Atroxity's Progress Meter

The progress meter for chapter 1.2--the next installment of our online graphic novel Atroxity--has been updated to 27%.  Fair enough, but what exactly does this mean?

Our online progress meter.

Way back when snow coated the ground, mammoths roamed the earth, and Team Atroxity was studiously working away on the beginning of chapter one, we made the decision to eschew publishing new material one page at a time in favor of waiting until we had 10-14 page scenes ready to share as a whole.  Weekly single page publishing schemes work well for almost everyone else out there, so why not head in the other direction, eh?

None of us felt that releasing Atroxity in page-sized drips made much sense.  Atroxity was written to be read as a book, and it's paced accordingly.  Reading Atroxity in single-page intervals would place too much emphasis on any one page and disrupt the flow of the story.

Of course, want to know what else disrupts the flow of the story?  A nine month wait between updates.

But, uh, we're working on that. Our page rate is slowly but surely increasing, and each scene has gone more smoothly than the previous one (believe it or not).  We've also starting sharing behind-the-scenes art on our Facebook page in an attempt to tide fans over during the wait.

Behind-the-scenes prologue shot shared
on our Facebook page.

At the center of this all, of course, is the new progress meter on the Atroxity website, which is an attempt to make progress toward the next Atroxity installment more transparent and reduce the feeling of Atroxity being this rash-like thing that rears its head every few months and then fades back away into nothing.  Writing isn't represented in the progress meter because the script has been more or less complete for awhile, but the entire visual process is: roughs, pencils, inks, digital layouts, and colors are all in there somewhere.

The progress meter may not communicate much more beyond a simple percentage amount, but it does kinda sorta allow readers to follow progress and see that Atroxity is very much an active and ongoing project, even if the activity is currently below the surface.  New material might not be available on a weekly basis, but an updated visual representing the ever-closing distance toward new material is.

And let's be honest: nothing quite constitutes gripping entertainment like seeing an online progress meter jump from 20% to 27%.

Well, it'll all pay off once that meter reaches 100%.  I promise.

And until then: more progress information is available on our Twitter feed, and sketches and behind-the-scenes goodies are appearing on our Facebook page.

See you kids there.