off from other jobs. Part of it's that the art gets pretty detailed, and part of it's just having to make enough money to eat.

On the upside, the prologue will wrap up next Friday (should be a pretty awesome page) and I think that the story will focus more and move more with each update. And hopefully, in the long run, the more deliberate pace of the prologue will have been worth it.

That latest page with the blood is excellent!

I'm glad you dug that page. It's maybe my favorite so far (though I also really like our newest page!) If you like what we're doing so far, that link I posted a couple of comments up let's you subscribe to new pages and updates via Tapastic. A lot of folks comment on my pages there with feedback and what they're enjoying/etc, which is very helpful to me as I get more experience doing this.