Islands in the Sky Comic Blog

Hi-Rez Kayli...Posed!

2012-01-14T21:51:00.000-08:00

Howdy Folks,

Happy New Year...though I'm a bit late I suppose, sorry. Hope everyone had a great Christmas / Holiday and New Years. Just dropping by to share something cool with y'all. The Kayli model has been finalized for awhile now but the artist, Mark Kobrin, recently finished posing the hi-res version of the model and shared the image with me...and so I'm sharing it with you. Mark really did Kayli justice with his model and pose...I hope y'all like it. If you want to see more of Mark's stuff, check it out at his site...here.

Oh and in case you don't remember or have never seen it, it's based on this original concept by Genevieve...Kayli's redesign for the Project IITS game.

Update: If you're interested in seeing the model in slightly greater detail, here's a link.

- Joseph

Kayli Model Finalized

2011-11-27T12:58:00.000-08:00

Hey Folks,

Just dropping by for a quick update...the Kayli model was recently updated and I'm very happy with the changes. I know, anyone still reading this blog probably can't even remember what the old one looked like. The changes were mostly in the head and face so she pretty much has the same basic body shape you saw in the previous post. I hope to have a neat model preview link here in the next week or so.

By the way, the "Naked Kayli Sighting" post was just something I did on a whim. I was messing around in Unreal and dropped the model into UDK (Unreal Development Kit) to see it in some fancy lighting. The environment you see is a tech demo area built by Epic...not by Project IITS.

We're currently working on finishing up the rig for the model (which needed fixing/editing as a result of the model changes). Once the rig is done, we can start doing more fun stuff. I got a new animator for the project and she's great. More on her later when we got some stuff to show (her work was interrupted when we had to update the model/rig).

Anyway, hope y'all had a great Turkey Day weekend...thanks for reading.

- Joseph

You Have Spotted a Wild Kayli!

2011-10-01T02:10:00.000-07:00

QUICK! SNAP A PICTURE!

Sure Is Quiet...

2011-09-21T14:54:00.000-07:00

Hey IITS Readers,

Just a quick project update since I noticed I hadn't posted in awhile. We're in the middle of making some pretty substantial changes to the Kayli in-game model, which will then need to be re-rigged and also needs a facial rig for facial animations, and finally...I'm pretty close to finding a VO actress for the role of Kayli! More on that soon, hopefully. =)

Thanks for stopping by!

- Joseph

Kayli Mousepad Owners...Get Your Free Stuff!

2011-08-02T15:04:00.000-07:00

Hi Folks,

As I mentioned in the previous post, those of you who have purchased either or both Kayli Boob Mousepads at the IITS Store site or at any of the shows we attended (such as Comic-Con or APE) are eligible to receive some freebies from the IITS Store as an apology for the manufacturing flaw.

To get your free stuff, you'll need to submit a "proof of purchase"...which is pretty easy. First snap a photo of the pad and include a note in the picture that has your name and address and the two items (not including the mouse pads) you wish to have sent to you. Here's an example:

Please select two different items...the following examples are all valid:

1 Comic, 1 Kayli Big Sword Print
1 Assmeats Magnet, 1 Kayli Business Suit Front Print
1 Comic, 1 Assmeats Print

Next, email the picture to iits.store(at)gmail.com...then wait a bit and the stuff will magically appear in your mailbox! I'll keep all of this on record and when the fixed mouse pads are manufactured, they will be sent to you at the same address. If you don't want the freebies but want to submit your proof of purchase with me to keep on record for when the fixed pads are ready, just provide your address with the picture of the mouse pad. Finally, if you're too busy right now to deal with this nonsense, you can always wait for the announcement on this blog of when the new pads are available and claim your replacement then. Sound good? Cool.

Sorry for the ghetto way of doing things but it's easier to just respond to requests rather than track down everyone on record who has bought a mouse pad and sending out an email to each person. Hope that's okay with everyone!

P.S. Those of you who don't mind the flaws, the discounted and updated product is available at the store page and now includes details of why the item is discounted and some additional pictures of the problem.

P.P.S. If I don't find your name in the records, I may ask you a few questions about your purchase to verify your identity as a customer. Don't worry, if you're legit...you'll be fine. =)

- Joseph

Manufacturing Flaw in Kayli Boob Mousepads

2011-08-01T13:59:00.000-07:00

Hey Folks,

Got some unfortunate news to share...which those of you who purchased the Kayli Boob Mousepad may already be aware of. Apparently, over time, the gel area (the boobs) of the mousepad begin to curl a bit from the base of the mousepad. At first, I thought this was a fluke because my own mousepads did not exhibit this problem. I know now that it probably has something to do with exposure to oxygen because most of my stock is stored in boxes which are, in turn, stored in a closet. After taking a look at similar commercial mousepads and even the Kayli Boob Mousepad prototypes the manufacturer sent me, I think the problem can be chalked up to the lack of the inclusion of a stiff back plate between the gel and the rubber bottom of the mousepad.

Most aggravating of all is the fact that the two prototypes that were sent to me, which are the ones I look at on a regular basis because the others are stored, do not exhibit this problem and have the back plate included. Check out the following images:

Top to Bottom: Prototype, Retail Version, Retail Version
w/ AAA Battery for Gap Scale, Record of Agarest War Pad.

As it turns out, if you actually place your wrist on Kayli's boobs, the pad lowers to a normal shape and appears to be perfectly functional as a gel filled, wrist support mousepad and may not even bother some people. However, the design flaw is unacceptable to us and we sincerely apologize for it. I feel very terrible about this and while the manufacturer is entirely at fault for screwing me over with badly manufactured pads, I'm entirely responsible for the stock I've sold to our customers.

All said, here's my three step process for addressing this problem:

Step 1: Those who already purchased the mousepad are eligible to receive any two items from the IITS Store (not including the mousepads) free of charge. I know, some of you own everything we have...but please feel free to give these items to a friend. Also, keep reading!

Step 2: The remaining mousepads will be sold at a $20 discount (for a total of $25 after shipping) at the IITS Store to help pay for Step 3.

Step 3: I will begin the process of finding a competent and reliable manufacturer for flaw-free Kayli Mousepads.

Additionally, everyone who purchased a mousepad before today will be eligible for a free replacement mousepad which will be mailed to you when they are complete.

Islands in the Sky is a independent, self funded operation but we understand that our faithful fans and customers are the lifeblood for our project and despite the difficulties this process will create for us, your support is all important to us and nothing is worth losing that over.

For instructions on how to get your free stuff, please look for a forthcoming post. For those of you who don't mind the flaw and want to get a discounted pad, please wait for the IITS Store to to display the new price before purchasing.

Finally, just so you know, the process of having to get the pad made was very involved and took quite a long time...therefore I cannot guarantee a date for when the new pads will be made. Rest assured, I'm on the task. Thanks for your understanding, guys and gals. We'll do our best to get this fixed as soon as we can.

- Joseph

Project IITS Game Update

2011-07-27T08:05:00.000-07:00

Hey IITS Readers,

Just a quick update to let everyone know we're still alive. A lot of folks are wondering how the game will play and so the current plan is to create a visual proof of concept and I'm still in the process of putting that together. Beyond just entertaining a small but faithful group like yourselves, the visual proof of concept will help to secure funding to kick the project into full gear.

Due to the self funded nature of Project IITS, things like animation and modeling and such are all done on a contract basis...rather than having a full time team. As contractors come and go (getting busy with other contracts or finding full time work), the team changes from time to time and there is a process of relearning things and sometimes finding new directions to go in. Currently, Project IITS is in that process...but don't worry, we're still in business.

RE: The IITS Comic, I don't have any real updates for you...sorry. As it stands, Genevieve is still focused on working full time in the game industry and I'm focused on the Project IITS game. As always, if there is some new development, it will be posted here. For you small group of faithful fans out there...thank you for still dropping by from time to time!

- Joseph

About Project IITS - Part 1: Gordo's Island

2011-06-20T20:08:00.000-07:00

Hello IITS Readers,

A reader named FifthFanZac commented on my last post and speculated a bit about the design of the game and while responding, I decided I should just write a whole post about some aspects of the Project IITS game design...so here it is:

As a game element, Gordo's Island acts as a hub area for adventures. It's a place for the player to engage in some secondary forms of gameplay (as opposed to the primary gameplay of combat and exploration). In the original design, the hub was supposed to be chosen by the player from any of the procedurally generated islands that they might come across. I decided that was a bit ambitious so, instead...the hub areas are prefabricated. However, that doesn't mean that they're completely static...Gordo's Island can be upgraded in several different ways and what you see in the concepts and the 3D island crafted so far probably represents and island that is halfway upgraded. Each of the different upgrades provide a different gameplay bonus, whether it be storage, or crafting, cooking, etc.

All that's pretty standard for an action RPG type game, what I wanted to do to set Project IITS apart from similar game paradigms is that unlike your usual hub world, where there are linear paths that lead to other game areas, in Project IITS...the adventure comes to you. That probably makes no sense...so let me take a moment to explain that the world of IITS is in a constant state of change...the islands swirl around in an invisible ocean of wind...making everyone in the world a nomad. Imagine this: Kayli comes back from a long hard day of hunting popees and after cooking a few up for dinner, takes a nice long bath in the hot springs (what's an IITS product without a little naked Kayli?), she heads up to the treehouse and goes to sleep...in other words, the player exits out of the game. The next time the player logs into the game, Kayli wakes up and the game has simulated the passage of time and distance traveled and when Kayli steps out onto the front porch of the island abode, she might find herself in a completed different environment. Calm, blue skies are replaced with reddish tinged clouds and lightning storms. Popees are replaced by ravenous birds of prey looking for a juicy bit of Kayli to snack on and...at the docks, a beat up old airship is tethered...its lazily swinging lantern beckoning the player to approach...

All of that should be gameplay of course...the hunting of popees is part of the primary combat and exploration gameplay, cooking up the popees uses the cooking crafting system, taking a bath ABSOLUTELY should be interactive (I'm shameless, I know)...even the airship that suddenly appears is interactive. Using a dynamic questing system, the game generated the appearance of the airship and its owner. It may be a traveling salesman offering rare precursor artifacts for sale, it may be a craftsman offering upgrades to weapons or armor or glider parts...it may be a dude in distress (Kayli rescues the MEN) with a dynamically generated quest for Kayli to undertake.

In the original game, the project known as IITS Ultimate, the idea was to allow players to create their own character in an instanced, procedurally generated MMO style experience. Being a bit more realistic, I pared the project down to a be single-player adventure featuring Kayli as the main character but all the tech and experience we get from the first game will be built upon till everyone can participate in the world of IITS as a character/persona of their own creation. Game development is about iteration and while the idea of IITS Ultimate excites me, a smaller, tighter experience and testing out gameplay and ideas with Project IITS will, well...ultimately benefit IITS Ultimate.

I hope this gives those interested an idea of what to expect for Project IITS. I wish I had some gameplay to show but the game is always in a state of flux and I've got to make some big decisions about the direction of the project before I can state or show anything more solid.

- Joseph

2011-06-13T14:54:00.000-07:00

Hey IITS Readers,

Just a quick update today in the form of a video of the Gordo's Island model that Alex Mathis created for Project IITS. The video itself was also captured by Alex...I just threw it up on YouTube.

A few notes about the island...the area with water is an open air, steam bath grotto that can be entered from the outside as well as an interior entrance. The tent like structures in the branches of the trees are the sleeping areas...you can sometimes catch a glimpse of a bubble window from some of the camera passes. For those of you who read the book, that would be where Kayli is found sleeping at the start of the story.

As far as the world goes, you would likely see many other islands nearby and in the distance as well as a lot of creatures flying through the air but this is specifically showcasing Gordo's Island. Anyway, hope y'all like it. =)

Update: I messed with the size it displays on the blog site, if you want to see it in higher quality, just watch it on YouTube.

- Joseph

Gordo's Island in 3D!

2011-05-29T01:00:00.001-07:00

Hey IITS Readers and Various Peoples,

I've been juggling various projects and trying to keep them afloat so I apologize for the lack of updates but I got a neat little treat for you today. My friend and ex-coworker, Alex Mathis, just recently sent me some screenshots of the model of Gordo's Island I contracted him to do for Project IITS. He said it's not done yet (artists, feh!) but it certainly is nice enough to show here. Enjoy!

P.S. The original concept is here.

- Joseph

Fantastic Comics Grand Opening in Berkeley, CA!

2011-04-30T02:08:00.000-07:00

Hey folks,

I've come out of another long silence to just do a quick public service announcement for comic lovers in Northern California. My good friend Jeff Carter and his brother Uel Carter are having the grand opening for their new comic book store, Fantastic Comics, in Berkeley, CA on Sunday, May 1st. I've just come back from a small private party that they threw for their friends, neighbors, and business partners and I'm happy to report that the store is looking great!

Fantastic Comics is opening at the exact location of the old Comic Relief store and it was because of Jeff and Uel (who was a long time employee of Comic Relief), that Genevieve and I were able to do a fun signing to promote Islands in the Sky at both the store on Free Comics Day 2009 and at the Comic Relief booth at Comic-Con 2009. They are also the reason why we were able to get our little book on the shelves of Comic Relief!

Fantastic Comics is located at:

2026 Shattuck Ave.
Berkeley, CA 94704

If you live in the area, drop by sometime and say, "Hi!" If you've been looking for a great comic store that you can trust and rely on, why not start a pull list with Fantastic Comics? Remember, customers are the ones who help dictate what the store carries...so make your voice heard!

- Joseph

That's Uel on the left and Jeff on the right...Congratulations, guys!

Project IITS Update

2011-03-10T01:09:00.000-08:00

Hey folks,

I promised I'd give an update with a few details on the Project IITS, uh...project. The game stars Kayli, of course, and while it was the intent to feature her prominently for the game, I'm a great believer in allowing gamers to create their own persona within the world we want them to spend a great deal of time in. The scope of the project has scaled back and forth a few times but we needed a Kayli character in any version. For the game, I felt a smaller, cuter Kayli was more appropriate so we needed to re-imagine her a bit to fit into the game world. Below is the dynamite little package that we came up with:

While our readers will surely recognize Genevieve's distinct touch and style, I needed someone to create Kayli in 3D for the game. I was lucky enough to catch a former co-worker of mine, Mark Kobrin, in between gigs (he is now in NZ working at WETA Digital, no less) and he banged out a great 3D Kayli for me. Here's the result:

Given that Genevieve has been so busy, I've had to look elsewhere for some help in doing some concepts for environments that will later be turned into digital versions. My friend and former co-worker, Brandon Luyen (who is an instructor at the Academy of Art University in S.F.), suggested that a former student of his might be a good fit for the general style of the game and I contracted Cecilia Wong to do a few pieces for Project IITS...here is a re-imagined "Gordo's Island" that will be one of the set pieces for the game:

Hope y'all enjoyed this tiny taste of the Project IITS game. Thanks again to all our faithful readers for continuing to believe in IITS, supporting Genevieve and I, and spreading the word.

- Joseph

Long Time No Post!

2011-03-05T18:24:00.000-08:00

Hey Folks,

Sorry for the extended silence, I feel bad for keeping everybody in the dark for so long but there really hasn't been a lot going on with Islands in the Sky for awhile. First the bad news, Genevieve and I have no IITS related shows currently planned for 2011. We're currently taking a bit of a break from the comic project but are collaborating on a few other smaller projects here and there...if we feel there is potential interest among our IITS readership regarding these other projects, we'll post the info here.

The good news is, neither of us have given up on IITS...but it's just a matter of the planets aligning correctly for Genevieve and I to find the time to get back to the comic. In regards to the comic, we were originally going to do a direct sequel to the first issue we put out but decided to reboot the series midway through. We're simply not capable of putting out a regular book so we've decided to put out a "one shot" IITS graphic novel that will give readers a complete story. Rebooting the story requires quite a bit of work in terms of figuring out what format we want the book to be and most importantly, coming up with a great story from start to finish. This is all on me and it will take awhile for me to put together the original storyboards for the book. I think the first step is to contact some printers about the technical aspects of the book type we want but I've been putting that off. When there is progress on the storyboards...I'll let everyone know here.

The other good news is that I'm currently working on an indie video game project that I've codenamed: Project IITS. As some of you may know, Islands in the Sky started off as a video game idea that was a natural evolution of game ideas that, as a game designer, I've developed over the course of several years. Now, I know a video game isn't of much interest to those of you simply wanting more of the comic but I love comics AND video games and I'm doing my best to be true to the feel of the IITS world and its characters. This post is already getting TLDR so I'll save some of the details about the game that I can share in the next post...probably a few days from now.

For all of you who still hold out hope that we're nearing the completion of a second book, thank you for keeping up the faith...we will do our best not to let you down and want to make sure that the IITS graphic novel will meet and exceed all your expectations.

- Joseph

Kayli Fanart!

2010-10-28T13:53:00.001-07:00

Hey Folks,

Lane Terasaki, a long time follower of our comic and artist himself, recently sent us a piece he did of Kayli that Genevieve and I really dig. We're putting it up here for the rest of you to check out. Check out more of Lane's art at his Deviant Art site! Thanks again, Lane!

Ever notice that wherever Kayli goes, it's always very cold?

- Joseph

Thanks for Another Great APE!

2010-10-17T19:43:00.001-07:00

Hey Everyone,

These shows really leave me exhausted so I'm going to konk out for a little bit after this post but I just wanted to thank all the people who came by to check out our book...we sold a whole bunch more than we expected. We also sold a bunch of Kayli Boob Mousepads and the APE attendees have spoken! Based on overall sales...Sweet is better than Savory. =)

Super special thanks to our awesome table neighbors, Anthony, Debbie, Sherwin, Yen, and Mei Mei. More super special thanks go to Emily Martin at Megamoth for always being so supportive of us and Cliff at Deleter for coming by and demoing a bunch of Neopiko pens for us.

Finally, to all our new readers and past readers who came by with pitchforks and torches demanding the next book...thanks for being patient with Genevieve and I and we promise we'll do our best to deliver.

P.S. We were pretty slack this year on the picture taking of our customers...probably only getting about 33% of everyone but once Genevieve sends me the pics, I'll put them up here!

UPDATE: I put up the pics...sorry to all the folks we failed to snap a picture of...just based on how many mousepads and magnet sets we sold, I know we musta missed a bunch of you. Oh well, next time! =)

- Joseph

It's quiet...TOO quiet.

2010-10-14T18:59:00.000-07:00

Hey IITS Readers,

Sorry for the looooooong silence. Genevieve has been very busy at work and I've been busy working on my own thing. Well, it totally snuck up on us but APE is here (this Saturday and Sunday) and we're, yeah...I think we're ready. Comics, check. Prints, check. Kayli Boob Mousepads, check and check. Yep, we're ready! Wish us luck at the show and if you're from the Bay Area, come up and see us!

- Joseph

IITS at APE 2010!

2010-08-12T15:49:00.001-07:00

Hey folks,

Just a quick note to let you all know we'll be at the Alternative Press Expo 2010 (aka APE) at the Concourse venue in San Francisco, October 16th and 17th. APE is a very chill show that lots of local creators attend and table at so if you'd like a chance to talk with your favorite writers or artists in the local SF indie scene, APE is a good show to do it at. San Francisco is a hop, skip, and a jump away for both Genevieve and I so we will be there to hang out with folks and have a good time. If you're in the Bay Area, come by and see us at APE!

- Joseph

Comic-Con 2010 Pictures!

2010-07-26T18:03:00.000-07:00

Hey IITS Readers,

Just sharing the pics we managed to snap of the customers at our Comic-Con 2010 Small Press table. Those of you who picked up something but did not get your picture taken...sorry about that, we try to get pictures of everyone but sometimes I forget to ask. Enjoy!

- Joseph

First, two bonus pics of Genevieve's art...the first is a commission done for a sweet gal named Mary and the second was done for Dan Mendoza of Zombie Tramp! Thanks, guys...Genevieve had lots of fun with both of them! =)

Update: Here's the commission Genevieve created for Nick, a long
time follower of IITS and all around nice guy. Hope ya like it, Nick!

...and here's the wonderful folks who supported IITS!

Annnd we end the post with a super coot pic of Mary and Genevieve!

Thanks everyone for making IITS at Comic-Con 2010 so much fun!

Comic-Con 2010 is over...

2010-07-26T15:59:00.000-07:00

...but Genevieve and I had lots of fun meeting and talking to our past readers and new ones alike. Thanks to all the folks we met at other shows who came by to see us again and thanks to all the people we met for the first time at Comic-Con 2010!

Check back here later tonight for an update that will include the pictures we snapped of people who picked up our stuff (thank you!).

P.S. Those of you who got a free commission from Genevieve for picking up the mouse pad and did not receive it at the show, rest assured...Genevieve is working on them and we will be mailing them out to you as soon as we can. Thank you for your patience! =)

- Joseph

IITS in Comic-Con 2010 Small Press

2010-07-20T15:21:00.001-07:00

Hey IITS Readers,

No big surprises for the show this year...mostly we'll be continuing to promote Islands in the Sky to new fans and to generate more buzz for our property. However, those of you attending the show this year, please drop by and say, "Hi," to us. We'd love to see you! =)

We'll be in Small Press, booth M11...probably under "Islands in the Sky" or maybe "Keno's Lair". Hope to see you there!

- Joseph

Baby Manty

2010-07-11T18:56:00.000-07:00

Hey Guys!

I went to my friend Emmy's house to try out felting for the first time. If you aren't familiar with the process, all you do is grab a bunch of fluffy colored wool and stab the heck out of it with a sharp needle equipped with a barb at the tip, which weaves the wool into a tight mass. You can make other shapes of different colors and stick it anywhere as long as you stabbity-stab it good. I decided to make our little Manty mascot. It took a few hours or so to finish him but I had a lot of fun! You can't see it from these photos but I even gave him a white belly. I definitely want to do another felting project again! ^__^

~Genevieve

IITS and Comic-Con 2010!

2010-06-15T14:32:00.000-07:00

Hey Everyone!

I got some great news to share...we were approved at the last minute for a table at Comic-Con 2010! Genevieve and I will do our best to switch gears and create some new content for our readers for this Comic-Con even though we were thinking we'd only be at APE this year for our final 2010 show. The table fee has been mailed, hotels and flights booked, and things are looking great for us at Comic-Con International 2010! See y'all there!

Hey, look! APB Kayli and her 20 foot tall statue heard the news too and they're super pumped!

- Joseph

Kayli in APB!

2010-06-13T23:05:00.001-07:00

Hello IITS Readers!

So I've been dying to share this with you all because I think it's very neat...but I honored the NDA that Real Time Worlds had on the Closed Beta Testers for their upcoming PC action game, APB or All Points Bulletin. No, it's not a remake of the classic...it's basically large scale Grand Theft Auto gameplay from the father of GTA, Dave Jones. Well, the NDA is effectively over since anyone and their grandmother can join the Key to the City event right now...

The game is a lot of fun and that is in no small part due to the fact that you can create your own character in almost any way you can imagine. Naturally, I made Kayli and she turned out pretty neat. The first two shots below are when I was with the Enforcer faction (cops) but after the servers wiped, I remade Kayli as a criminal and created a cool custom tan line job for her. If anyone has watched any anime or read any manga in the last ten years, you might recognize the outline of a one piece, Japanese schoolgirl swimsuit. =)

All the decals, designs, and lettering are custom work...made using a system similar to what you might see in the Forza series of games. So you can't actually import any art...you gotta make it yourself from "primitive" shapes, a little masking, and a lot of creativity. I'm certainly not the best artist in the game but I'm the only one who came up with the idea to use tattoos as a means of faking a tan line for my character.

Anyway, it's vaguely IITS related in the sense that it's Kayli in the APB game...hope y'all like it.

- Joseph

The monster hoodie is two circles for each eye and triangles for teeth.
Even the striped socks are custom. Seriously, guys? No striped socks?

The theme was "rookie cop on her first day on the job who forgets
to put her pants on before she leaves the police station locker room".

Close up detail of the Central Islands icon on Kayli's shoulder
as well as her cheek tattoos. I think they turned out great.

Here's the front view of the tan lines. It's actually made up
of thirty unique shapes that are translucent "tattoos".

Here's a view of the tan lines from Kayli's back. I'm a little sad that
they don't allow for bigger butts but at least you can enlarge the hips.

Here's a close up...if you look closely at the wrist on the right,
you'll see a small, gray seam where the tattoos didn't quite match up.

You can tag the city with you graffiti and so I used the Central Islands
icon and posed in front of my handiwork for this shot. =)

We're on Facebook now!

2010-06-09T15:02:00.001-07:00

Now that we've crawled out from underneath the rock we've been under, we've discovered this thing called "Facebook" and though it seems like a fad that'll die out in the next few weeks, like the return of "trucker hats" (gosh, I hope so)...we decided to create a Facebook page for IITS anyway. We will continue to update the blog site but since some people prefer to just use Facebook for everything...we'll keep that site updated as well. There's not much to see right now but we'll try to put something up soon. In the meanwhile, please join our Official Islands in the Sky Central group on Facebook and leave us a note on the wall!

- Joseph

IITS Store Update!

2010-06-02T19:57:00.000-07:00

Hey Everyone,

As it turns out, I might have accidentally broke our IITS Store awhile back so if you've tried to make a purchase recently or in the past, I apologize for the store being broken. Everything should be good now and in the process of fixing all the broken PayPal links, I decided to go ahead and add the Kayli Boobs Mouse Pads to the store!

We are offering the "Savory" (clothed) and "Sweet" (nude) versions for $40 each + tax & shipping and you can pick up both for just $75 and no increase in shipping fees! What a deal!

What are you waiting for? Head to the store now and buy one for all your friends! =)

P.S. If you have any problems with the store, please send an email to iits.store(at)gmail(dot)com.

- Joseph

Kayli Boob Mousepads Have Arrived!

2010-06-02T17:09:00.001-07:00

Hey Everyone,

I received my very late order of Kayli Boob Mouse Pads from the manufacturer yesterday evening and all you awesome people who "pre-ordered" your Mammary-O-Ergonomic pads at Fanime should be receiving them very soon. They were shipped out today via USPS Priority Mail. Turns out the shipping is actually almost exactly $5 for a single mousepad so I won't need to send out any refunds for that. I personally checked each one before shipping them out but if there are any problems, please let me know.

For those of you who weren't able to make it to the show but would like to pick up the mousepad, they will be available on our IITS Store site in just a few days in both flavors, "Savory" (sounds better than "Salty") and "Sweet"...keep an eye out for 'em!

- Joseph

Thanks for Coming to See Us at Fanime!

2010-05-31T21:22:00.000-07:00

Hey IITS Readers,

Thanks so much to all of you for coming out to see us, you guys always make the conventions better by cheering us on, showing us your support, and making us feeling guilty for not having issue two out. Nick, Chris B, Hamasuki, Ben, Tim and Callie, James, Patrick, Dave, Emil, Dread Lord CyberSkull, AJ, and Sparky...thank you! I'm sure there are a bunch of people I missed and I'm really sorry about that...I'm still recovering a from a pretty exhausting weekend. It was a great show for us...we were able to spread the word to lots of new folks and even Reuben Langdon dropped by our table to pick up a few things!

Special thanks to Jamie (I think I spelled it right this time) and her husband Mike for the Kayli sketch, the Prinny sticker, sharing snacks with us, and just being some of the most awesome table neighbors ever! Hope to see you at another show soon, Jamie. =)

This year, we snapped only a few pictures early on but Genevieve's camera was on the fritz on Friday and my phone battery kept dying so we just decided to skip the pictures this show. I know, WEAK...but that's the way it is. A few folks did snap pictures of us on the other hand and Ben sent us the one he snapped so this year, you just get a picture of Genevieve and I. How's that?

Sorry to all the folks who came by to pick up our Kayli Boob Mouse Pad...due to a major delay with the shipment, it missed the delivery date by several days and according to the shippers site, I should receive a big box of boobs either Tuesday or Wednesday. Hmm...it says here there was a "Customs Clearance Delay". Yeah, sure...more like "Customs Guys Can't Stop Playing With Kayli's Boobs". Anyway, the Kayli Boob Mouse Pads were a definitely a hit with the crowd. Now, instead of people dragging their friends over to see Kayli naked on the big piece of meat, they drag their friends over to see the Kayli Boob Mouse Pad and Kayli naked on the big piece of meat. It definitely brought a lot of folks over to our table. =)

Thanks to all our old friends from previous show and all our new customers...we hope you'll all continue to come see and support us. See you next show!

UPDATE: Some friends at the show sent us some more pics of us at the table...shared them below.

- Joseph

Hamasuki sent us this pic of Genevieve taking a break.

Here's Hamasuki's pic of Genevieve and I together.

And I thought I was being sorta pervy with the lip puckering.
I had no idea she was doing that opposite me, folks...haha.

Oh, I forgot to mention...

2010-05-26T16:44:00.001-07:00

...the Kayli Boob Mouse Pads come in two flavors, "Salty Behemoth Intestines" and "Honey Sweet Kayli". You've already seen the the "Salty" flavor in my previous post...here's the "Sweet" flavor:

You might be wondering, "Has Kayli no shame?!"
The answer of course is, "No...no she doesn't."

You can tell when the manufacturer understands the needs
of their clients when they provide images like this one.

We had a few inquiries as to the pricing for the Kayli Boob Mouse Pads and after quite a bit thought, I believe that $40 is more than reasonable for such an awesome and functional bit of Genevieve's amazing art. However, for the Fanime 2010 show, we're offering it for the 'highway robbery' price of $35 each for all attendees. For readers of the blog, we're going to give one more discount...if you'd like to buy one of each, just tell us, "Hello, I'd like the Salty/Sweet Combo Meal, please," and you can get both flavors for the 'you're taking food from the mouths of my children' deal of $65!

P.S. We've received our table placement for Fanime...we'll be at T300/T301. See you all at the show!

- Joseph

Important Fanime Annoucements

2010-05-25T17:33:00.000-07:00

Hey IITS Readers,

Gotta make some quick and important announcements regarding Fanime. First of all, our good friend Sherwin (who contributed guest art to our updated first book) will be offering a number of his awesome prints for sale at our table at Fanime. Among his prints for sale will be a very cool color version of his "Roller Kayli" that he did for us in our book!

I love seeing Kayli drawn outside of the context
of the IITS world and this is one of my favorites!

The second announcement is that, due to unforeseen events, both Genevieve and I will not be around to man the table on Saturday, May 29th of the show. We're really sorry about that. If you want to come and see us and pick up some stuff at our table, please come see us on Friday, Sunday, or Monday. As of right now, we have not been able to find anyone to keep our table open in our absence...if that changes, we'll let you know.

- Joseph

A Little Fanime Surprise!

2010-05-24T20:03:00.000-07:00

Hey IITS Readers,

We promised a little surprise for Fanime 2010 and since you're probably looking at it right now and ignoring these words altogether...here it is! Yes, folks...we got ourselves some Kayli Boob Mouse Pads. Do you often engage in long nights of gaming, tweeting, or trolling other people's Facebook pages? Why not rest your weary wrists on Kayli's soft, ready, and willing boobs?

Kayli appears to be well aware of the stir she is causing
while that rascal Manty looks on and Gordo is dumbstruck.

In case you were wondering just how much wrist support
Kayli's boobs offer, this angle should provide your answer.

It's always and been our goal to offer only the finest, coolest, and sexiest Islands in the Sky merchandise to our fans and I have to say, this is by far our finest, coolest, and sexiest item we've ever offered. A lot of work went into this, both in terms of the concept and execution of the awesome artwork Genevieve has created as well as the research and interaction with the manufacturer. We're super happy with the way it's turned out and we hope you'll pick one or three up for your friends and family to show your support for us. Fanime attendees will get first dibs on these but, of course, we will offer them on our IITS Store a short time after the show.

Just so you know...we still plan on continuing the IITS property in a multitude of ways but because of our own personal schedules and other projects, we can only devote a small fraction of our time to IITS. We hope that the Kayli Boob Mouse Pads proves our continued dedication to IITS and to all of our fans. Keep watching our page for more IITS news in the future. Thanks so much for reading and supporting us, guys and gals. =)

- Joseph

Fanime Surprise Coming Soon to a Fanime Near You

2010-05-17T04:34:00.000-07:00

Hello IITS Readers,

Genevieve and I have a real neat surprise treat for you all for Fanime 2010! After a lot of tears (sorry, there was no blood or sweat), I think it's safe to announce that we've managed to meet all the important deadlines for getting this thing done. That's pretty vague, I know...but hey, it's a surprise, right? Keep watching this space for more info in the days to come. =)

- Joseph

Fanime 2010 in One Month!

2010-04-30T18:42:00.000-07:00

Hey IITS Readers,

It's been a little quiet around here so I just wanted to drop a quick note to remind y'all that we'll be at Fanime 2010 from May 28th to May 31st. Genevieve is working hard on a little project that I have tasked her with and if all goes well, we'll have a neat little surprise for Kayli and IITS fans at the show. When I've got confirmation, maybe I'll leave a few hints on our site for ya. =)

- Joseph

IITS Drawings by Others!

2010-04-06T16:37:00.000-07:00

Heya IITS Readers,

I finally woke up from the looong after-Con nap I took on Sunday. Man, what a show. Great fun but so tiring...you really don't feel it till you get back though. While you're there, it's just a constant state of excitement.

Anyway, we got some neat drawings to share with you! A few of our friends/neighbors/customers drew some Islands in the Sky related pics for you and I'm posting them here for the rest of you to enjoy. Credits for each will be in the captions below the pics.

P.S. Has Kayli been your muse? Have you drawn Yaoi featuring Gordo? Send us your IITS related creations! We'd love to share them with the rest of the readers! =)

UPDATE: Added a picture of Kayli from Bill and Aaryn who are working on a romance comic! Thanks guys...we love Kayli's back almost as much as her front! =)

Bill Henkel provided this great color image of Kayli's ample bottom!

This first one is by Christian Bahena. I snapped this directly out
of his sketchbook at WC so I apologize for the low image quality.

This is also by Chris and was one of his favorite poses in the book.
It's one of mine too. You can almost hear her say, "Hot, huh?"

This third and last one is my favorite from Chris as he takes
Kayli and puts her on paper in his own style. Thanks, dude!

Here's one of Kayli from Becky of Tiny Kitten Teeth

Thanks, Becky!

Emily, creator of Otherkinds, sent us this awesome one
of Kayli and her own character, Zlata, fighting over meat!

Finally, a shot of Kayli from Genevieve herself...created for
a headphones themed sketchbook being passed around. =P

Thanks for all the awesome art, guys and gals! Keep 'em coming!

- Joseph

WonderCon 2010, Day 3

2010-04-04T18:42:00.000-07:00

The shorter, quieter last day of WC 2010 gave Genevieve a chance to do some shopping in the morning and smaller crowds also allowed her to focus more on the many commissions she took on. To the last few guys that she wasn't able to finish the commissions for...sorry about that! Genevieve has your contact info and will be in touch with you about either having it ready for Fanime 2010 or mailing it to you.

We had a great time at this year's show and the interest in Islands in the Sky continues to be strong among new and old fans alike. Thank you to all our faithful readers in being so patient with Issue 2. We're very sorry for disappointing you but we will do our best to deliver as soon as we're able.

Super thanks go to Matt and Ben, our left side neighbors for being so cool and laid back...Vince, Kelly, and Chuck , our right side neighbors for always offering go get us eats...Becky & Frank, our opposite side neighbor for her awesome Kayli drawing...Rachel and Mike, our opposite-right neighbors at Poseur Ink for always providing fun conversation...Cory, our opposite-left neighbor (Plotless Comics) for breaking the ice on Day 3 and hanging out and talking with us a bit. Great shows happen because of great neighbors and you all rock! Thank you!

Oh yeah, super thanks to Emily, creator of Otherkinds, for dropping off the latest copy of her book with a super cool pic of Zlata & Kayli fighting over some meat! So awesome! =) Almost forgot Manuel, creator of the awesome Fearless Zombie Hunters...thanks so much for your book, we love it! Gah, I know I missed some people...sorry, I'm about to fall unconscious after having only a McSausage McBiscuit McEgg to eat all day.

Stay tuned for the final group of customer photos! I took a few on my BlackBerry while Genevieve was away and I'll start with this awesome R2-D2 wearing the Manty Hat! =)

UPDATE: Added the rest of the pics for Sunday's show and some captions for a few of the shots.

"Beep doop derp derp beep boopity boop!"
(Translation)
"Someone get this ****ing blue wanna-be mynock offa me!"

(above)
Trevor and Genevieve with the commission she did for him.

(above)
Bill & Aaryn! We can't wait to show others your
Kayli drawings! Thanks so much! =)

(above)
The super nice Llyn (hope I spelled that right)! Thanks for
stopping by and chatting to us, see you at the next show! =)

(above)

Genevieve and Nick with the commission you see below.
Thanks for being so patient, Nick!

(above)
Yes, that is a Tricorder she's trying to hail the Enterprise with.../sigh =)

(above)
Cory from Plotless Comics! Awesome shirt!

(above)
Emily! Creator of Otherkinds! Love the goggles! =)

(above)
We leave you a shot of Genevieve in her sad, trash bag parka.
Thanks, everyone...see you next show!

- Joseph

WonderCon 2010, Day 2

2010-04-03T21:00:00.000-07:00

Craaaaziness on the exhibits floor today...just crazy busy. I forgot something early on in the day and headed out to my car and the line for the show just went on and on. We really weren't expecting it to be so busy. The vibe of the attendees was really good though...it wasn't so crowded that people were uncomfortable when moving around. Once again, we were placed in the same aisle as the guest stars like Richard Hatch, Marina Sirtis, Denise Crosby, Adam Baldwin, Boomer (the original one), and a bunch more...that half of Small Press is super crowded but it's my feeling that the extra traffic it generates is always good for the rest of the people in the aisle. If I remember correctly, I think I specifically requested being in the guest star aisle. =)

Show goers hit our table like a tornado. It'd be a flurry of interest and activity for several minutes then all at once everyone would just disappear and we'd wonder if there was ever even a crowd there at all...it was sorta surreal. Lots of interest from new folks in IITS...we figured WonderCon would be a very local show with mostly people who we've seen at Fanime, SuperCon, and APE but we're moving a lot of books to a whole new group of folks and it's been fun and rewarding to talk to everyone about our work.

P.S. We probably snapped 80-85% of our customers today so there'll be a huge group of pictures when I receive the .zip from Genevieve. Thanks to all who let us take your pictures and share it here. =)

UPDATE: Saturday's customer pics are up! Thanks, everyone!

WonderCon 2010, Day 1

2010-04-02T22:44:00.000-07:00

Hey IITS Readers!

The first day of WonderCon 2010 was awesome! We thought the weather might get bad and keep the crowds away but we had LOTS of con-goers. Lots of old friends and co-workers dropped by to say, "Hi!", lots of of old table neighbors from previous shows wishing us well, lots of folks who bought Issue 1 at our previous shows and demanding to know where the heck Issue 2 was at, and lots of new people who got to see and enjoy IITS for the first time.

Genevieve is already swamped with commissions but those who want them can still drop by tomorrow and see if she can fit it into her busy schedule. Thanks to everyone who dropped by to wish us well, talk to us, and help make the show great fun. Also, to our faithful readers waiting for Issue 2, we're sooo sorry...we'll do our best to bring it to you when we can.

P.S. Once again, I forgot to ask Genevieve for the show photos before I dropped her off...so there's a good chance she's crashed out snoring on the living room floor of her apartment right now. If that's the case, I'll post all of Friday and Saturday's pics tomorrow night.

UPDATE: Added the pics of the customers we did manage to snap a photo of...I think we missed about 33%. =( But what a lovely group of people we DID snap! =)

- Joseph

WoooOOOOoooonderCon!!!

2010-03-30T00:52:00.000-07:00

Hey IITS Readers,

If you're in the Bay Area, don't forget to attend the WonderCon 2010 show at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, April 2nd-4th. It seems like it's going to be a great show this year. The show is chock full of neat creators like Sergio Aragones, Adam Hughes, Frank Cho, Greg Rucka and Kevin Smith! Check here for a full list of all the special guests. There's a lot of cool panels to go to across all three days...they also added late night gaming for the card gaming crowd, and don't forget the Sixth Annual WonderCon Masquerade!

Did I forget anything? Hmmm...seems like I should have mentioned something else...hmmm...it's on the tip of my tongue...OH RIGHT, Islands in the Sky will be there too! Please come see Genevieve and I in Small Press...we're probably listed under Keno's Lair or some nonsense. Please drop by our booth and say "Hi", we'd love to see ya! Genevieve will be available for commissions as well so if you love her art, secure a spot early...because the show is only so long and she only does as many as she can manage for the weekend and no more.

Looking forward to seeing all our friends from past shows and if you can't make it, please wish us luck in this second year of promoting Islands in the Sky!

- Joseph

...followed by a long period of silence.

2010-03-16T14:20:00.000-07:00

Hey IITS Readers,

Sorry for the lack of news or updates...there was just nothing new to report. However, we're going to be at WonderCon between April 2nd - 4th and the Moscone Center in San Francisco and we'll have some new stuff for Islands in the Sky but as I said before, no new book. Sorry. =(

Genevieve and I discussed the project at length and I think the problem we have is trying to constantly do something new for each show we attend but never having enough time to do it. WonderCon in March/April, Fanime in May, Comic-Con in July, APE in October...it's just too much. This year, we didn't make the cut for Comic-Con so while we're still attending the other shows, we're going to try to use most of our IITS work time to work on better developing our comic...which is the most important thing overall. This means that we might not have anything new for the book for a year or more but the pressure of trying to develop something new for each show and our own personal lives is too much.

Islands in the Sky is an ongoing project for us and we're still dedicated to working on it but the realities of day jobs and personal life just make it very hard. We hope that our fans will still come to see us at the shows we do attend and whenever we have something new, we'll definitely share it with you all here. Thanks to everyone for being so patient while waiting for a new comic from us.

- Joseph

Sanzaru & Art Trade

2010-02-14T03:58:00.001-08:00

Hey Guys!

As always, I've been pretty busy with a few projects lately. One is preparing some new stuff for Wondercon 2010, another is an Islands in the Sky: Expedition Artbook (name tentative) that a group of awesome artist friends of mine are collaborating with; and finally some more art trades I've been meaning to finish.

I've also been preparing for my move to Sanzaru Games. It's been an awesome experience working on the MySims team, and I'll dearly miss all my friends there at EA. ;_; Everyone's been so good to me! But I feel at Sanzaru my portfolio will really grow and I'll be both challenged and inspired by the new project, style and all the great artists there. I feel the change is just what I need to achieve the next step in the development of my career.

Anywho, here's another trade I've been working on for my friend Vince Riley, who's been helping on the new IITS: Expedition Artbook. He's drawn me some pretty cool Kayli sketches in the past and has been a great tablemate/neighbor at the various comic conventions we frequent.

As my end of the trade, I drew my rendition of the main character from Vince's comic, Native Drums (click this link to see the comic on DeviantArt!). I also added his freakin' adorable dog, Little Foot (his real dog--not in the comic), in there, with a little antennae and Scouter on one eye, just for kicks! ^__^

One of these days I'll fully color this, but for now I'm just inking/flat-shading this one.

And some roughs:

~Genevieve

Sorry it's been a little quiet...

2010-02-04T21:32:00.001-08:00

...my internet connection went down for almost two weeks. Unfortunately, I'm posting something on a bit of a down note. As of right now, the likelyhood of us getting Issue #2 out for WonderCon 2010 is, well...not likely. Both of us are dealing with some pretty significant events in our lives right now (unrelated to each other and nothing bad) so we've not had the chance to really focus our attention on the IITS Comic. For those of you really looking forward to Issue #2, we're really sorry. We both really wish we had more time to dedicate to the project and will still continue to work on it when we can. Hopefully, our new plans for WonderCon will still be really cool and we look forward to sharing them with you.

Thanks to all of you for your continued support.

- Joseph

Art Trade for Tuna Bora

2010-01-23T03:35:00.001-08:00

Hey Guys!

I had the pleasure of meeting the sweet and incredibly talented Tuna Bora at the Nomad Gallery in December and her piece really stood out and grabbed me! I loved the energy in the wind-up pose she captured; the simplicity packed with attitude; the overall silhouette and style--all of it was so delightful I instantly loved it! That's why I was so ecstatic when she decided to so very generously GIFT me this very piece!! I was struck with excitement and giddiness at hearing this and soon we both agreed to do a trade:

Since Tuna's character was winding up to throw a snowball, confidently blowing bubble gum and ready to sock it to some poor fellow on the other end, I decided to draw Kayli as the target of the assailant, taunting away in her usual goofy self. This was done in blue pencil, brush pen and watercolor (the latter is a medium I've recently started teaching myself but desperately need more practice at). I wish I did a scan of just the clean inks, which became toned down after adding the colors, and I tried adding some artsy paint splatters but I hope it doesn't look like a mess...

Anyway, I think Tuna's piece takes the cake. She makes it seem easy as pie! ^__^

~Genevieve

Puppy Love

2010-01-18T13:21:00.000-08:00

Hey Guys!

Sorry this blog has been sort of quiet lately. I have a ton of projects on my plate so things have been busy for me. Last night I was learning watercolor techniques in preparation for an art trade I'm doing for a friend... here is a piece I did for practice.

"Puppy Love"

Hope you guys like! ^__^

~Genevieve

WonderCon 2010 Confirmed!

2010-01-17T11:12:00.000-08:00

Hey folks,

Just wanted to let you know that Genevieve and I have confirmation that we will have a table at WonderCon 2010 in April. The actual dates are April 2nd - 4th at Moscone Center South in San Francisco. In addition to the pleasure of being able to see us...there seems to be a pretty good guest list of industry favorites. Check out the site and get registered today!

- Joseph

IITS Issue #2...Back On Track!

2010-01-08T06:44:00.001-08:00

I know, I know...it's been like a year. We're doing our best but real life keeps catching up with us. In any case, we've restarted work on Issue #2 and we reworked how we're going to tell the story for that book...hopefully, it'll be meatier in terms of storytelling, if not pages. We're not setting a hard deadline for it anymore. We'd like to be done in time for WonderCon 2010 but if we're not able to make it, we'll just postpone it for another show...possibly Fanime in May.

As long as we got something in the works, I'll continue to update at least once a week, hopefully with good news on our progress or info about some other Project IITS plan I have brewing....

Hope y'all had a great holiday!

- Joseph

Happy New Year!

2010-01-01T00:02:00.000-08:00

From Genevieve and I to all our readers, Happy New Year...and may the year 2010 bring you happiness and prosperity!

- Joseph

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

2009-12-22T15:18:00.000-08:00

I suppose it's politically correct to say "Happy Holidays" now but I grew up celebrating Christmas so that's what I'm calling it. In whatever way the rest of you celebrate this time of year, Genevieve and I wish you and your family all the best...and by that, I mean lots of great food and great gifts, yo. =)

The Islands in the Sky site will be quiet till the start of the new year but we've set into motion some exciting plans that we hope to share with all our readers as soon as we can. Everyone, please be safe on the roads, enjoy your time with loved ones, and have a great time!

See y'all next year!

- Joseph

Contest Winner! (WARNING: LONG POST)

2009-12-16T14:42:00.000-08:00

Hey IITS Readers,

Thanks for all the submissions to our Snowball War print contest, Genevieve and I really enjoyed reading all of them. The first five questions were clearly "gimme's" and every answer could be easily gleaned from either the comic book or the blog site. In the end, it really came down to a choice between the people who made a real effort to come up with creative ideas for the bonus question. One of our contestants suggested that we post all the answers that everyone submitted and while we thought that would be a good idea, it would make for a ridonkulously long post so we decided to just share with the rest of the readers our three finalists. They are:

Chris P.
FifthFanZac
Chris B.

Here are their entries:

Chris P.
Stuck in their cell, Gordo comes up with a plan. He calls for the
guard, frantically screaming that Kayli is trying to copulate with
him, and he's unwilling- he needs help to get her off of him!
Immediately awake, the guard eagerly runs over and throws open the
door- and is promptly stabbed with the gnawed, splintered bone. Gordo dons the guard's keys and uniform. A confused Kayli asks what he's doing, but is interrupted as Gordo pours oily gruel all over her. Her eyes stinging, she suddenly feels a draft- Gordo has stripped her of her bodysuit!

Before she knows it, she's been pushed down the hallway. Unable to
stop herself on her oily feet, she bursts through the double doors,
right into the middle of the pirates cafeteria. The rough crowd is
suddenly silent. After a pause, Kayli, with an embarrassed grin, takes
off, streaking towards the exit. The pirates give chase, but find
themselves unable to get a hold of her- her well-oiled body slips from
their grasp each time.

With the cafeteria clear, Gordo briskly finds his way to the docking
bay, where the pirates stashed their stuff after being captured.
Meanwhile, Kayli blindly (and slippery-ly) makes her way through the
compound, eventually finding the exit. With pirates in tow, she runs
outside. However, she finds herself at the edge of the island, with
nothing but grass beneath her, an atmospheric fall in front of her,
and incensed pirates behind her. Facing the crowd of poorly groomed
ruffians, she places a foot over the edge. The pirates hesitate for a
moment, but then advance. Resigned to her fate, Kayli leans back and
tumbles off the edge.

The pirates let out a gasp, and rush to the edge- only to have their
faces buzzed by an swiftly climbing Manty! Gordo, holding Kayli in his
arms, unceremoniously dumps her onto the seat next to him- there's not much room on Manty and he has to keep the machine stable. The temporary pilot casually tosses Kayli her bodysuit. After re-dressing, she angrily takes Manty's reigns. As explosions from sabotaged vehicles in the pirates docking bay sound in the distance, Kayli steers them away into parts unknown. Gordo finishes eating the banana.

FifthFanZac
Kayli:"Quick take off all your clothes."
Gordo: "What why?!"
"To distract the guard. Then when he enters the cell for a little Gordo lovin I'll push this pole on his head."

An exasperated sigh leaves Gordo's lips as he pinches the bridge of his nose.

"Listen lets just look around first and see if any of these stones are loose."
"Phoo, you never go with my ideas."

A quick search reveals a loose block!

"Ok help me push it."
"But Gordy what about the G-U-A-R-D?"
"Kayli he's asleep, not an infant, you don't have to spell out guard. Besides this block looks to be right above his head, we'll free ourselves and knock him out at the same time."
"Two meats over one fire."
"Yeaaahhh, ok sure, look just watch the guard while I push this and tell me if he's waking up"
"Kay"

Gordo uses his manly physique to push the block out of the wall where it falls on the sleeping guard's face, gently guiding him into a deeper dreamworld.

Both our heroes, wait don't sound right. . . Adventurers. . . hmmm. The meat hunter and the hermit jump though the hole and promptly retrieve their equipment which was placed in the armory just next door. Good fortune smiles upon them.

"Hey don't call me a meat hunter, I'm more of a meat gourmet!"
"Gah, Kayli don't talk to the narrator like that!"
"Aww, but-"

Angry shouts can be heard down the hall, the incapacitated guard has been noticed.

"See this is what happens when you talk to people."
"Well what now oh Mr. Plans."
"We steal their gliders."

They sneak to the hanger using a cardboard box. Once there hermit boy hot wires a glider with a paperclip while the meat gourmet uses a nearby pole to bar the door.

"Ok it's ready lets get out of here."

The glider rockets into the sky taking our dynamic duo to new heights.

"Batman AND Robin? Here?"
"I think he means us Kayli."
"Ohhh. . . victory banana!"
"No, don't eat that you don't know where it's been!"
"AWWWWW!"

Come again next time, same sky time, same sky channel.

Chris B.

The attached picture is what I believe the situation to look like. So let's begin shall we? Kayli gathered all of the items in the room thinking of a plan to come up with, when Gordo finally came out of his helpless slump! Thinking he could possibly use Kayli's looks, he woke the guard. Gordo called him over, telling him to open the door. Obviously the guard refused, but with a little persuasion and a little 'charm' from Kayli, he opened the door. Hoping to get Kayli all for himself, she grabbed the bone and smashed it on his head, knocking him out cold. Poor guard. Anyhow, seeing as they had no means of escape it was time to put some serious thinking faces on. However, it wasn't too long before Kayli was distracted by the smell of meat coming from the dining hall. Being, well...Kayli, she was determined to get that meat by any means necessary..which also meant she ran into the hall full of men eating that same meat.. The men stared blankly at Kayli until she realized she was caught. Without any warning they all jumped up and ran after her. Gordo, unaware of the situation, casually walked down the hall looking for any means of escape until he heard a crowd of yells and grunts. "What the hell?" He ran in, only to find Kayli on top of a group of knocked out pirates. Well except one, but he decided to run away, stashing away any meat he had with him. Grabbing all the meat she could, Kayli and Gordo escaped with their lives and a belly full of food. Poor Gordo. ):

And the winner is...

FifthFanZac...congratulations!

We decided to go with FifthFanZac because while Chris P. had funny and creative use of the gruel and Chris B.'s was charming because of the fun little picture he shared, FFZ had us laughing the most. We loved these three entries the most and to us...it was almost to close to call. We didn't want the other two guys to go away empty handed so after some discussion we decided that while FFZ wins the deluxe 19x13 Snowball War Print, we would award each of our two runner's ups with the almost as awesome 14x11 smaller sized Snowball War prints! Yay! If you are a winner and haven't already sent Kayli your mailing address, please do so now. FifthFanZac, your print can be mailed this week...Chris B. and Chris P., please forgive us, we'll need to contact someone to print up yours before we can mail them out. It was a last minute decision to hand out the additional prizes and we only have the 19x13 print on hand.

Once again, congratulations to all our winners and thanks to everyone who entered!

- Joseph

Reminder: Last Day for Contest Entries

2009-12-15T14:02:00.000-08:00

If you want a chance at winning the signed 19"x13" Snowball War print, it's not too late to enter. Officially, the contest ends tonight but more than likely, I'll just see what I have tomorrow morning, er...tomorrow afternoon when I wake up.

The contest isn't a tough one and if you haven't guessed yet...your chance of winning mostly depends on your own creativity. So flex your creative muscles and give it a shot, you never know!

P.S. If this is the first time you've heard of this, the contest rules are below.

- Joseph

Contest: Win a "Snowball War" Print

2009-12-10T11:58:00.000-08:00

Here it is, folks! The contest isn't very difficult...it's just a series of IITS questions.

Win a "Snowball War" Print Contest Rules:

Questions #1-#5 are worth (1) Point each.
The Bonus Question is worth between (1-5) Points (see below).
Total Possible Points: (10)
Highest point total wins a signed 19"x13" Snowball War print!
Email answers to kayli.iits(a)gmail.com (replace (a) with @).
Winner must provide a valid mailing address to receive the print.
Entries must be received by: Tuesday, December 15th 2009.

Here are the questions!
1. "The world of IITS has three distinct layers: Overworld, The Central Islands, and Coreworld. Which layer is Kayli and Gordo from?"
2. "Kayli's unique bodysuit is made which of the following materials? A) Behemoth Stomach Lining, B) Skin of a Giant Plumaba Fruit, or C) Goretex(™)?"
3. "Kayli borrowed one of Gordo's neckties for a recent photo shoot...what color is the tie?"
4. "What is Kayli's favorite food? A) Dempi Fruits, B) Deep Fried Behemoth Testicles, or C) Meat?"
5. "True or False: Gordo is happy he met Kayli."

Bonus Question:
"Kayli and Gordo have been imprisoned by some dastardly pirates in the same 15'x15' cell. The walls are 30' high and made of stone. The door to their cell is made of 2" thick hardwood and has a tiny observation window at eye level. Opposite the door is a small, barred window 20 feet from the floor. In the center of the room is a tiny hole that acts as a drain. Additionally, there is a very small grating along one wall where the squeaks of rats can be heard.

The pair were stripped of all their useful gear before being thrown in the cell but Kayli has her bodysuit and Gordo has his clothes as well. At their disposal, they have a six foot long, heavy steel pole (too heavy to be used as a weapon) leaning against a wall, three lengths of string about a foot long each, a well gnawed bone about eight inches long, a ceramic bowl of very oily gruel, and a half eaten banana.

Outside is a single sleeping guard and down the hall, the dining hall where dozens of pirates are eating their dinner and discussing what they should do with their prisoners and, more specifically, what they should do with Kayli. In about 500 words or less, describe how Kayli and Gordo get themselves out of this mess. Have fun!"

Note: If you have a question about the scenario, make up your own answer! Bonus Question responses will be judged on their humor and creativity and given a value between 1-5. Consider the Bonus Question to be the tie-breaker question.

The winner will be announced sometime next week after the last entries are received. Good luck, everyone!

- Joseph

Mighty Nomad Gallery Pics!

2009-12-08T15:21:00.001-08:00

The gallery was literally right next door to the Sony studios in L.A. so before we went in, we were standing in awe of the gigantic lot. The movie posters on the sides of the buildings were so huge and Genevieve commented that their size and epic-ness could make an "Ernest Goes to..." movie look good.

It was pretty quiet in the first hour or so, with just a few people coming in and quietly appreciating the works...but as the night went on, we got a pretty good crowd in. A lot of really talented animated film industry people, friends and family, and some game developers too. Though I'm not in the industry, it was very inspiring to talk to some of these Dreamworks veterans who were so nice and gave us such great insight into their work and companies. I'll let Genevieve share her own thoughts and feelings but I think it's fair to say that she was fairly starstruck by some of the talent in attendance. =)

The pieces on the display were a great mix of styles. Since so many of those showing at the gallery were animators, there was A LOT of character stuff and all of it was great. There were also some memorable scenery pieces that looked like they were plucked right out of a classic 2D feature. Genevieve was humbled to be in the presence of so many talented artists but I was proud that her piece was able to stand up with the best of them.

I didn't mingle as much as Genevieve but her gallery piece was right next to the snack table so I gorged myself with junk food in order to surreptitiously overhear the candid comments of people viewing her "Snowball War". Here are some of the anonymous comments:

"There are so many little stories in it..."
"It's really fun and festive!"
"It's sooo funny!"
"Who is this creepy Asian guy standing next to us?"
"Is he even going to wipe his mouth after that handful of Chex Mix? Gross."

Special thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Craig and Meredith Harris for being such wonderful hosts and for inviting Genevieve to show at the gallery in the first place. We had a great time!

...oh and here are the pics!

Artists and attendees mingle as a young girl Twitters:
"It's SUCH a drag..." Just kidding. =)

See that dude in the back to the right of the guy with the hat?
That's Genevieve's head right above his shoulder.

Some girls trying to avoid eye contact me. Apparently,
"Hey, baby...I'm a comic book writer," does NOT get you chicks.

Marcelo Vignali (2nd from left) with his family and
Tang Heng (5th) with his fiancee' Noelle Triaureau (4th).

Genevieve and Craig Harris strike poses in front of "Snowball War".

Genevieve with my brother this time in front of her gallery piece.
He got the good looks and I got...hmmm, well...he got the good looks.

The table where people could purchase smaller sized prints.
The contest prize is the larger version you see on the right there.

Genevieve mingling with animators Corey and Jesse from Insomniac.

Tuna Bora with Genevieve in front of Tuna's gallery work.
Tuna awesomely gave her gallery piece to Genevieve!

Here's Genevieve and Craig holding each others prints.

Finally, here's the two of us with Craig and his wife Meredith
after the show was almost packed up. Thanks, guys!

P.S. The contest details will be posted on the blog in a day or two so if you want a chance to win that print, check back later this week!

- Joseph

Win a "Snowball War" Print!

2009-12-07T11:44:00.000-08:00

Hey IITS Readers,

As soon as Genevieve sends me the pictures from the Mighty Nomad Gallery, I'm going to post them here but...medium story short, we had a great time and met lots of cool people! However, I also wanted to let our readers know that we're going to hold a contest sometime this week and the winner will receive a free 19"x13" print of the IITS Snowball War signed by Genevieve...so keep watching this space for the contest! Hint: Your creativity and knowledge of IITS will be challenged! Be prepared!

- Joseph

Mighty Nomad Gallery is this Saturday!

2009-12-03T20:06:00.001-08:00

If you're in the L.A. area and want to check out the art of Genevieve and a lot of great artists, consider attending the Mighty Nomad Gallery this Saturday! Here's a list of those showing and here are the gallery details:

When:
Saturday, December 5th, 5pm - 9pm

Where:
Los Angeles Meeting and Event Center
10601 W. Washington Blvd,
Los Angeles, CA 90232

In addition to the originals, all artists will have affordable prints for sale (including the snowball war print we previewed in the last post) for all their pieces. If you're in the area, drop on by! =)

- Joseph

Mighty Nomad Gallery Preview

2009-11-25T01:23:00.001-08:00

Hello IITS Readers!

As a Thanksgiving surprise, I've shared images from Genevieve's Islands in the Sky themed gallery piece which she generously allowed me to preview here on the site. Back in July, when she was invited to show at the Mighty Nomad Gallery, I was proud and rather pleased that without my urging, she chose to use IITS characters as the subject for her piece. Going with the gallery's seasonal theme of "Snowball Fight", Genevieve and I brainstormed on some ideas together and the end result is a fun look at what the holidays are like when Kayli and Gordo are around.

If you're in the Los Angeles area and would like to see the the piece in person, as well as the works of many other talented artists, here is a link to the gallery details. The piece itself is a 25x30 framed Giclee print on Hahnmuhle Museum Etching paper and while the following tiny images don't really do the actual piece justice, we still wanted to share them with our IITS Readers. Enjoy!

(Click the images to see the larger version!)

Kayli is ambushed on her way to deliver some treats to her forest friends. Her enemies? Gordo, Manty, and...inexplicably, a trained baby arctic seal.

You can almost see a cross-section of Kayli's head,
revealing cob web covered gears...slooowly turning.

(thick Brooklyn accent)
"Yer killin' me here, lady!"

Hardworking patriots doing their part or opportunistic squirrels profiting from the bravery of the field mice? You decide.

The resistance is, in fact, futile.

Babs & Buster: The Final Chapter

Genevieve and I would like to wish all our readers a Happy Thanksgiving...whether or not all of them actually take part in the yearly gorging on turkey flesh. Have a great weekend, everyone!

P.S. If you're interested, yes...the framed print is available for purchase. Please contact myself or Genevieve for further details after December 5th. At some point in the future, Genevieve may opt to make smaller size, high quality prints available in a limited print run. We'll post more information here as it becomes available.

- Joseph

We'd Still Love to Do This Someday

2009-11-20T04:07:00.000-08:00

Way back before we even started work in earnest on the first issue, Genevieve and I wanted to create character designs for each of the three layers, basically...main characters in the Islands in the Sky storyline that we'd introduce as the comic developed. The idea was to give a male and female pair from each layer their own promotional poster. Each pair would exemplify the design aesthetics of their layer and be positioned on or around an airship or glider...also from their layer.

Each poster would be strong enough to stand on its own, however, by making each poster wide and short, you could "stack" the posters...putting Overworld on top, Central in the middle, and Coreworld on the bottom. Naturally, Kayli and Gordo would represent Central but we never got around to fleshing out the designs for the other two layers and it may be some time before the story even reaches the other layers or has a chance to introduce those characters.

Still, it's one of the promotional items that Genevieve and I still want to do so if ever the stars align so that we can commit more time to this project, well...we can hope. =)

- Joseph

Still working...

2009-11-13T02:38:00.000-08:00

Hello IITS Readers,

Genevieve is wrapping up work on her gallery submission for The Mighty Nomad and I've been busy with my hobby of working on a game design doc for an IITS video game. The current plan is for Genevieve to take a break on IITS work till the end of the year but during that time, we'll be doing pre-production planning for our comic work, then go into full production in the new year, and ideally...hit all our goals for WonderCon 2010.

Hopefully, Genevieve can unveil her IITS themed gallery piece next week on our site. Keep an eye out for it! =)

- Joseph

Still plodding along...

2009-11-06T15:29:00.000-08:00

I almost forgot to post an update this week...but that's actually good news, in a way. Genevieve and I have been both really busy working on things related to the IITS property. I've been talking to different people about how to grow the franchise and one of the things we really want to get done is to have a real website...but not enough things have fallen into place just yet. We'll have to plan what sort of content the launch of the site will have and make sure it doesn't conflict too much with work on the comic. Anyway, hopefully I'll have more to share sometime next week...

- Joseph

The Future of Islands in the Sky

2009-10-27T22:09:00.000-07:00

Our fans often ask us when the next issue is coming out and, as always, we deflect the question with a vague date in the future. Please believe me when I say that we're not stringing you along. We'd love nothing more than to have the freedom to pursue all of our IITS ambitions with complete freedom but reality always comes in to spoil the party. As a two person operation, we have complete creative control...but it comes at the price of having to deal with all the financial responsibility of printing the books and merchandise and the risk that comes with printing too much. Furthermore, while making a little money on the side is nice, this hobby cannot pay each of us our respective rent and living costs like "real jobs" would. So much of the time, we are either focused on working these day jobs or looking for new day jobs.

Before anyone gets the idea that this is a "We're stopping production on Islands in the Sky," announcement...it's not. I just wanted to take a moment to tell our readers where we're at and what we are thinking. Well, first of all...Genevieve and I both really love the IITS world and it's a source of constant frustration for us that we have so far left it in such an unfinished / unresolved state. All the questions you have about world, characters, and story...we want to give you the answers. We have more characters to introduce, a fun story to continue, more layers of the world to explore...but not enough time at the present to do it.

I still haven't addressed the topic of the post...what is the future of Islands in the Sky? In the near future, we want to continue work on the comic and shoot for a major new content release in April of 2010 at WonderCon. Depending on how much we get done, we will either introduce the new work as a final cut of the first book or as the second issue. Some of you may be wondering, "What does the 'final cut' of the first book mean?" Don't worry, we don't want to just pad the original book with a few new pages and resell it to our older fans. If we add content to the first book for WonderCon 2010, we will do our best to make it worth it to new and old fans alike.

So why do that at all, you wonder? Why not just make a whole new book? The reason why we may add content to the original issue and re-release it is because we want to better define our property with the first book. In other words, we want a second chance at a first impression. We've listened to feedback from both friends and strangers and these are two of the most common criticisms:

1. The story is too short and it seems to end very abruptly...right when the plot begin to move.
2. There is an overall lack of backgrounds and/or toning.

In regards to #1, the original story was 42 pages long in pre-production. Early during production, we trimmed it to about 36 pages...basically, a "deluxe" sized, premiere issue. Late in production, when we realized we were never going to finish that many pages, we cut two double page spreads (great visuals but did not serve to further the story), and then a bunch of pages in between and after the pages we had already completed. So the resulting pages were actually reworked and in-production pages changed to keep everything making sense despite the cuts.

In regards to #2, we were torn between doing the gorgeous backgrounds of European comics and the simplicity of, well...simply doing NO backgrounds like so many manga books. In the end, to save time...we simply did not do backgrounds on many panels. As a compromise, we decided to do toning to make the characters pop a bit but even then, we ran out of time. So one of our major goals is to address these two main issues about the overall quality of the book.

Nudity has also been an issue that is frequently brought up in regards to our book. Our book has been both praised for having a more adult oriented nature and shunned for that same reason. Like I tell everyone at the shows we attend, "We wanted the nudity to be fun and sexy, not sexual," but I think that too many times people mistake sexy for sexual. We're not trying to push smut...we think Kayli is sexy and cute and we want to be able to share ALL of her with our fans. However, we also promise to make her an endearing character beyond her boobs...someone that both guys and gals will come to love. We do realize that between the boobage that is revealed in the book and some of our revealing Kayli prints and magnets, that we have perhaps overdone it a bit...but like I said, we will balance it not by showing less of Kayli but by giving you more story. The nudity is just a fun bonus and despite what she may tell you, Genevieve loves drawing it as much as I love coming up with ways we can show it. =)

I realize this is a long post but I decided that rather than be accused of coming up with "fluff" content to post, I'll not divide up everything into smaller, separate posts and just drop it all down right here in one day. Moving on, one of my ambitions is to make Islands in the Sky into a video game. Since the release of the comic, I've put together some preliminary design documents for two versions of the game dubbed: IITS-U (for Ultimate) and IITS-L (for Lite). IITS Ultimate is a "blue sky" design that is a big budget production. IITS Lite is a smaller scale game that retains the same basic principles of IITS-U but presented in such a way that it can be done in less time, with less money, and a smaller team. Another way to describe the differences would be to say that IITS-U would be the equivalent of a fully featured console or PC game and IITS-L would be a PSN, XBLA, or Steam released indie game. So will it ever become a reality? Well, if we can make the comic a big success...the game is that much closer to being made.

Finally, we've been approached by a rather cool guy about worldwide publishing rights to the Islands in the Sky comic. I don't want to reveal too much about it right now because we've only discussed it in a few meetings but suffice it to say that we've been talking to him about the possibility since WonderCon 2009. I will say, however, that his treatment of another IP (one that Genevieve herself is really rather fond of) is nothing short of fantastic and if Genevieve and I ever get the time to polish and work more on IITS, his company has the potential to really launch the adventures of Kayli and Gordo beyond what we ever hoped. The main reason why we chose not to sign anything at this point? We don't want to disappoint anyone with promises we can't keep. The only thing that Genevieve and I can promise is to do our best...no matter how long it takes. We hope that if we ever get there...you'll all be here to cheer us on and support us.

Thanks for reading.

- Joseph

A Great APE Weekend!

2009-10-19T16:40:00.000-07:00

We had a fun time at the show. APE is much more relaxing than WonderCon or Comic-Con...there are also much smaller crowds but we still got our book into the hands of a lot of new people so that was the most important thing to us. We also had a lot of fans from previous shows come by to say "Hi," and ask about whether or not we had a new book out. Not yet! Sorry, everyone. We're going to try and make a big push for WonderCon 2010 in April so keep an eye out for us then.

It was great to see so many of our old IITS friends from the previous shows: Stephen, Cliff, A.J., and so many others that I'm failing to name here. Aside from those who already told us they might not make it, we were surprised that we didn't see Sparky. SPAAAAAARKY!!! Thanks for dropping by and chatting with us guys, it's always great to see you guys. =)

As usual, we wanted to snap pictures of all our customers but, as usual, we ran into a bit of a snag. This time, Genevieve's camera started acting weird halfway through the first day and, well...it stopped being able to take pictures. I managed to snap just a few with my BlackBerry camera but I was worried they would turn out crappy so I just stopped. There should be like 50-60 pictures here but unfortunately, we only have a few to show. I'll post the rest when Genevieve pulls them from her broken camera's memory card.

I want to send out a big thank you to all our old IITS friends...we really appreciate you stopping by to support us every time we exhibit at a show. A big thank you also to Martin at Bioroid Studios. This is the second time that they were exhibiting directly to our left at a con and it's always great to have them as con neighbors! Another big thank you to all our former and current co-workers for coming by and supporting us! Finally, a super huge thank you to all of you who picked up our book for the first time at APE. If you enjoyed it, please share your copy with a friend or send them to our IITS Store. We're just a two person, self-published operation and appreciate all the help we can get.

Genevieve and I had a great time at APE and we hope you did as well. We're doing our best to make an Issue 2 happen for WonderCon 2010 and we hope to see you all there. Thanks, everyone!

UPDATE: Genevieve recovered the photos from her broken camera and I've updated the post with them. What a great group of charming, smiling, and funny APE attendees these are! =)

- Joseph

That's it for this year's APE! See you at WonderCon 2010!

APE is this weekend!

2009-10-15T18:06:00.001-07:00

Wow...it's our first appearance at a show since Comic-Con. Time to dust off the ol' comics and knock 'em dead. I expect the show to be pretty chill overall. The vibe I get from APE is that it's mostly an indie pow-wow and social thing. A lot of local comic fans and creators will be there so I don't expect we'll move a ton of books but it'll be nice to talk to people and just relax in a very creative atmosphere. If you're in the neighborhood, why not drop by? Remember: If you have a paid Comic-Con '09 badge, you can use it to get into the show for free! Hope to see you there. Have a a great weekend everyone. =)

- Joseph

Very, very quiet...

2009-10-10T08:20:00.000-07:00

...because there just isn't much going on right now on the IITS front. Genevieve is hard at work on her gallery pieces and we can't wait to show you those when we can. APE will be pretty low key for us, just a bit a fun hanging out with other creators and selling some of our extra books. One more week...then we'll start planning out WonderCon 2010 in earnest. Thanks for being patient...if there's anyone still out there. =P

- Joseph

Doodles from Vacation

2009-10-02T06:00:00.000-07:00

O Hai Guyth!

Sorry about the lack of updates! Aside from IITS, I've been really busy at EA, the gallery stuff and many other things at the same time, so I apologize there hasn't been much on the site lately. I also came back from a cruise to Alaska with my family a few weeks ago. I went ziplining over a rainforest canopy in Ketchikan, and I took a helicopter to the top of Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau, where I went dogsledding. The sights were incredibly amazing! Anyway, I just thought I'd share some doodles I did while I was on the trip. I did a lot more but these are just the IITS-related ones. Some are kinda crappy cause I felt sea sick while I was doing them on the ship. But, I included a bonus sketch...

Enjoy! XD

~Genevieve

Don't Forget...APE is October 17th & 18th!

2009-10-01T16:34:00.000-07:00

The Alternative Press Expo is a fun, local SF show that is mostly local creators. It's never too crowded but there is a lot of great talent to see and you generally have a better chance to chat it up with people. Remember, if you attended Comic-Con 2009, your badge from that show is FREE admission to APE so why not drop by?

P.S. Oh, and come by and say "Hi" to us if you do. =)

- Joseph

Mighty Nomad Gallery

2009-09-23T15:45:00.001-07:00

Nothing much to report this week on Islands in the Sky, however...I did want to let fans of Genevieve's art know that she will display her work in a pretty neat gallery later this year. The gallery itself moves its exhibits around here and there and the theme changes every time. Genevieve was invited by the organizer of the gallery, a Craig Harris, to take part in an exhibit around the holidays.

Before I forget, here's a link the gallery's site. Fans of comic and sci-fi/fantasy art may recognize some pretty big names in the gallery...aaand fans of IITS may notice that Genevieve chose a picture of Kayli to represent her work. Now, while I can't reveal exactly what kind of piece she is working on, I can say that I never post anything here that isn't actually IITS related in some way... =)

I'll have more info when I can freely give it.

- Joseph

WonderCon 2010 Dates Announced

2009-09-14T15:48:00.001-07:00

Hey everyone,

The Comic-Con people just announced the dates for WonderCon 2010 late last week and it turns out that it's going to be a whole month later this time...April 2nd to the 4th. It will, once again, be hosted at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. I've already applied for a Small Press table and though it's not 100% confirmed, we will more than likely be accepted.

Genevieve and I have a soft spot in our hearts for WonderCon, as it is the show we first launched Islands in the Sky at. Just so you know, it is our current plan to have more than just new prints at WonderCon 2010. It's too early to reveal what we have planned but we're going to do our best to work hard for this show and try to have as much new content as possible. Wish us luck!

P.S. At some point, I broke the IITS Preview Pages link on the sidebar. It had something to do with the permissions of who could view the album. It's fixed now...sorry to anyone who came by and was trying to check those pages out.

- Joseph

Pets & Stuff

2009-09-08T13:44:00.000-07:00

Hamasuki, one of the readers of this blog, asked last week if we planned on having a pet for either Kayli or Gordo so I decided to make that the subject of this weeks short update. Though Genevieve and I got together recently to work on and discuss future projects, we did not work on the comic specifically...but the project we did work on does involve our Islands in the Sky characters. We can't wait to reveal it to our readers but it maybe be awhile (around the end of the year) before we can show anything.

Comic-wise, we were supposed to do some planning but we'll get to it either this week or the next. We currently have about nine new pages plotted out and roughly storyboarded and to answer Hamasuki's question...we do, in fact, introduce a sort of pet for our characters. We think it's a pretty funny series of pages and hopefully, we'll refine it even more before they go into production.

We did have a pre-planning discussion and we went over a few things about our future plans for the books. We decided that, realistically...we may not be able to do the series like a regular comic book in the sense that it has a continuous storyline from book to book. As it stands...people have already been waiting a long time for us to do something new. What this means is that each book may end up jumping around between stories set in our world but not necessarily follow a strict comic book narrative. The good news is that when we do release a FULL new book, it should be a self contained story, longer than what you've seen already, and just get straight to the good parts. We'll use Field Guides and such to explain bits we can't waste time on in the panels themselves. None of this stuff is set in stone...but this is what we've talked about recently.

I realize these tidbits aren't a lot for any fans of our book to go on and I apologize for that. Nevertheless, I will still update at least once a week to let everyone know we're not dead. =)

- Joseph

Sorry for the late update...

2009-09-03T04:54:00.001-07:00

...but we just don't have much to report right now. What I can say is that Genevieve and I have recently discussed the future of Islands in the Sky and we're still committed to the project. The most important thing for us right now is when we plan on putting out a new book. We'll be getting together soon to discuss those plans as well as the direction of the story and the possibility of color as well.

We have some other IITS related projects on the horizon and while I have to be vague right now, I'm pretty sure that fans of the comic and characters will think it's pretty cool. The next time I post, I might have some more solid info on what our future plans are. Thanks for being patient!

- Joseph

Commissions, etc...

2009-08-25T15:13:00.000-07:00

Hey folks,

Here's a few more commissions that Genevieve did for folks that we never posted. The first one was for Mike (aka Hamasuki), who posts comments here quite often. He's a big fan of Bleach apparently and who isn't a big fan of Rangiku from Bleach? Genevieve and I looked at her designs closely and both came to the same conclusion, "Yep...she's got bigger 'uns than Kayli."

The second was for Toby, who we met way back when at SuperCon...unfortunately, we fell out of contact with Toby and he has not been answering emails sent to him. On the off chance he stumbles to our site, "TOBY! Send us your current address so we can mail you this awesome Black Canary commission!"

Rangiku from Bleach.

DC Comics' Black Canary

APE 2009, October 17 & 18th

2009-08-18T15:33:00.000-07:00

Hey IITS Readers,

Just dropping a quick note to let you all know that we are confirmed for APE 2009 in San Francisco. APE is a fun, slightly more intimate show where art and comic lovers and creators get together to just talk...well, comics and art! We're excited to be exhibiting there for the first time this year and look forward to promoting our comic to new readers and meeting old friends. More details about the show and where it'll be located are on the official Alternative Press Expo site.

P.S. Do you have a favorite local comic shop that you think would be interested in carrying copies of Islands in the Sky? Shoot me an email and give me their info!

Not IITS related but...

2009-08-13T13:55:00.000-07:00

...it's still Genevieve's art so I felt it deserved a mention here. Anyway, I recently received the Comic-Con photos we took off a friend's camera and the super awesome commission Genevieve did for one of the fans of her style was in the batch of photos. Enjoy!

P.S. Hamasuki, your commission is done and it turned out great! I thought to notify you via this post's comments but I figured it was better to put it in the actual post in case you miss it. Get back to us and let us know where you want Genevieve to mail it.

Here's Genevieve proudly posing with the commission.

Here's a closer look at the commission. I don't recall the actual name of the character but she's from some classic manga series.

Things Are a Little Quiet Right Now

2009-08-11T14:07:00.000-07:00

Not much to report this week except...we reached 5000 hits on the site! Yay! I actually happened to be the 5000th visitor so I've already asked for a commission from Genevieve...sorry folks. =)

Speaking of commissions, Genevieve is using her spare time to catch up on the ones she didn't finish at Comic-Con and I'm...I'm playing a lot of games right now. I'll get around to doing a few more storyboards later. Just so you know, we've not made any definite plans yet about the next book and we're actually considering starting up a smaller side project unrelated to IITS but it shouldn't affect any future deadlines we have.

Thanks for continuing to visit our site and don't forget to help us spread the word about our comic!

- Joseph

IITS Online Store Updated!

2009-08-04T16:59:00.001-07:00

Just wanted to let you guys know that I've added the new prints (which I've just decided to call "Kayli's Business Suit") to the IITS Online Store. You can buy each one separately for $10 or take advantage of the same deal we offered to people at Comic-Con...both for $16. What?! Just $16 for two 11x17 prints?! Why, that's 22x34 inches worth of naked Kayli booty!

If you missed us at Comic-Con 09, here's your chance to grab these two great prints of Kayli at a killer deal. Also, the latest reprint of the book is replacing the old ones in the store. Mostly, we changed the cover, fixed a few errors, and included the five guest pieces our friends did for us. If you already own an older copy, please save your money, but please let your friends know that we got some for sale!

If you stare at the island in the center for 30 seconds, you will
see after images of naked Kayli's everywhere you look.

Look at how happy Sparky is after his purchase of these fine prints.
Don't you want to be happy as well? Do you, perhaps, hate happiness?

Comic-Con 2009 Pictures Continued

2009-07-29T11:05:00.000-07:00

Here's a couple of more pictures from that we took from the show. Again, sorry if we didn't shoot ya...we only had Genevieve's camera at the booth for two of the five days. I'm gonna have to get my own camera at some point if we're going to get 100% of the people.

Today's pictures are a mix of random con photos, cosplayers, our table, and commissions that Genevieve did for people. Hope you enjoy them!

- Joseph

I think this was taken on Preview Night...the lightest crowd of the entire show.

Genevieve at our table with the Manty hat. Chuck, sharing our table, is caught unaware.

Here's me and Vince at the table...and this picture is a great example of why I don't appear in many pictures.

Four different life-size Iron Man suits...this was pretty awesome.

Hot Ghostbuster Gals!

Genevieve with Zachary, a new fan of our work.

Andrew and Genevieve with the supa-deluxe commission Genevieve did. This picture off my BlackBerry camera doesn't do it justice. When Vince sends me the photo off his camera or Andrew sends us a scan of the commission, I'll be sure to put it up here.

Genevieve at the Comic Relief booth doing a signing. A big thank you to all the Comic Relief guys for having us and for taking such good care of us while we were there!

A snap I took of Harrison and Frenton's guest art.

Here's Sherwin and Vince's guest art.

Finally, we have Brandon's on the last page of the book.

Here's a stray customer shot that I forgot to post yesterday.

It's Kaylee and Mal from Firefly! No, I didn't get the name from Joss Whedon. READ THE BACK OF THE BOOK.

Some peeps love our book so much they want a picture taken with Genevieve. HEY, how come they never want a picture with ME?

Yowza! Black Cat, everyone.

A new fan who gave us this neat print.

Dude from Equilibrium. He seemed really happy that I got it on the first guess. [Gen's Edit: "Dude"?! You mean Preston! (I've only seen that movie a hundred times. XD)]

There is a better picture of this someplace but this guy did an awesome freehand copy of Kayli from the cover. The pencils are a bit hard to see, sorry.

Genevieve wants us all to believe this was a non-posed, candid photo. Let's all just smile, nod, and play along. =) [Gen's Edit: Hey, it WAS candid! I just happened to look up right when you took that!]

Another shot of our table.

Batman Beyond. He had a ripcord that he could make his wings pop out with. Very cool.

This is a repeat from yesterday but I know their names so I posted it again. From left to right: Layron, Jon, Me, Kayli, and Julian.

Here's the sketch Genevieve did for Layron. Though all three guys got a great sketch, Genevieve was warmed up by the time she got to this third sketch and she liked it the most.

We've seen him at previous shows as Doctor Who so I'm just gonna say this is Doctor Who and Silk Spectre II with the commission Genevieve did for the Doctor.

Kayli contemplates alternative uses for the sonic screwdriver while a pervy Dalek and Cybermen look on. This one turned out really great and the Doctor and Silk Spectre II really loved it.

What's a stack of Comic-Con photos without the obligatory Steampunk folks? This pic doesn't do their fabulous outfits justice.

In fact, what's a Comic-Con without the obligatory Princess Leia in Slave Outfit Hottie?

Here's Sparky with two prints he picked up from us, signed by Genevieve. Sparky was this years single biggest customer. I think he bought everything we had twice. Thanks, man!

I was actually kinda scared of this guy when I took the photo. Awesome job on the costume...if it is a costume...

The Monarch and Genevieve pose civilly for the camera...

Wait! No! He goes for the throat!

I call this one "Cooking Mama V".

Guy with a custom steampunk gun made from plumbing bits and Nerf gun parts.

A sketch Genevieve did for a guy who was collecting sketches from everyone in Small Press and Artist Alley.

Jody tries to warn Mike that there is a flying manta on his head. Mike thinks Jody wants him to "Wonder Twins Activate!" again.

A commission for a sketchbook themed "Damsels in Distress".
BAD MANTY!

Genevieve with Rodolfe Guenoden!

I have no idea what is going on here. [Gen's Edit: HAHAHA!! I asked Zappa if I could pose behind him like S-Ko (one of the ghosts that possesses him) in the character select screen. It turns out I'm just obviously molesting Zappa's moobs. I'm sorry, Zappa. T___T]

I have no idea what is going on here either.

Here's Stephen with Genevieve with the commission she did for him.

And here's smaller size version of a scan that Stephen sent us of his commission almost immediately after the show so that everyone can enjoy it. Thanks, Stephen!

That's all folks!

Comic-Con 2009 Pictures and Thoughts

2009-07-28T11:53:00.000-07:00

So much to say and talk about but I also have a huge stack of pictures to sort and post so I'll let them do most of the talking. I do want to take a moment to thank all our awesome neighbors at the show: Ted Washington, who sat to our left...a poet by day and bouncer by night. Alexis Fajardo, who sat to our right...the artist and writer for Kid Beowulf. Mary Bellamy, who sat directly across from us...you can check out her art and comics on her website. Finally, Vince Riley, our friend who we shared our booth with...annnd I can't seem to find his Deviant Art page anywhere. You guys were all so friendly and supportive of us and just great fun to talk to when there was a lull in the hall. Thank you!

Our strongest support at the table came from friends of shows past. Cliff, Sparky, Stephen, and Mike "Hamasuki", and all the others I forgot because I'm a retard....thanks so much for picking up all our new stuff. New supporters often came back after reading our book to tell us how much they liked it and some of them even read all my additional content in the back! UNPRECDENTED! Another special shout out to Jon, Layron, and Julian...three guys who came by our booth, loved our work, each got our book, and just had Genevieve and I in stitches the whole time with their hilarious banter. Thanks, guys! Finally, thanks to all of you who commissioned pieces from Genevieve. You guys are the kind of folks Genevieve loves doing commissions for...you're not picky and you trust her to do her art. When she is relaxed and enjoying the commission work, they all turn out awesome and everyone is happy. =)

Long before the show, Genevieve and I both agreed that it was important to prepare for Comic-Con 2009 by having the "con exhibitor experience". So between WonderCon, Super-Con, and Fanime this year...we felt that we were really ready for the big time. We were totally wrong. The show was five days long, the exhibit hall hours are longer, all the distances you have to lug stuff around is longer, and the crowds are relentless. Okay, so we survived...NOW we're really ready for the next Comic-Con and we can't wait for the next one in 2010 and every other show in between to see you guys. Thanks to everyone who picked up our book to take a look and an even bigger thanks to those who decided to buy it. See you next show!

UPDATE: I was foolish to assume that I could easily post ALL our CC09 pics in one big thread without making it a ridiculously long mega-post so I've decided to split them into two big groups...starting with our customer photos. Sorry to everyone who didn't get their picture taken...we only had the camera at the table for two of the five days.

Tomorrow, I will post the miscellaneous con photos, table photos, and commission photos. Stay tuned!

- Joseph

Thanks for picking up our book!

Aaannnd...we're back!

2009-07-27T13:23:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone,

Comic-Con 2009 was a great show! Genevieve and I had blast, met a lot of new friends, and made a lot of new customers pretty happy with our work. Thanks for all the old friends who dropped by our table to wish us well and take pictures with us and thanks to all the people who picked up our book. We had so many people come back after reading it and telling us how much they loved it and wanted more...the experience was very inspiring.

Sorry for the late post! It was an 8 hour drive home with my friend Vince and we didn't get back to the Bay Area till past 4am in the morning. Genevieve and I took a lot of pictures but as usual, they are all on her camera and on the camera's of some friends. When I receive the photos, I'll be sure to post them and tell you more about how the show went for us.

- Joseph

On our way!

2009-07-22T06:42:00.001-07:00

We've been really busy prepping for the Comic-Con and I'm about 20 minutes away from starting the drive down with a friend so I'm just making a quick post to let everyone know that...well, we might not post for awhile. I haven't quite made the decision as to whether or not to bring the laptop but if I do, I'll post from the show itself. If not, we'll have a big update from the show when we get back.

Wish us luck and if you're going to be there yourself, see you all there.

- Joseph

Three Posts in Three Days?! IMPOSSIBLE!

2009-07-16T13:06:00.000-07:00

Okay, are you folks ready for this? No, I don't think you are. You are not even remotely ready, you fools. Why? Because no one expects the MANTY HAT.

"Land shark?"

His tails are bendable and poseable.

Watch that tail, buster!

It lives!

Close up of his face.

Another shot of Manty on Genevieve.

A close up of the detailed patterns on his body.

There were other designs and colors...this is the one we went with.

So Manty really just makes a brief appearance in the comic...and not even in the flesh. He's just "nose art" on Kayli's manta shaped glider. However, we actually had this character planned for the book for quite some time. Those of you who are worried that he'll be an Ewok / Jar Jar mascot character...relax, he doesn't speak for starters. I think when you see the manner in which he is introduced into the story and his role in the plot overall...you'll really take a liking to him.

Okay, now the bad news...those of you who were hoping to buy a Manty hat...well, it's a unique custom job done by one of Genevieve's friends at EA, Jill Johnson. Jill is a very talented plushie maker and does a lot of custom jobs for her friends. If we are ever able to mass produce these or if Jill puts up a website or something, we'll be sure to let you all know. Hope you guys like it! Come see it worn on Genevieve's head at our Comic-Con Small Press booth! =)

UPDATE: I added the original design spec that Genevieve sent to Jill.

- Joseph

Surprise! We Made a T-Shirt!

2009-07-15T16:05:00.001-07:00

Genevieve and I have been wanting to make a T-Shirt for Islands in the Sky for awhile now but things never came together and we didn't want to just reuse old art and slap it on a shirt. About a two months ago, a friend of ours offered to help us get one printed up...since he had done a lot of research into custom shirt companies and all that. Genevieve was caught up with other things (doing the art for the business cards among them) but in the span of a week or so, we came up with a pretty cute idea that we thought would be fun for a T-Shirt.

The criteria we had for the shirt idea was two basic things:

1. It should appeal to both guys and gals.
2. It doesn't have to appeal to just IITS fans.

Here is the actual image against a baby blue background:

These will be printed on the "classic" Bella girl's tee's in white for sure and we're looking about getting them on more colors but a lot of it has to do with how well the process (water discharge as opposed to silk screening) turns out on darker colors. We went with water discharge because of the number of colors can be much too labor intensive for silk screening.

Here is what the design would conceivably look like on a shirt:

By the way, someone on Zazzle.com (though it should be noted, we did not go through Zazzle) made some templates for blank tees and you can upload images to try them out so I wanted to give credit here in some form to that.

So what do you all think? Do we have any girls following the site that would get this shirt? Any guys interested in shirts with Kayli and rainbows on it?

- Joseph

New Business Cards

2009-07-14T00:14:00.000-07:00

You got to have giveaways at a table...it allows people to politely pretend to show interest with the usual line of "Do you guys have a website? Cool, I'll check it out later." That said, we had a fair amount of sales through our online store after WonderCon 2009 so all those Post-It notes I handed out with our web address scrawled on them must have worked. Well, that and some word of mouth from some nice folks looking to help us out.

We meant to have a proper business card for the last three shows we attended but the art for the cards turned out to be a bigger project than either Genevieve and I anticipated. We already showed you the awesome art she did for them...so the images below shouldn't come as a huge surprise. Still, they turned out pretty neat, huh?

Depending on the timing of things and some other things out of our control, we may have one more thing to preview here before we get to the show in San Diego. Hopefully, things turn out...if not, we'll announce it later after Comic-Con.

Comic-Con Stuff Preview Continues!

2009-07-09T16:26:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to do a Field Guide for Kayli's tattoos but I've never got around to it. Maybe we'll surprise everyone someday or just put it in a future edition of the comic. However, just so that people know...it's probably more appropriate to refer to the markings on Kayli as body paint rather than tattoos. After they are applied, they can't be removed for a certain period of time but they eventually do wear out...like, as a friend said, henna tattoos. That's all on that for now...here's the back shot of Kayli, which will also available in a print and serves as the other side of our double sided business card.

Comic-Con Stuff Preview

2009-07-07T00:30:00.000-07:00

Things are starting to come together for the show so we've decided to give our faithful readers a little preview of some of the stuff we're going to have for Comic-Con 2009. This first image is part of a pair that Genevieve did for our new business card. Our old business card was sorta crappy so we've jazzed it up a bit with some brand new artwork. Well, we both felt it was such a shame to keep such fantastic images of Kayli printed on such small cards so we're going to be offering them up as 11x17 prints for sale at Comic-Con. Here's the "front" image of Kayli...I'll send out the back image later this week.

"Coming down the runway next is Kayli, modeling part of our fall collection of women's business attire- WHAT IN THE HOLY HELL?"

Comic-Con is Imminent!

2009-06-30T00:19:00.001-07:00

With Comic-Con approaching fast, I figure it's time we talked about what we have planned for the show. While I wish I could report that we would have a new book, I'm afraid that's just not going to happen this year. I'll be totally frank with what our plans have been up to this point just so anyone looking forward to new material won't be kept in the dark.

Basically, we felt that we could have done a bit better with the first book and it as always our goal to both improve the first book and increase the number of pages so that the cliffhanger at the end of the book is resolved. We wanted to do this for Comic-Con because we didn't want to sell the same old book again and then release an updated version soon afterwards...thus, forcing everyone to buy a new book for just about a dozen new pages.

Anyway, as it turns out, we ran out of time again and we're not going to do a new book for Comic-Con. The current plan is to revise it slightly but not so much so that it will leave any existing owners completely assed out. The new book will have a slightly updated cover (not really a big deal but sometimes people wonder "Why is she floating?") as well as guest art from friends who have donated their time to create images of our characters and world and a few new pages for the Field Guides.

Our plan for the future? Well, it's always up in the air...we can't make any real promises right now. What we'd like to do is create some cool promotional stuff (aka merchandise) for APE in October of this year and maybe surprise our readers with something really new at WonderCon next year. So the current plan for Comic-Con is to still promote the original book and have maybe one or two new prints and maybe something else cool for fans to purchase. Trust me when I say that the new prints and merchandise will be cool because Genevieve and I have both agreed to never create shitty merchandise with just a logo slapped on it. When we create something for our fans, we want it to be super cool and worth having....and don't worry if you can't make it to any of the shows where we'll be appearing at, if we have some cool new Kayli prints or whatever, we'll make it available in the store.

So there you have it...a slightly updated book, our two original prints, the ever popular magnet of Kayli Naked on a Giant Piece of Meat, and a few new pieces of merchandise...that's all we'll have for Comic-Con. We'll do our best to work steadily after Comic-Con and leading up to our next two major shows (likely APE 2009 and WonderCon 2010). Thanks to everyone for being patient.

- Joseph

Islands in the Sky: The Evolution, Part IV

2009-06-22T15:19:00.000-07:00

When Genevieve and I met in 2005, we quickly found inspiration in each other's creativity. I loved Genevieve's art and the stuff she was doing for the game we were working on at Shaba at the time and I'd keep her entertained on IM with random stories that I told and evolved on the fly. To this day, we still sometimes go over our old chat logs and laugh at the ridiculous conversations we used to have.

Anyway, I wrote a story as a gift to a friend, Jacqueline, who I was playing WoW with around that time. I played on Kil'jaeden and was the guild leader of <and the Pussycats> and though Jacqueline was not in my guild, I played together quite often with her character, Apsara. The story cast our characters, Kayli and Apsara, in a story about...you know, it was pretty out there. It starts in a prison cell and eventually has pole dancing, rat bone toothpicks, a little girl on girl action (really a lot tamer than it sounds), nuns getting their teeth knocked out by Kayli, and...well, it was a lot of fun to write and was the first story I wrote that involved Kayli in years.

The story turned out pretty good and pretty funny and Jacqueline enjoyed it quite a bit. I had asked Genevieve's opinion about the story as I was writing it and so the three of us remain the only people who have read the story. After I had finished writing the story though, I realized I hadn't written a short story in a long time and I really enjoyed writing dialogue and humor and really enjoyed writing about Kayli as well. This bit of history is important because Kayli's personality as a character evolved directly from this short story I wrote. It is important to note, however, that at this time...I had not worked on ideas for Islands in the Sky in quite some time and had not considered Kayli as a character for it.

Moving on, at some point in 2007, I found the inspiration to write a story about Kayli again. Kayli is a character that I have used all my life (well, since high school) in various forms. As characters in short stories I wrote, as player characters in table top games I played, as characters in single player RPG's I played, etc. So while I never really developed her personality too much, I did govern my "play" of her as a "good" character. So if I played games like Fallout or whatever...a game I could make decisions in, I would play Kayli as the good guy. I had another character I used, "Sariya" (pronounced suh-RYE-yah)...and I used her as my "evil" alter ego. As you might gather, you don't really get to develop a character in this way...so writing short stories with Kayli was the best way to do it. So I wrote a new short story detailing the meeting between Kayli and Gordo (this is the first time Gordo appears as a character ever). Aspects of it have changed from the short story version to the comic but the basic premise (sort of a Goldilocks and the Three Bears) remained unchanged.

When Genevieve and I finally decided to collaborate on a creative project it was natural to attach Kayli to the world of IITS. Kayli has been a hundred different characters in a hundred different games but the Kayli in the world of Islands in the Sky is the definitive one. The world of IITS is perfect for her because it was created to give the reader a sense of wonder...to make them believe that anything can be over the next horizon...and Kayli, among other personality quirks, has an insatiable curiosity.

Among the many ideas we had to work on together, a comic book was one that came up pretty often. One evening, I put together some simple boards and Genevieve immediately brought them to life with her drawings. At the time, we thought they were awesome but looking back on them now, woof...well, Genevieve has developed her style quite a bit since then. Maybe as a bit of fun, we'll scan those older comic pages and include them here someday.

As a world idea, IITS was developed more or less entirely separately from Kayli...but both Kayli and the world of IITS have long histories. Hopefully, the descriptions of each have been of interest to the readers of this blog. The development of Kayli and Islands in the Sky still continues and every one of our readers is a part of the ongoing saga. I feel proud and privileged to have Genevieve as my partner in this endeavor. She has helped me breathe life into the world and characters and nothing I write doesn't go through her first. Likewise, she often comes to me to get feedback on her art and sometimes, when I step out of the situation...I realize how much we sweat small things but I realize it's this quality control we both strive for that makes our stuff as good as it can be and I'm sure our readers don't mind.

To give you and idea of how much we think about each shot, here's an actual conversation Genevieve and I had recently:

Joe: "I think the belt should hang lower because it'll look sexier...put it at sort of an angle but make sure it doesn't cover the top of her butt crack because that looks good."
Gen: "Mmm...you're right but then it'll force me to move her hand and I like how it pushes in her butt fat right now."
Joe: "Yeah...damn, okay...do what you can. Hmmm...should the nipple be pushed up or down?"
Gen: "Up. Definitely."

Thanks for coming in each week to get a dose of my ramblings. We're still hard at work trying to get some good stuff ready for Comic-Con next month. In fact, as a preview...the above conversation excerpt is from something we're working on for that show. =)

- Joseph

Islands in the Sky: The Evolution, Part III

2009-06-15T21:59:00.000-07:00

In this third and hopefully final installment, I'll try to bring the story around full circle. Hang on a second, I need to go read where I left off last...hmmm, okay. Yeah, so Keno's Space Shooter was essentially a large scale space battle simulation. There was another major aspect of the game but I'm not going to reveal it at this time. From KSS, I conceived of an OGRE-like game in which there were basically two OGRE's in the desert and the goal for each side was to destroy the opposing giant battle tank. This was basically identical to KSS in every way except the space ships were replaced with land vehicles. The idea itself was pretty shortlived and it evolved quickly into Exodus.

Among the games that KSS evolved into, Exodus was unique insomuch that it was a single player game directed at consoles (whereas all other games I intended to be on PC). Exodus also had a better developed story, again...because it was a singleplayer game as opposed to a multiplayer game. Anyway, around the time that I was in Sherman Oaks, CA (in the summer of 2004) helping out Spark Unlimited with Call of Duty: Finest Hour, I hatched an idea (again, with my friend Frenton) for a game that was basically Miyazaki meets Codename Eagle. Basically, I wanted to marry the concept of floating islands with gliders and airships like Miyazaki had in Nausicaa with the frenetic gameplay of Codename Eagle. I nicknamed the the game...Islands in the Sky.

At the time, I wasn't really thinking of a story. In my mind, the setting, as far as games went, was pretty original. The gameplay was to be like Codename Eagle in spirit but not just taking a vehicles based game and setting it in a different environment. To be honest, I came up with the single paragraph for the pitch, came up with the project nickname, and pitched it to about four friends on the same day. Nothing ever came of it for a very long time and no one other than Frenton expressed any real interest. It was a longshot, to be able to form your own game company from nothing with zero cash, but we both felt that we had to start someplace.

Over the years, I quietly developed the idea on paper and in my own head and got feedback from Frenton when I could. The idea evolved over time and many games that I played, including Monster Hunter and Shadow of the Colossus, turned out to be significant influences on the game. I decided that I wanted the world to be persistent and that every player would have their own "home island" which they decorate and add gameplay enhancing expansions to. I had a real problem with MMO's during this time. I hated them. I loved the idea of them but hated the gameplay. Hated that each one was essentially a copy of Everquest. Hated that very few people were exploring grand scale MMO's in any other form other than World of Warcraft. It boggles the mind. As a developer, you got to ask yourself..."Is my MMO better than WoW?" If the answer is "No,"? Stop. Blizzard is working on another MMO. I don't know what it is but I can guarantee you, it's not going to be like WoW. Why the hell would they compete with themselves? They are going to explore the other possibilities the MMO space can offer and they're going to make gangbusters once again and then every developer out there still working on their "WoW-Killer" is going to be like..."Ohhhhh...that was clever." /end rant

Where was I? I was seeing red for a moment there. Oh yeah, I wanted IITS to explore the MMO space in a different way and all of the previous games I had been developing ideas for in my own time resulted in the current vision for IITS. Still, despite all the time I spent thinking about this game, I never really developed characters or a story for it. That is, until I met Genevieve...

P.S. I lied. There will be another installment and it will bring us up to date...basically two years ago till the present.

- Joseph

Islands in the Sky: The Evolution, Part II

2009-06-11T13:37:00.000-07:00

Genevieve and I are huge fans of Codename Eagle. If you're unfamiliar with it, it's the game that Refraction made before they were acquired by DICE who then developed Battlefield 1942 and later became acquired by Electronic Arts themselves. While I really enjoyed BF1942, Codename Eagle holds a special place in my heart that will never be replaced. While the single-player aspect of the game was only so so, the game really shined in multiplayer. Combining great physics, vehicle stunting, hilarious bugs, and happy accidents in gameplay, Codename Eagle is one of my favorite games of all time. You know you truly understand the game when every time you die, you laugh your ass off. However, the game isn't about dying, it's about trying to pull off the most daring, death-defying flag grab and get away with it. Dying as a result is just the hilarious consolation prize.

Let me rewind a bit, though. Before I even met Genevieve, my friend Frenton and I dreamt of another game idea that was basically Codename Eagle meets Exodus. Initally, I thought of a way to try and combine the ideas for the game with the Exodus storyline. In fact, the very first iteration of the Islands in the Sky world was supposed to appear at the end of Exodus. Since that game will probably never be made, I'll give away the ending. You do reach the Oasis but it's not a patch of verdant land in an otherwise dead, stark landscape...it was the edge of reality as the Silt Raiders understood it. The desert they lived in was vast but it did not make up the entirety of their world. In this new part of the planet, they encountered completely different civilizations who used flying machines to get around. The next game in the Exodus Trilogy addressed how the Silt Raiders coped with living in their new world. Rather than disappear into obscurity, they turn the new world upside down with their unconventional thinking and fighting styles...adapting the flying machines to their own ways.

Naturally, the second game would be very different in terms of gameplay...but gameplay is king and while it would have been a tremendous gamble to build the first game around one set of rules and then change them almost completely for the second game, I figured that fans of the first would understand the transition and embrace it as proper for the story while new fans wouldn't know what the first game was about anyway. A third game was "planned" of course...all just in our heads. For the third game in the trilogy, I actually toyed with the idea of going backwards to the game that inspired Exodus...a massively multiplayer space sim.

The space sim, named Keno's Space Shooter (it was a temporary title) was something I came up with around 1997. I'm going to guess it was 1997 because in early 1998, I actually pitched the game to a Microsoft producer named Scott...something (don't recall his last name) at the Computer Game Developer's Conference (back when "Computer" was still in the name) in Long Beach, CA. Coincidentally, it's the same year I met my good friend Vince Riley, one of the people Genevieve and I give thanks to on the back page of the comic. Anyway, I was a volunteer at the conference (so was Vince) and we were allowed to pick which panels we wanted to work so I picked a RPG round table discussion that Warren Spector and Tom Hall (of Ion Storm at the time) hosted. Wearing my silly, yellow CGDC volunteer shirt (or was it red that year?), I raised my hand at one point to add to the discussion. I recall being very nervous, because while we were allowed to participate, the volunteer shirt I wore...which let everyone in the room know I was a non-developer noob, made me feel very small. Anyway, I added that I thought that the industry had not yet addressed the need for a CRPG that addressed the gap in what all previous CRPG's had...the lack of a live GM (Game Master or Dungeon Master) who would have the tools to run a tabletop like session in real time over the internet. The statement actually shut the room up and everyone just stared at me for a moment while they digested this info. Two people talked to me after that panel. A developer who simply said something to the effect of "Nice job, rookie...you had some good ideas in there," which made me feel good. The other guy was Scott from Microsoft.

Scott also liked my ideas and wanted to hear more about my ideas on RPG's. Well, I actually had written up a small design doc on the idea of having a live GM in a game but that was my ace up my sleeve and I wasn't about to give it away (even though I blurted it out during the round table). On a side note, unbeknownst to me, Nihilistic was already working on Vampire the Masquerade: Redemption, which featured the ability to have a live GM. It would be published by Activision, a company that I would later work at as a first party developer (with Shaba) for seven years. Anyway, he said he was looking to hire a designer to be tasked with creating a new RPG for Microsoft because Microsoft was going to be starting up a new games division and a) they wanted RPG's, b) they only had one designer: Alexey Pajitnov. I was naive enough to believe that they might actually hire a zero experience guy like me but I still wasn't going to give away my big secret...instead, I pitched him another idea that I had been working on: Keno's Space Shooter.

The pitch went something like this: You create a Quake (this is 1998) map and model it to look like the interior of a large space ship. Then you open the console and type "noclip" and then fly outside the map. That void all around you? That's space. Now create a another ship, throw dudes into each one to crew all the various positions in the ship and now it's capital ship versus capital ship. You can be a marine sent to board the enemy ship, you could be a fighter jock and fly out with your squadron to attack the enemy ship (and other single seat fighters), you could be an engineer running around the inside of the ship reparing broken components (as well as in an EVA suit fixing the ship from the outside), and you could be part of the ship's crew...classic Star Trek style. The captain and crew of the ship controlled the ship's movements, the firing of their main guns, how to direct the shields, etc.

At one point during the pitch, I said something to the effect of "The great thing about it is that new players can jump right into the action by just manning a turret." This was referring the the many gun turrets that each capital ship had. In this mode, you didn't have any responsibility other than to point and shoot at incoming enemy fighters. This is an important point during the pitch and we'll come back that to it later. I left the conference with hopes that Scott would actually call me up for a job and while we corresponded via email for a few weeks, I never got the job. To the best of my knowledge, the job went to Chris Taylor (of Total Annilhiation fame) and he went on to create Dungeon Siege for Microsoft.

Now, what I'm about to say is outrageous and I don't have any definitive proof but I'm convinced that Microsoft borrowed my idea...the pitch I gave to Scott, one of their producers...to create a game called Allegiance. I know that no one will believe me but in my mind this is absolutely true. In 2000, when I was working at Electronic Arts as in Technical Support, I was reading an issue of PC Gamer when I came upon an interview for the game. In the interview, I shit you not, the guy says "The great thing about it is that new players can jump right into the action by just manning a turret." Frenton remembers this moment too. He didn't know me very well at the time. He was talking to some co-workers, one Bradley Fulton and one Peter something, about starting up their own game company (we were all in Tech Support at the time) when I stormed up with the magazine and said "Fuckers! They totally fucking stole my game, those cocksucking motherfuckers!". Frenton looked up and said, "Hey, you want to make a game with us?"...and was the start of our friendship.

Preview: In Part III of this epic series, I stop digressing and get on with things.

- Joseph

Islands in the Sky: The Evolution, Part I

2009-06-09T02:19:00.000-07:00

I know our readers would much rather hear about what Islands in the Sky related content that Genevieve and I will create for this year's big show in San Diego, but we're not quite ready to reveal that yet. Also, we're still working on it and delays sometimes happen and we don't want to make promises only to later dash people's hopes. Rest assured, we're doing our best to make a good showing...for both our current readers and potential new ones. In the meanwhile, I'll use this post to talk about some of the early influences of Islands in the Sky and hope that by the time I'm done, no one will be asleep.

Years before I met and became friends with Genevieve, I conceived of a video game idea (with the help of my friend, Chris Frenton) which was basically Waterworld minus the water...I'll explain this more later. In this world, water was the one thing there wasn't enough of. The world the characters were a part of was almost completely BONE dry. The oceans were gone, in their place was vast expanses of silt. For all intents and purposes of the game...the silt acted like more or less water. You could drown in it, you could sail on it, but...you couldn't drink it. People built all sorts of vehicles to skim over this silt to get from solid ground to solid ground...island to island if you will.

Most sources of water or oasis', were controlled by despotic rulers we referred to simply as Water Barons. People under the rule of these Barons suffered greatly for meager rations of food and water in return for hard labor. Living outside the rule of these Barons were the Silt Raiders. Basically, pirates. Silt Raiders, uh...raided the Water Baron holdings for supplies and water and fought to free those subjugated under their rule. That was the story behind the game...the game itself was basically a post apocalyptic open world action game with vehicles and lots of acrobatics.

The player controlled a member of Silt Raiders who rises up in power and eventually leads them. As the game progressed, the player would learn how to play and be introduced to new mechanics and modes till eventually the player could actually make a lot of neat decisions on how to run his band of pirates. Anyway, the main plot of the story centers around the rumors of a legendary Oasis...basically, a place where there is water enough for everyone. At some point, it becomes more than just a legend and some evidence of the oasis being real is discovered. Realizing that they cannot possibly win against the Barons, the Silt Raiders build a great big ship...an ark if you will, rescue as many slaves as possible and then embark on a journey to find the legendary oasis. If it sounds sort of biblical, we thought so too and named the game Exodus.

Early in the story, you would conduct raids from the Silt Raider base, which acted as a hub for the game. You would patrol the silt for ships laden with water and/or slaves. Later, when you build the ark, your hub became mobile and the area which you were familiar with is left behind for new areas to explore. During the course of the game, you would recruit new major NPC's to fulfill roles on the ship, upgrade the ship in various ways and, eventually...have to fight off the Water Baron's men (which were sent after you).

Okay, so how is it like Waterworld? Well, it's actually the reverse of it...instead of water everywhere and looking for dry land, there is dry land everywhere and you're looking for water. However, more importantly...the action sequences in the movie were a driving point for the mechanics for the actual game. The mechanics actually came first...the story cropped up around that.

What about the silt? Though a few friends thought that the influence was the Dark Sun campaign setting, I was more influenced by Waterworld, as I mentioned, and Arthur C. Clarke's novel, A Fall of Moondust...which is great, fun, sci-fi thriller. The story revolves around a group of tourists who get trapped under moon dust when their skimmer malfunctions. However, I am familiar with the Dark Sun setting. In fact, we could just say Exodus is like Dark Sun with a focus on the Seas of Silt...but then everyone knows what Waterworld is and very few people know of Dark Sun...so it's just easier to compare it to Waterworld.

What does this all have to do with Islands in the Sky? Well, it makes more sense when you realize that Islands in the Sky was also originally conceived of as a game and, as with all games, you should come up with the mechanics and gameplay first...

END PART I

- Joseph

Gearing up for Comic-Con!

2009-06-01T11:31:00.000-07:00

At Comic-Con, the potential audience we can reach with our comic is tremendous and we're really excited at the prospect of getting the book into as many hands as possible. However, due to the fact that our application for a small press table at Comic-Con was initially rejected...we didn't plan to focus our work on the comic to fall within deadlines in July. Instead, we focused on trying to promote the comic at some local shows till next year's WonderCon...then we got the call from the Comic-Con people. While we were elated that we got a table based on a cancellation, we were a bit concerned that we were quickly running out of time to get stuff ready for that show.

After some discussion, Genevieve and I have committed the months of June and July to making a big push for Comic-Con. We hope to have some significant new content for the comic for the big show in San Diego this year. What that means exactly? We're not quite ready to reveal yet. It's a tough schedule to juggle between various other commitments but as we get closer to Comic-Con, we'll let you know how we're doing.

P.S. Sorry for the bland post...I'll try to make up for it later this week with something a little more interesting...but I really need to get back to the storyboards for right now.

- Joseph