Landon Erp

I definitely like that type of story. I'm kind of an odd duck that way. But ideas like that work very well for my medium, most comics are episodic by nature so a big part of the skill invloved is in seamlessly streaming one plot into the next. Long story short you're right I probably need to get this book. ---Landon

Your point by point review has been great so far. I'm kind of curious though if Tobias had any observations of different plots that work well beside each other or can be successfully merged without possibility of overload or falling apart. Either way great discussion so far keep it coming. ---Landon

That's weird... I always prefer the longhand of human (at least in formal or semi-formal writing). But in general I look deep until I can find a gender neutral term or take a hard stance on gender of the participant early on. In conversational speech it's all context. ---Landon

I definitely see where you're coming from... as a side note are you planning on posting this in your bookstore? ---Landon

Aloha to you as well. ---Landon

Soon as my financial situation gets more stable I'm fairly certain I'll be picking this up. The weird thing is your last entry reminds me of a point I read in a comics specific writing publication (Sketch Magazine). One specific thing that comes to mind is a collumn Chuck Dixon (best known as a writer on several Batman centric comic series) wrote. The gist is what makes you a writer the quote went something like this: "People tend to want to make this kind of an exclusive club, thus barring people like the guy who writes the old navy commercials from membership. But I think a lot can be learned from someone who can get his point accross in 30 seconds when it takes some people thousands of pages." You might not want to include Indiana Jones in quest plots but that is still the foundation being used. ---Landon

Totally agreed. It's good to see a place with writing forums that aren't dying of atrophy. And yes weclome. ---Landon

Since I don't think I'll be interupting the flow at this point I'll comment. I'd say in a lot of ways, if your review is any indication of the overall dirrection of the book this should be an essential addendum to the romantic manifesto. One thing that seperates Objectivism from other schools of thought is the lack of focus on truly "original thought" (as in at the expense of learning from those who've come before you and building on that). There is no shame in learning from people who spent lifetimes developing a given skill and then applying that same determination in your own work to building on that foundation. But there is a method by which to accomplish this and this is very helpful insight. Thanks for posting this. ---Landon

Don't worry Michael I know EXACTLY what you're talking about. I've found it and she's sitting behind me watching All My Children. ---Landon

It's really beautiful to see something like this. Kind of shcocks me how often people just try to drag lovers down. ---Landon

I don't have much artwork posted online. These are a few story pages from the original version of Frontier War issues one and two. I got halfway through issue two before starting the story over due to some major flaws in the story's development. These are so old that they are back from when I was calling the story Hidden Society. http://www.angelfire.com/comics/wickedlakes/Story.html The only problem I'd warn people about with this is that I scanned these at kinkos on a budget and I didn't think I had time to shrink and or compress the files so the filesize of these is MASSIVE. But I still think that it's worth a look. ---Landon

I need that book so bad. 80's was a great time... now's pretty good as well... those 90's though toxic. Definitely agree on Miller though. ---Landon

Well I always feel weird giving it a typical pitch, a lot of it has to do with the character's normal lives and how the emergance of people such as them affect the world as a whole, but since you asked so nicely. I don't want to get too specific especially about Ann because a lot of the second project is about finding out just how powerful she actually is. But Raven's an open book, she's kind of like a biological animal totem. She can communicate with animals and transform either all the way or midway into animal forms and it has various effects on her personality and actions. There are a few other characters who show up early on I can give some details on as well. Paul (Skarr) and Thomas Maynard. Two brothers with the same power who developed everything differently. At an early age Paul was burned in a housefire over 90% of his body but managed to survive, it turned him bitter and mean but he still has a strong sense of justice beneeth it. Thomas was a kind frienfdly young boy who was a little too shy for his own good. Their power is the manipulation of organic tissue... Thomas became a healer... Paul did not. Thomas works as a priest, hoping his "miricles" will go unnoticed. But he has another secret that drew him to the priesthood. Skarr works as a brutal intelligance officer for the forces who imprision Ann and hundreds of people like her, he is also a traitor to that force and is trying to destroy it from within. Alicia Brenner Ann's fraternal twin sister. All the women Ann descends dirrectly from have powers along the same axis as her but there are two parts to it. Alicia developed hers along opposite lines as Ann. She was instrumental in planning ann's capture, faking her own death to do so. There are thousands more like her, anyone directly in that bloodline is incapable of producing a male child and only females exhibit powers. A clue here is that this family is the inspiration for the myth of the witch. Morningstar. the cult leader behind all the major events thus far. His power is to awaken powers in individuals only mildly exhibiting... he gets to keep part of their power as his own. Morningstar is only the latest name this man has taken. He also holds the honor of being the only man involved in both the second and third Reich. He is a powerful man with a penchant for lotus-eating... Skarr exploits this mercilessly. He has developed the strongest army the world has ever seen, he has been too distracted to exploit this fact. Lisa. Morningstar has hundreds of children, she is one of them. She is the only non-powered one. He treats her like garbage and has let her health deteroriate right before his eyes. She ultimately does develop powers of the most ironic kind. All she ever wanted to be was a normal sixteen year old girl and it's clear that was never an option. Jennifer Ming (Jen) A chinese immigrant and heiress to the Wonderland Books empire (think Borders and Barnes and Noble with her mother founding it). She is a master of magnetism who graduated college with a Double major in Metalurgy and Liberal arts. She works as a Sculptor using her power (and keeping it a closely guarded secret). Her two main points of conflict are her desire to leave the control of her mother's empire to her brothers and sisters, and tension over having to hide her lesbianism to her conservative christian family. A romance is brewing between her and another major character. The Objectivist context on some of these characters and powers might seem pretty obvious to an Objectivist, or not. I just know where everything is going. But I will work in one big theme I don't think I covered well enough. The ideas of militias and vigilance committess established among rational individuals. There will always be people who see some major scientific change as an opportunity to dominate other men, so it is just for a rational person to react to this as it comes and intensly... but there is no need to define your life soley by reaction to iniation of force. You fight something that needs fought and fight it on your own terms. ---Landon

Been re-reading the romantic manifesto. On top of that I've been reading as many Sin City volumes as I can get my hands on: "Family Values" "A Dame to Kill For" and "Booze Broads and Bullets" I've also wanted to pick up the extension of the book "shop talk" with nothing but conversations between Frank Miller and Will Eisner. I guess you could call 2005 my "Miller" year. I think it's taught me a lot about the craft and it's really helped me get my head on straight. And to quote two greats I mentioned above "Inking is Sexy?" ---Landon

Sorry if the intro post for FW sounded a little too much like a movie trailer this is the first time I've tried explaining the whole idea. ---Landon

Atop this page are the two lead characters of Frontier War. The name inspires images of the old west, and while not entirely inapproriate this is not the entire case or the literal meaning of the Frontier in this story. For centuries there have been rare instances of individuals within the human race whose existance represented huge leaps forward on the eveolutionary ladder. The rareness of these instances lead to folklore and mystical explanations. With time as the mysticism was disproved, the individuals were often believed to simply be the product of fetile imaginations. In the present, these people and events are becoming to frequent to ignore. Random individuals with never before seen powers and abilities are popping up all over the world... and long existing family lines with genetic predisposition to certain abilities are becoming easier to trace. The story begins around a few of the longest running and most powerful families alive. So powerful even the empowered are not aware of what they posess. Decisions need to be made by each of these new "super-humans." Will they choose to live peacefully among the humans, or dominate them? Will they use their abilities for production, or force. Along what lines will they choose to align themselves, and what principles will guide them. The struggle begins as Annastasia Marie Brenner (left) and Stephanie Lucille "Raven" Mason (right) unite against the people who chose to force them into servitude as weapons against their will. A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. ---Landon

Thanks Kat. I have the worst Objectivist reason for the long engagement... when get married my income counts against her medacaid. I'm trying to make sure we manage to get some serious insurance before we're out in the cold. But I'll pass the message along. As for Frontier war since I'm planning it as a series of independant but interconnected projects I think the audience for different projects would fit in different age groups. The first mini-series called Manipulation which I completed writing (it needs some final edits and for me to begin the art chores) is pretty all ages, I'd call it about pg-13. Meanwhile the second project I just started writing called Naked Souls is something I wouldn't feel comfortable marketing to a younger audience, but likewise future projects will be noticably more tame. Sadly for an Objectivist I have a pretty dark writing style. I'll probably keep the overviews handy but when appropriate keep the non-family friendly stuff offsite. On that note, I thank you. And, I'll be back when I have some more to say. ---Landon

Holy shite, I actually made it through this time. Some of you may know me or are at least mildly familiar with me. Anyway, here I go. I'm 26 years old been an Objectivist for about 4/5 years. In my spare moments I've been developing a comic project called "Frontier War" as a series of mini-series and graphic novels so one of my biggest interests within Objectivism is the theory of aesthetics. I'm interested in disected everything within my own sense of life and personal tastes and understanding the principles at work at everything artistic I encounter. I always had an interest in this but Objectivism gave me the best filter I've found thus far. Comics are my main passion now but I spent most of my teen years as a musician. I'm no longer playing plus I don't expect to get into too many discussions about the finer points of heavy metal and punk rock so I'll probably be dropping it right there. I've been with my fiancee Amy for six years now and she is my other passion in life. She is an amazingly bright person with a wonderful manner of experiencing the world. I've been amazed by her strength of character in dealing with schizophrenia in a matter so effective that I and many others often forget she's dealing with the problem at all. That is the information I felt pertinent to mention about myself. Make the most of that. ---Landon