Moving forward

Some dead cartoon people on this page. I’ll let Ada ponder a little bit about what happened but while moving forward towards our destination. Enjoy some village landscapes. Those backgrounds are a real hassle to paint.

Nothing noteworthy happened this week, I suppose. Everything is slowly but steadily moving forward~ I started working on the prologue too and I’m puzzled how you guys managed to get through it and not ditch this comic haha. My editing skills got better, I see more mistakes now. It’s actually really great to go back like this and realize I can make this comic better. From the beginning, it’s been a great learning experience, both in writing and drawing. Thanks for reading this, if you guys weren’t here I’d probably switch to doing something else a long time ago!

Anyway, I did something fun for work recently. You guys know I work as a programmer for Amazon, right? Thanks to our designer, Tomoki, I had an opportunity to draw slider banners for Japan’s Manga Store’s free-manga page! They’re displayed whenever there’s no promotion going on. Check them out! Everyone loved how they turned out and I’ll draw a set for the main Manga Store page too. Yep, work’s been fun!

Banners for free-manga page on Amazon’s Manga Store https://www.amazon.co.jp/kindle-dbs/manga-store/free

47 comments on “Moving forward”

    • Refugnic Reply

      Plus it once again emphasizes, that the threat come in all sizes.

      I can’t tell too well, but it doesn’t look like the doors been smashed and the towering demons we’ve seen thus far wouldn’t have climbed through the window but much rather just smash a hole into the wall.

      I see most of these people having been killed by something no larger than a cat or something, when the terror came through…like: Big bro opens the window and the little guys take care of the rest.

      What is even more startling: They didn’t even knock over the vase, meaning that the attackers went straight for the vitals without leaving much to fighting to be done.
      Merciless and efficient.

  2. JW Reply

    Is that a finger and an eyeball being stir-fried in that second banner? I don’t think I’m gonna eat at that restaurant

    I’m kind of disappointed there isn’t a rampaging monster in the background of that first banner somewhere. Such a large, pristine cityscape is just begging for it, surely.

    • NotImportant Reply

      I’d gladly put it there but… each one of those is supposed to be an example of a specific genre. The office one is from josei manga – this type of manga doesn’t have fantasy elements at all! Pure, brutal, life drama.

      • antrik Reply

        Does josei never ever have fantasy elements, or would these just be very untypical?

        BTW, kinda off-topic: but do you happen to know why the syllables in josei are swapped compared to seinen, shounen, and shoujo?… I know nothing about Japanese, and this irregularity puzzles me 🙂

          • antrik

            Isn’t josei strictly speaking just a target demographic — meaning that in theory at least there could be different genres?… Though of course that’s not necessarily the case in practice.

  3. JW Reply

    I’m puzzled how you guys managed to get through it and not ditch this comic haha

    Well, if you read it from front to end, it only gets better and better, so that helps 😛
    But even at the start, it’s qualitatively better than a lot of comics I read, and definitely better than the start of a lot of comics I read.
    And sappy as it may sound, it feels like it’s made with a lot of love and enjoyment, and reading it makes me feel a part of that.

    • Refugnic Reply

      I second that.

      Why, most comics I’ve seen start out as basic doodles with no story to see for miles to come.
      And only many years later there is some sort of semblance of a story, whereas you started out strong with both art AND story, which is rare and far in between from what I can tell.

      • antrik Reply

        I have to contest the “most” claim. While it seems to be true for many of the “classics” that have been out there forever, in doesn’t match my overall experience from reading through some 200 or so web comics of varying quality. While pretty much all web comics improve more or less over time, there are many many out there that start out pretty decent — or otherwise fold before ever getting much better than they started out. I suspect the “classics” are special, since they started when most skilled artists didn’t dare dabble in this new medium yet, rather leaving the field to beginners — but only those beginners who actually had talent, and improved vastly over time, gathered enough of a following to keep them going for a long time…

        Nevertheless, while there are actually a lot of web comics that were pretty good from the beginning, Replay still stands out, with gorgeous graphics and an interesting story — among the very best out there — from day one 🙂

    • JW Reply

      You know what’s weird? It hadn’t even occurred to me until now that that arm might not be disembodied.

    • Ktrimbach Reply

      I thought the same thing at first. But decided it probably wasn’t. I think we’ll find out pretty soon if it attached to anything that’s warmer than room temperature.

  5. Crestlinger Reply

    Clearly the demons were after those people for their choice in wallpaper. At first they barged in and tried to take it off the wall, then realized it would be faster and more permanent to kill the ones who, as far as they knew, put it up in the first place.

    • antrik Reply

      Haha, I’m glad to see I’m not the only one irked by that wallpaper! 🙂

      These people seem to have been very floral-minded in general…

  6. Lucario Reply

    Of the banners you posted, why is there an open book in every single one of them? Is that a promotion for people to read or something?

  7. Elbert Reply

    In the second banner, that person isn’t cooking your regulare kind of noodles…

  8. Regis Earsquake Reply

    There is a severe lack of dog ears in the banners. Otherwise, they look great.

      • Doom Reply

        My favorite of those banners is the third because of the girl wearing a cute skirt and blushing adorably. I am curious how much of her blush is due to the boy she’s with offering her a flower and how much is due to the manga she’s reading.

  9. Alex Reply

    > Those backgrounds are a real hassle to paint
    Yeah, they look like a lot of work, but they’re also really pretty.

    > I’m puzzled how you guys managed to get through it and not ditch this comic haha.
    I read comics mainly because of their stories. The beginning was intriguing enough for me to continue reading it. Pretty art is a plus.

    Also the Manga banners look great! 🙂

  11. antrik Reply

    Quick, demons: strike while Ada is distracted! 😉

    Well, maybe not — she’s not the one with the magic sword right now…

    • antrik Reply

      Well, let’s say he wasn’t entirely wrong on this particular point 😉

      The situation is too nuanced to say he was categorically right IMHO — despite of her (partial?) concession here…

  14. antrik Reply

    Come to think of it, how do we know they *shouldn’t* wake the dead? Maybe zombies can fight the demons?… 😉

    • JW Reply

      I think that should be a last resort. I mean, it could also just make things worse. But once you’re at the point where you have nothing more to lose, then that doesn’t really matter, so you can safely bet on the chance it would make thinks better.

  15. Zero Reply

    You know, the last few issues have really put the relationship between Ada and Robert into perspective. And, to be honest, I see Ada similarly to that one person at lunch that doesn’t want something, but especially doesn’t want you to have it.

    • JW Reply

      More like she doesn’t want lunch but also doesn’t want you to have lunch without her. It’s fine if you have lunch, but she doesn’t want to be left behind alone.
      That’s what I get from it.

      • antrik Reply

        The metaphor is a bit strained though: inviting her over while he has “lunch” with someone else, would be rather kinky 😉

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