Fantastic thread you got here, Eloquent! Thanks for the opportunity! Call me Howell. I was originally an English teacher living in Beijing, China. Now I'm in the US, working on my Master's degree in 2D Animation/Storyboarding. But I just love writing and drawing!
Lemme ask you folks: What do you get when Looney Tunes, with a penchant for cult monster movies, puts their hands on a Japanese anime? You'd get my novel, Frightful & Delightful.
The good news is, as of today, the first book of my novel series has finally been fully published on Tapas! Frightful & Delightful was a contestant for the July Writer's Camp of 2018. It's a novel first, but now that it's fully online (completely a free read), I can finally do what I've always planned it to be: make it a multimedia novel! There will be (more) illustrations, comic strips, and even animations and music/sound. This has been a pet project of mine for ten years, now, and I'm so stoked that it's finally reached its first major milestone!
Frightful & Delightful is the first adventure of the Long-Lost Youth Chronicles. Here are the details:
"Welcome, human, to Hallows Earth! A Halloween/Mardi Gras planet stuck in the Industrial Age, and it's your one-way ticket to see how three monsters managed to toss this whole world into absolute chaos. Who're the three culprits? Elisabeth, a nun-to-be forced into the role of the spider princess; Graffiti, a street-art revolutionist stuck in a vampire's street gang; and Grampa Kel, a beloved politician running from his past."
And yes, I TOTALLY DO WANT CRITICISM! I welcome it! For you see, my novel covers difficult topics that many teenagers face nowadays: social injustice, gender identity, body shame, question of faith, future careers, family dynamic, crushes, a ghostly teacher who won't stop haunting if you didn't do your homework--I mean, what? Anyway, I've done as much research as I could, but I know there's still more room for learning and improvement. If you're reading and you see a discrepancy in a represented culture/faith, please let me know so that I may fix it! (I also totally welcome edits and flow suggestions. I, too, am an editor, so I completely believe in the value of criticism.) Definitely keep the dialogue open! Because in the end, I want the message of my novel to be absolutely clear: No matter how much of an outcast you feel like you are, you will always have a family who'll stand by your side, whether they be family by blood or by bond!
Here's some pictures in the book so far!
Thanks for hearing me prattle! Check out the story, if yah'd like.
First Page: https://tapas.io/episode/1125461