Wow, that's gorramn impressive! The Black really is superb work.

The Least | September 28, 13:58 CET

Simon, I think this is the one time something should be highlighted in the title. Namely, The Black: it's fantastic.

gossi | September 28, 14:07 CET

Word.

NickSeng | September 28, 14:10 CET

"OK..." I thought to myself, "I've got ten minutes to kill" Half an hour later... wow - so impressed. Everyone should definately check it out.

That is some real effort and love for the Verse showing right there. I hope it inspires more people to continue in the same vein... makes me wish I could draw.

MobileHQ | September 28, 14:19 CET

Wow. I am not a comic person, I was never really introduced to them, but The Black is amazing. It completely absorbed me. .....Must...have...more.....

Tess | September 28, 15:41 CET

I like the tribute to Joss's wife too in the Black. What an amazing story.

Lioness | September 28, 16:03 CET

I didn't cry....really, I didn't...

Wow. Joss, I really hope you click that link.

pat32082 | September 28, 16:14 CET

Wow... The Black was brilliant! Can't wait to see more.

bandaids | September 28, 16:25 CET

And to Kiba - Joss' number one fan too :).

Simon | September 28, 16:27 CET

And to Joss.

gossi | September 28, 16:53 CET

Really liked 'The Black' and it's probably the most accomplished of the comics on there but I have to say that 'Dropout' touched me more. I like the stories about the 'little' people that bounce around the edges of events and usually actually enable great things to happen. Without Volney Morrow there'd have been no escape, no running, no 'raggedy edge', no Miranda, no 'Leaf on the wind', no last-stand, no River vs Reavers, no 'Love keeps her up'.

And in return: 1 whisky, 1 pie. Not a bad deal ;).

Well done to everyone involved with all the strips though. Great stuff.

ETA: And quite right gossi, appropriate that Mal's 'father' should be called Joseph.

[ edited by Saje on 2006-09-28 15:13 ]

Saje | September 28, 17:11 CET

Was almost late to work because of Serenity Tales. Thank God they went live with just four stories, or else I'd have had to call in sick!

gobluegirl | September 28, 17:43 CET

By the way, I should probably do a bit of the background behind this one;

It was designed to be a 1-year-since-the-movie project, although obviously news about it has appeared a bit early. It's been in development for about 6 months or more from memory.

A huge amount of people have been involved, including a few professional artists. I believe there's one in the works at the moment by another pro. It was coordinated by Mike Russell of CulturePulp.

And it's totally awesome. I'm hoping that rather than getting a cease and desist legal order, somebody goes 'Uhm, maybe we should... like... make a semi regular Serenifly comic'.

gossi | September 28, 17:56 CET

I wonder what kinda spike we can make in the artists' regular webpages today. ('Scuse me while I visit Bill Mudron's Pan.)

Craig Oxbrow | September 28, 18:05 CET

I was mid-way through reading "The Black" when it looks like their webserver died from all the traffic they are getting, because all I'm getting are blank pages saying "Could not connect", even on pages that were previously working before. The other comics however are right now still working fine.

Generally, I'm not that big of a fan of fan-fiction, but these comics are quite well done. Great job for all those involved.

Matt_Fabb | September 28, 19:56 CET

Fantastic work, agreed!!!

harvey chin | September 28, 20:13 CET

The Black and Dropout were really impressive! Kudos!

punkinpuss | September 28, 22:14 CET

Damn...now those were just mindboggling in their greatness! The Black should get picked up by Dark Horse or something...cuz it was just amazing! Still...a couple of tiny things make me wonder though...

First, this comic has Mal's father live till Mal was what - River's age? - but Zoe's comments to the crew about Mal in series make it sound like Mr. Reynolds died when Mal was much younger. Secondly, where the matching pistol to the one Mal carries on his right leg go? Cuz the strip's creator has Joe Reynolds give his son a matching set of pistols, but Mal only has one by the time of the series...

Still...all of the comics were brilliant in their own way, I think. Even if the art was not quite realistic...the writing was definitely spot in:D

BlueEyedBrigadier | September 28, 22:38 CET

Secondly, where the matching pistol to the one Mal carries on his right leg go? Cuz the strip's creator has Joe Reynolds give his son a matching set of pistols, but Mal only has one by the time of the series...

I imagine that's called "setting up another future story option". ;)

The One True b!X | September 28, 23:30 CET

Great stuff. Looking forward to more...SOON!

jaynelovesvera | September 29, 02:52 CET

Good stuff, and I hate to be a party pooper, but... from the FAQ:

Why exactly is slash singled out? There's plenty of slash that's PG-13 or below. And there's plenty of NC-17 het fic out there.

KernelM | September 29, 08:33 CET

Why exactly is slash singled out? There's plenty of slash that's PG-13 or below. And there's plenty of NC-17 het fic out there.

Oops. That was actually a function of my ignorance. I thought "slash-fic" referred to all fan-fiction where a kick-ass sex scene is kind of the ultimate point of the story -- not just same-sex pairings. (I'm frankly a little surprised I didn't know this until now.) Have amended the Q&A accordingly. Thanks for enlightening me on this.

I should also clarify that we have absolutely nothing against love scenes or sex jokes in submitted comics -- particularly given that there's one married couple, a bisexual courtesan and at least one case of serious unrequited hormonal lust built into the very DNA of the cast. It would just be nice if the sex was part of some larger story. (Also, if you're interested, one of our current ST authors is actually a very talented erotic webcartoonist.)

So anyway. Feel free to go crazy with the "nothing twixt my nethers" jokes and the Wash/Zoe pillow talk and Jayne's bunk retreats. Sorry for the confusion.

[ edited by HudsonVC on 2006-09-29 07:55 ]

HudsonVC | September 29, 09:28 CET

Yay. Though, aww to no PWPs. ;-)

(PWP = Porn Without Plot)

KernelM | September 29, 10:19 CET

a kick-ass sex scene

Dude, that's not slash, that's S&M. ;-)

Couldn't resist typing that.

But, for real, these comics so *rocked*, especially The Black. I am also going to check out more of Mr. Mudron's work. :-)

billz | September 29, 11:13 CET

First, this comic has Mal's father live till Mal was what - River's age? - but Zoe's comments to the crew about Mal in series make it sound like Mr. Reynolds died when Mal was much younger. Secondly, where the matching pistol to the one Mal carries on his right leg go? Cuz the strip's creator has Joe Reynolds give his son a matching set of pistols, but Mal only has one by the time of the series...

Regarding how Mal was raised: Yeah, I fudged things just a bit here. Originally, Mal was going to skew much younger in "The Black", but having a 10-11 year old Mal running around in this comic just didn't work quite as well as having a teenaged version of Mal undergo the "guns of my father/sins of the father" rite of passage as touched upon in the comic.

Then again, to my reckoning, Joe may not've been around when Mal was born and missed a big chunk of Mal's early childhood, and then died just as Mal was hitting his teen years...so in Mal's eyes, I can see why he might describe himself as being fundamentally raised by his mother. In the very least, Mal reached adulthood and made most of the decisions that led him to jointhe Independence movement under the watchful (and none too wary) eye of his mother, so it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to say that the Malcom Reynolds we all know and love was largely forged under the influence of his mother (and Renshaw) alone.

And yeah, the guns: what in the hell did happen to that second pistol? Where is it now? Did Mal lose it? During the war, perhaps? If so, is Mal still looking for that gun?

Maybe we'll found out someday, eh?

Cross your fingers, folks.

mudron | September 29, 20:45 CET

Great to hear your thoughts, Mr. Mudron. Thanks for stopping by. Your explanation makes sense to me, because I can certainly see that a cowboy-type (they often have to follow the herds, y'know) who seems to have involvement with a lot of semi-political happenings on his little moon might be away from his family a lot.

You are a great writer and artist; I liked your Pan too -- it's like Peter Pan as told by Neil Gaiman (and, since he's one of my favorites, that is a giant compliment)! ;-)

Keep flyin'! :-)

billz | September 29, 23:15 CET