Kismet - Introduction and sample pages
(Several years ago, my sister made me the entire Kismet cast in LEGOS. BEST. PRESENT. EVER.)
My series of introductory project posts has to begin with Kismet, because, well, first of all, it's Kismet and I love it, and second, Kismet has not just one but two anniversaries this year. October will be the 10th anniversary of the Hunter's Moon webcomic -- it was 10 years ago, October 2002, when I put up the very first pages. And this year is also the 20th anniversary of Kismet itself. If I remember correctly, it was 1992 when I sketched the very first Kismet characters on an old manilla sketchpad, a husband and wife team of bounty hunters named Dusty and Elaine.
(It's also possible that it was 1991, but since that means that I missed the 20th anniversary, I'm going with '92. *g*)
Kismet is a sprawling space opera, a series of interwoven comics and short stories taking place over the course of a few decades in the middle of the 28th century. The "present day" is 2752, or 276 in the New Galactic Calendar. Most of the Kismet stories are self-contained (more or less), though as a whole, they build on each other.
Website:
http://www.kismetcity.com - feel free to look around! In particular, there is a Who's Who (illustrated cast list) that might be useful once you start reading. (Not LEGOs. Sadly.)
Stories:
• Hunter's Moon is a 340-page color graphic novel that I worked on from 2002-2006. It is now complete, and I recommend it as a good starting point for introducing Kismet, its cast, and its main storylines.
• Sun-Cutter is the next in the series. There are only fifteen pages right now, but it will be starting up again shortly.
• Kismet City Limits is a collection of short comics from the decades leading up to Hunter's Moon.
• There is also a comics landing page that lists all the comics in chronological order.
• The Kismet library collects the Kismet short stories that I wrote while I was developing and working on Hunter's Moon. (The original Hunter's Moon novella, essentially the rough draft for the webcomic, is there as well.)
A page from Hunter's Moon:
(This page was one of several that I redrew after HM finished its run. The original version, um, didn't look like this. *g* The art in the early chapters is pretty rough.)
In the short comics, I like playing with different artistic styles; for example, pencil and ink wash on the space-western-esque Comrades in Arms:
Or drawing a Christmas comic with red, green and black Sharpie markers (Secret Santa):
(Jackie is actually the same character as in the page above; young Jackie has long braids, while older Jackie has short hair.)
And sometimes my sense of humor gets dark:
The rest of this story is here: Even Love is Sold.
Once again, the timelines of the comics are intercut with each other -- this tousle-haired child is the redhead in the leather jacket who appears in the page above this one ... except this is twenty years earlier. He's also one of the main protagonists in Hunter's Moon, which takes place about ten years after Secret Santa and about thirty years after Even Love is Sold.
This is probably the sort of situation where the timeline comes in handy. *g* (I swear I'm not trying to make this as confusing as it sounds when I try to describe it! The whole thing makes sense in my head ...)
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