Hi Minna. I'm part of a discord server where we discuss idealist philosophy, metaphysics, and anomalous phenomena such as near-death-experiences where people go into cardiac arrest and have unique vivid experiences of meeting God and Jesus. We all reject atheist nihilism but are of varying religions here. We are all in here because we believe there's more to our reality than just material things, so we discuss a rational scientific way of spirituality. We have really deep discussions and would love you to join, especially since I read your comic.
Minna, you have a way of storytelling that takes seemingly mundane concepts (animal stories) and makes them captivating and intriguing. I have a broad exposure to many graphic styles in comics from around the world and your color pallet and style has become one of my favorites. I am greatly enjoying your newest efforts and look forward to when physical copies become available. Why are physical copies important to me? Because it is something that I can pass on to my daughter when she becomes old enough to read that she can read anywhere and is not a screen.
I would like to provide one piece of feedback for you to consider that is philosophical in nature and one which I think every artist with Faith in God grapples, which is how best to glorify God in their work. Some believe that it is by only creating things that are heavily evangelistic and nothing else. Others believe that it is simply by continuing to create great art that God is glorified, regardless of whether it is evangelistic or not. I love the visual telling of your testimony and the way you weave biblical truth into your art and storytelling. However, I hope that you will continue to create fantastic art and tell great stories from that fantastic imagination God gave you without feeling obligated to turn every story into an evangelistic message. Now, if that is what you feel lead to do, you should do that, but I believe we create out of what we are and what is inside us, so if the Spirit is living in you and permeating your life, the Light will permeate whatever you create. In short, my recommendation is don't hide it, but don't force it either. If it is real in you, it will be real in your work. I am sure as your walk with Christ deepens, you will work out your own philosophy of art as a Christian. I am curious; did you ever work out a solid philosophy of art before? If you had one, what would you say it was?
Interested in your thoughts on that subject if you are willing to share them in this forum.
Okay, enough opinion. a few questions for you:
1. So I still want to purchase the 4th Volume of Stand Still Stay Silent, but I think I missed the Kickstarter campaign that printed it. Is there any way I could still purchase a copy or am I just out of luck?
2. Also curious what bands are your favorite?
3. Is there an automated alert message that will tell me when I need to renew my subscription to your blog?
I don't really have/never had a philosophy of art, I tend to just draw whatever I'm passionate about at the time. xD When I was doing aRTd I was passionate about Finnish mythology, when I started SSSS I was obsessed with postapocalyptic scenarios etc... It's just really hard for me to do long projects if I'm not really that into what I'm drawing/writing about. And since the last year I've mostly been fixated on learning as much as I can about theological stuff... well, what I want to draw right now reflects that. I might still be in that new-ish-convert zealous stage where I just find all of the stuff so new and fascinating. I'm sure that the kind of stories that I want to tell will fluctuate many times in the future. As for the questions:
1. Hiveworks will make book 4 available in their shop along the other books once they've shipped out the Kickstarter copies. From what I've understood they're behind on starting the shipping, but they've got the books printed and ready.
2. I don't really have favourite bands. When I listen to music I tend to just find a few songs I like from whatever genre I'm craving, and then have those on repeat until I get sick of them.
3. No idea! I assume so, because I haven't seen any sudden drops in subscribers that would indicate people failing to resubscribe or something.
My son and I read this together. Later, when he overheard me raving to my wife about it ("I can't think of anyone else on earth who is doing anything like this") he says, "I can think of one. You showed me one comic a long time ago, about rabbits."
Hahah! And time really flows by fast, feels like I finished Lovely People just a little while back and not "a long time ago", but now that I think of it it's been nearly two years. (Also, thank you!)
I don't know what size you're drawing at, but I always want to use the biggest screen in the house and zoom in when I read your work. So many great details. It feels best when I get it to the size of a tapestry.
Hello! My name is Snow. I've followed your comics on and off for years. You have such a talent for storytelling, art, and characters, and I can't describe to you how excited I was to see the testimony comic and that you're turning your hand to this sort of story.
The first seven pages are beautiful. What you have so far feels very like the legends in Watership Down--which is one of my favorite books of all time. The visuals of the lamb with his cloak are amazing and the symbolism of every one of the animals having a red muzzle by the end is a powerful one. I'm not sure if it was intentional or not, but I very much appreciate the personification of the water as it becomes grieved at the animals' choices. Its parallels the Holy Spirit very nicely. I look forward to seeing how you handle that connection between the water and the lamb going forward, if that's something you intend to do.
In short, this is incredible, and it makes my heart very happy. I look forward to seeing more pages as they come out.
Aww thank you so much, such a kind comment! I'm really glad the symbolism(s) worked well. And Watership Down, the animated movie specifically, is actually one of my inspirations for the prologue visuals! (I watched it as a little kid, way too young probably, because my mom rented it from the library and apparently thought it was a children's movie since it had cartoon rabbits on the cover. x3)
I chose not to have a comment section on the website this time since it'd be too stressful to moderate. -_- At least right now, maybe in the future! (And thanks!)
Hi Minna! I was excited to hear in your newsletter that you're planning to self-publish a run of your testimony comic. I'd also love a physical copy of Lovely People, but I dread ordering it from the US. Do you think it'll be available to order from the EU at some point?
Yes! I'm going to have Lovely People copies for sale alongside the testimony comic, so you'll be able to get it directly from me. :D (I had originally planned to re-open my own shop to sell LP books during last fall, but I just got too swamped so I skipped it, bleh.)
Hi Minna. I'm part of a discord server where we discuss idealist philosophy, metaphysics, and anomalous phenomena such as near-death-experiences where people go into cardiac arrest and have unique vivid experiences of meeting God and Jesus. We all reject atheist nihilism but are of varying religions here. We are all in here because we believe there's more to our reality than just material things, so we discuss a rational scientific way of spirituality. We have really deep discussions and would love you to join, especially since I read your comic.
https://discord.gg/EptzXZ7bpB
Feel free to delete this comment if you're not interested. Thank you!
Minna, you have a way of storytelling that takes seemingly mundane concepts (animal stories) and makes them captivating and intriguing. I have a broad exposure to many graphic styles in comics from around the world and your color pallet and style has become one of my favorites. I am greatly enjoying your newest efforts and look forward to when physical copies become available. Why are physical copies important to me? Because it is something that I can pass on to my daughter when she becomes old enough to read that she can read anywhere and is not a screen.
I would like to provide one piece of feedback for you to consider that is philosophical in nature and one which I think every artist with Faith in God grapples, which is how best to glorify God in their work. Some believe that it is by only creating things that are heavily evangelistic and nothing else. Others believe that it is simply by continuing to create great art that God is glorified, regardless of whether it is evangelistic or not. I love the visual telling of your testimony and the way you weave biblical truth into your art and storytelling. However, I hope that you will continue to create fantastic art and tell great stories from that fantastic imagination God gave you without feeling obligated to turn every story into an evangelistic message. Now, if that is what you feel lead to do, you should do that, but I believe we create out of what we are and what is inside us, so if the Spirit is living in you and permeating your life, the Light will permeate whatever you create. In short, my recommendation is don't hide it, but don't force it either. If it is real in you, it will be real in your work. I am sure as your walk with Christ deepens, you will work out your own philosophy of art as a Christian. I am curious; did you ever work out a solid philosophy of art before? If you had one, what would you say it was?
Interested in your thoughts on that subject if you are willing to share them in this forum.
Okay, enough opinion. a few questions for you:
1. So I still want to purchase the 4th Volume of Stand Still Stay Silent, but I think I missed the Kickstarter campaign that printed it. Is there any way I could still purchase a copy or am I just out of luck?
2. Also curious what bands are your favorite?
3. Is there an automated alert message that will tell me when I need to renew my subscription to your blog?
Thanks for what you do and keep up the good work!
I don't really have/never had a philosophy of art, I tend to just draw whatever I'm passionate about at the time. xD When I was doing aRTd I was passionate about Finnish mythology, when I started SSSS I was obsessed with postapocalyptic scenarios etc... It's just really hard for me to do long projects if I'm not really that into what I'm drawing/writing about. And since the last year I've mostly been fixated on learning as much as I can about theological stuff... well, what I want to draw right now reflects that. I might still be in that new-ish-convert zealous stage where I just find all of the stuff so new and fascinating. I'm sure that the kind of stories that I want to tell will fluctuate many times in the future. As for the questions:
1. Hiveworks will make book 4 available in their shop along the other books once they've shipped out the Kickstarter copies. From what I've understood they're behind on starting the shipping, but they've got the books printed and ready.
2. I don't really have favourite bands. When I listen to music I tend to just find a few songs I like from whatever genre I'm craving, and then have those on repeat until I get sick of them.
3. No idea! I assume so, because I haven't seen any sudden drops in subscribers that would indicate people failing to resubscribe or something.
My son and I read this together. Later, when he overheard me raving to my wife about it ("I can't think of anyone else on earth who is doing anything like this") he says, "I can think of one. You showed me one comic a long time ago, about rabbits."
Hahah! And time really flows by fast, feels like I finished Lovely People just a little while back and not "a long time ago", but now that I think of it it's been nearly two years. (Also, thank you!)
I don't know what size you're drawing at, but I always want to use the biggest screen in the house and zoom in when I read your work. So many great details. It feels best when I get it to the size of a tapestry.
Will there be an RSS feed? That's how I got updates on SSSS.
I'll set one up by the next update, someone else asked for it too. I completely forgot RSS was a thing people use. xD
Hello! My name is Snow. I've followed your comics on and off for years. You have such a talent for storytelling, art, and characters, and I can't describe to you how excited I was to see the testimony comic and that you're turning your hand to this sort of story.
The first seven pages are beautiful. What you have so far feels very like the legends in Watership Down--which is one of my favorite books of all time. The visuals of the lamb with his cloak are amazing and the symbolism of every one of the animals having a red muzzle by the end is a powerful one. I'm not sure if it was intentional or not, but I very much appreciate the personification of the water as it becomes grieved at the animals' choices. Its parallels the Holy Spirit very nicely. I look forward to seeing how you handle that connection between the water and the lamb going forward, if that's something you intend to do.
In short, this is incredible, and it makes my heart very happy. I look forward to seeing more pages as they come out.
All the best,
~Snow
Aww thank you so much, such a kind comment! I'm really glad the symbolism(s) worked well. And Watership Down, the animated movie specifically, is actually one of my inspirations for the prologue visuals! (I watched it as a little kid, way too young probably, because my mom rented it from the library and apparently thought it was a children's movie since it had cartoon rabbits on the cover. x3)
The pages are sooo gorgeous! Super hyped to see the rest of the prologue! BTW, I don’t see the comment section on the website.
I chose not to have a comment section on the website this time since it'd be too stressful to moderate. -_- At least right now, maybe in the future! (And thanks!)
Ohh I misread “let me know in the comments if the website is broken” as “let me know if the comments on the website are broken”. Silly me!
Hi Minna! I was excited to hear in your newsletter that you're planning to self-publish a run of your testimony comic. I'd also love a physical copy of Lovely People, but I dread ordering it from the US. Do you think it'll be available to order from the EU at some point?
Yes! I'm going to have Lovely People copies for sale alongside the testimony comic, so you'll be able to get it directly from me. :D (I had originally planned to re-open my own shop to sell LP books during last fall, but I just got too swamped so I skipped it, bleh.)