Dream Angel Adventure 1 comic book

So, instead of getting nowhere fast and not doing anything about it, I’ve self-published the latest version of Dream Angel as a comic book. The button above will take you directly to the comic book’s page on lulu.com where it is available for purchase. I’d like to see success this time so I will be hopefully making some noise about it for a while to get it the attention it deserves. A lot of hard work went into that book and while the price might seem high, I have to say that lulu’s print quality is quite good and my own artwork is far better than it has been in the past. I’d like to believe that I’ve earned the price.

The first game is just like Bejeweled just swap the gems for three in a row and gain points. Not complicated at all. The second is Dream Angel related in that it’s a “choose your own adventure” type of game. The third is a basic side-scrolling platform game a lot like the old Mario Bros games. I had a little fun with this one, making 50 levels that are apparently quite the challenge – I haven’t had anyone report getting past level 12 yet. Even while testing, I could scarcely get past level 20 or so. I know the whole game works, though.

Since I’m taking this spring off from school (not too much choice in the matter, but that’s a personal reason really) I’m starting up as a freelance game developer using Flash. For purposes of testing (mostly) I’ll be posting more games on a regular basis as I make them to ensure they work as they should in a web browser. Sorry, no games that’ll work with Ipad/Iphone etc yet as I have no means of testing them. Oh, I’m sure there’s programs for the computer I could get that would simulate those things, but I’d rather test using the genuine article and it’ll be a while before I can afford that. In the meantime, I’ll be doing some heavy reading that will include developing those types of games, but I won’t be making them for a while.

For now, just enjoy the games I’ve got online. You’ll find them on http://www.games.dreamangelsparadise.com.

December isn’t just about Christmas, though some people would see it that way. It just doesn’t sound right to someone who celebrates Hanukkah when you tell them “Merry Christmas” just as you wouldn’t like to hear “Happy Hanukkah” from them if you celebrate Christmas. “Happy Holidays” shows an acceptance of diversity that this world so badly needs, constantly preaches about and doesn’t have. Is that a case of “Do as I say, not as I do”? There isn’t a religion in history that isn’t guilty of that crime. The Spanish Inquisition was a major example. All that preaching of “Thou shalt not kill” (or words to the effect) and what did they do? Torture and kill. Let’s stop that nonsense and accept all holidays and religions for what they are: diverse.

Now that that’s on the table, I hope I’ve ended all arguments on the holiday issue. You’re welcome to make the issue into a discussion, but I still believe in equality for the holidays.

On to other things, now. I’ve kept myself active on hubpages for some time now, and in hope of finally getting a publisher to accept, I’ve posted a preview chapter of Dream Angel. The idea is to have a high activity level that’s visible to prove to the publisher that there’s a waiting and willing market for a groundbreaking genre like mine. So, please, go join the discussion of the book, vote in the poll, I look forward to hopefully gaining the publisher’s acceptance soon, and I think this is a good way to do it.

Sorry, no, I haven’t gotten around to the Sailor Moon paper doll collection I’ve had up for years – it’s big and I’m still deciding what the best method of display is for it. I’ve tried several ways and every time, it wound up a big mess. I’m hoping to avoid that problem this time.

The main rebuild is already looking very nice and using a site-wide spread among sub-domains has actually made things just a bit easier to handle. I can update each area as I need to separately from others, which makes it far better for keeping track of files where in the past, everything was jumbled together and next to impossible to keep accurate track of.

I’m hopeful to have finally found a good e-book publisher for my novel, too. I know better than to really get my hopes up, but finding a publisher that’s an author too and knows what it’s like to be a nobody in the writing world… that’s pretty uncommon. Even more uncommon is the same publisher actually wanting newcomer authors. It’s only been a little over a week now, but I’m hopeful the saying of “no news is good news” being true on this!

If I’m lucky, this publisher likes new ideas/genres along with new authors…

I don’t usually delve into religious subjects – for the most part, I prefer staying out of the religious arguments. My study of mythology has taken me through many religions from many eras. My personal favorite is Greek and Roman mythology. I actually like to read about the lesser known gods and goddesses alongside the more commonly known ones. A prime example of my admiration of the lesser known gods comes in my novel, actually. In Dream Angel, two of my primary characters, protagonist and antagonist, Dream Angel herself and Nyxus come from those uncommonly known gods. Dream Angel, or Arora Arum when she’s not transformed, has a couple links into mythology. Specifically, she’s based on Aurora, the goddess of the dawn. The goddess herself was said to be rosy fingered, relates to the color saffron orange (Dream Angel’s outfit color until her goddess form) and bring the newborn day – thus, Dream Angel fights primarily at night against Nyxus. Nyxus has her own ties to mythology – the goddess Nyx of night. While I don’t really go any deeper than that on Nyxus, other than the fact that her power’s at its greatest at night, her mythological tie is still there. Dream Angel has another tie, but not to mythology this time. This time, it’s to the periodic table of the elements. Since the goddess Aurora was the goddess of the golden dawn, it seemed fitting that Dream Angel’s civilian name end in gold – the Latin for gold anyway. Arum is the Latin name for gold on the periodic table of the elements. Dream Angel’s tie to this is her goddess form being a golden gown. But I’m getting away from the joy of the season with my own character mythology.

Feel free to offer your thoughts~! Sorry to those who would prefer not registering for a blog to comment, but I’ve gotten a lot of spammers in the past. Only registered and logged in users are able to comment.

Happy Merry EVERYTHING! Hopefully, this covers ALL the holidays for the rest of the year!

Now, I’m getting mixed tales of how many babies she’s supposed to have. Some sources say 40-100, others 200. Fortunately, most say 1-3 months for hatching or keep the sack at 60-70 degrees and 40% humidity.

I have to admit, the last time I tried hatching an egg sack of mantids, it didn’t work. The darn thing refused. True, I was in junior high at the time and didn’t know much about the bugs… not as much as I’ve learned since, anyway… but I was pretty disappointed when nothing happened and I needed the bugs to hatch for a science fair project for school. Typical uncooperative nature, right? At that time, I ended up using lady bugs in my experiment – no, nothing that would harm the insects, simply test them – which was to test the intelligence using the old rat-in-a-maze test. I won a bronze medal for that, but I was still disappointed that I didn’t get to use my praying mantids for that. I’ve since learned that these are very intelligent, motion-tracking, lightning fast predators of warm climates.

So, without further ado, here’s the mantis mama and her egg sack:

From what I’ve read, she can’t lay unfertilized eggs, so I figure she must’ve mated before I caught her. Makes sense, since she’s the only one I caught this summer who was an adult already.