The Byzantium Outcast for sale at Amazon.com on Kindle

I just published The Byzantium Outcast e-book Kindle edition in the Amazon.com marketplace. Right now it's going for $2.99. For the moment, I'm going to make the Arsenal stories about that much, while I'll keep the shorter volumes at $0.99.

"In her ongoing search for magickal artifacts in and around Phoenix, occult detective Vex Harrow makes a strange discovery during one of her favorite hunts--at a yard sale. She procures a strange, bronze statue that seems to have a lot more going on than at first it may appear."

Perhaps I should also get some longer, better back matter written. It looks short and weedy compared to others.
The Outcast--as seen on the cover in that oddly torturous and twisted pose--is a bronze-copper statue that I bought at a yard-sale somewhere in Chandler. It took a bit to clean off all of the scabrous green corrosion and centuries of grime, but there are some stains that even TarnX cannot remove. If you are interested in what this has to do with Vex Harrow then I suggest that you visit the story and read up.

The cover artwork is the lovely work of one of my artists, Nicole Cardiff. She's also the artist who did the cover for the 5th volume of Mill Avenue Vexations, "Drum Circle."

Link to buy The Byzantium Outcast at Amazon.com's Kindle store.

How Vex Harrow met Cory Doctorow

Just properly published this one, “Hell Cory” by Kyt Dotson. It’s been in the forums for ages (since 2007 when I wrote it.) So now, I’ve brought it out of there and put it where it belongs, amid its siblings in the proper story queue.

If you haven’t read it before, mosey along and peruse it.

The image (and part of the story) is a homage to xkcd.com.

Link, via Mill Avenue Vexations.

Comic book: The Deal by Kyt Dotson

I am so glad that I can finally announce this. It’s been a long, long time in coming but the Vexations comic book has finally finished the editing stages and proofing so now I can show off a few things about it!

Mill Avenue Vexations: The Deal by Kyt Dotson.

Twelve pages of beautifully rendered artwork by Sanjana Baijnath, with story by Kyt Dotson. They will probably sell around $3 and I’m going to try to get them into some comic book stores around Tempe, we’ll see how that goes. If anyone knows a place that might be interested, contact me and I’ll try to get it figured out.

The story is short, but it revolves around Vex’s usual sleuthing, hunting down a demon, and then taking over a deal—hence the name of the story. As usual, things never go entirely as planned, when dealing with demons, but especially when dealing with Vex Harrow.

Copies will also be available for purchase from this website for a very similar price, and if anyone would like to pay extra to help out with future releases of Vexations I am willing to part with signed copies as usual.

Look forward to this coming out next month if all goes well.

AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE HERE!

Link, via Mill Avenue Vexations.

Some fanart from one of my artists

One of my artists (Rebecca Gunter) just came back with some fan artwork for Vexations. It's a cartoony Vex Harrow. Absolutely adorable. I am so thankful I have these wonderful artists to work with.

Volume 12 Cover Artwork

Here's the cover artwork for Volume 12. I am going to try to get prints of both these covers. It might make this particular run a little bit more collectable.

 

 
(c) 2009 Lise-Lotte Tjernstrom

http://tjernstrom.deviantart.com/

 

(c) 2009 Zak Hennessey

http://lrcommissions.deviantart.com/

This upcoming volume is named Waking the Stones and I'm trying to juxtapose the two separate worlds that are described in it. It's about time that we get a better understanding of what's going down in Phoenix, and Darlene is going to be our guide. She was stolen away in Volume 3 and now she's being given back to us in Volume 12 to deliver a message...

I hope everyone enjoys this last installment of Vexations for this year. It's been an excellent, however tiring, run!

Anizona 2009

I just spent the entire weekend at Anizona 2009. An event which Arizona really needs badly, which everyone who attended the closing ceremonies has heard is going to be on hiatus for at least a year. So there will be no Anizona 2010.

I have collected a certain number of notes from the experience—including some observations on how many Naruto headbands vs. Urahara hats appeared (Friday, Naruto won; Saturday, it was definitely Urahara.) We saw zombies, mercenaries, a giant moogle, Yoshi, and many excellent cosplayers. We even experienced the Gong Show which was an amusing jaunt—at least Friday and Sunday, the Saturday Gong judges treated the thing like the worst of American Idol and fairly much made the experience a bit of a letdown. If I had it in me, I might have actually tried to sing at the second one. Except that judges didn’t want singing, and I’d already caught some form of con crud.

Yes, there really is a word for it: Con Crud. Whenever you put that many people together, for that long of a time, some form of epidemic is going to spread—in this case it’s an evil sort of phlegmy sore throat. Knocked out the upper-register of my voice. Try singing with no upper register.

Geeks are also not well known for their hygiene and cosplay outfits quickly pick up dinge and funk even in a matter of 24 hours worn.

In the news of the neato and sweet, a friend of mine even came on Friday, cosplaying as Vex Harrow.

I will work out some of the other stories from the event as the week wears on.

No Mill Avenue Nights this week—it was all animé convention.

And there are indeed photographs.

Small update that isn't so small

Hails everyone, I just wanted to let everyone know that Volume 11: The Shattered Violin is now available for reading online at Mill Avenue Vexations. Ssh.

Nah, I'm kidding on the hush part -- go tell anyone thou damn well please -- tell a lot of people. I just haven't had a chance to write up my full release and post and everything to bring cheer and joy to everyone. Everyone let me know what they think.

The actual, highfalutin notice will come shortly. I just wanted to let everyone know.

Link.

Something Funny Happened at Matsuri

Mill Avenue Vexations Something Funny Happened at Matsuri by Kyt Dotson is available online for everyone to enjoy!

Vex Harrow takes a day off to visit the Arizona Matsuri festival with her friend Megan. However, a weird Japanophile and otaku, decides to crash her party by summoning a tentacled monstrosity to help him steal some artifacts from ancient Japan.

Things continue to go wrong from there. Follow Vex's adventure from festival onwards to reclaim the day.

There are four pages of Japanese manga in this work, the first two and the last two; so if you buy this you will receive some graphic art not displayed on the cover (although you can also read it all online.) It was a bit more expensive to make these than the usual publication, but it was certainly worth it. I hope that everyone who receives one enjoys it thoroughly.

It's also available for people to purchase from the online store.

Mill Avenue Nights Friday, February 13th 2009

Friday the 13^th!

I didn’t get much research done today, mostly I just had fun and frolicked. After straying through the annals of the Ave, and I got a lot of copies of Mill Avenue Vexations: Something Funny Happened at Matsuri handed out.

By the way, it’s being released tomorrow, February 15^th 2009.

I stopped by Graffiti Shop, handed a copy to Lawrence (signed of course), and trawled the Ave for other people who might be interested. Met with some of the street rats whom I enjoy and love to hang out with. Talked to Bunny and Nightshade; met with Crazy and even went to a poetry slam.

The poetry slam was pretty interesting. Lots of artsy folks were hanging around, but I didn’t get much of a chance to talk to many of them, however, I did use it as an excuse to hand out more copies of Vexations.

That rocked.

For anyone who didn’t get out to see me, there are copies of Vexations in Graffiti Shop. Only 4 copies. So…get burning when the burning is hot.

I will put 4 more there tonight.

Mill Avenue Vexations Volume 10: The Girl in the Mirror

Mill Avenue Vexations Volume 10: The Girl in the Mirror by Kyt Dotson is available online for readers to enjoy! And, as usual, there are free copies available to people who can get out to Mill Ave in Tempe.

Strange stuff is really brewing in Tempe now that Vex has run into her potential adversary at the Bash on Ash, and in her usual terms, punched her in the jaw.

This doesn't mean that the threat has ended, of course, as while she's taken away an item of some significant power, she doesn't know what it means. Disappearances continue. The city is agitated. And for one of the newer characters, Megan, things are definitely getting hairy: she's started seeing things in mirrors.

Not just any things, but a particular dead girl.

This volume displays art from a considerable number of sources. The cover is by one of my new favorite artists, Del Borovic (*exileddelusion) who did the front cover. And Katie de Sousa (=yumedust), whose brilliant and majestic portrait of Vex is the back cover. Internal artwork and chapter headings are done by Alan Gallo.

You can see the full cover on Mill Avenue Vexations.

So, don't miss Volume 10: The Girl in The Mirror.

Mill Avenue Vexations gets a little love from the press

One of our local newspapers, the Phoenix New Times, has a blog and they just posted a book review of Mill Avenue Vexations.

Link, via the Phoenix New Times.

Have a Merry Vexing Christmas and a Sprightly Yule all

Mill Avenue Vexations Have a Merry Vexing Christmas everyone.

This little title was released almost two years ago now, for Christmas. It is one of the very first tribute stories that we ever wrote.

If you haven’t read it before you might as well catch up.

I even have a black Santa cap like Vex is wearing on the cover now. For those who haven't had the fortune of reading this yet (get to it!) it summarizes a little bit like a cabdriver Dicken’s story, as Vex tries to unravel the lives of various fares. Three exactly. Each of whom have a little bit of trouble in their past, present, or future.

I hope everyone enjoys.

Merry Christmas and a Sprightly Yule to all.

Link to Mill Avenue Vexations.

Lost Sphinx Cat released into the web and print!

Pulling this directly form my news post on Mill Avenue Vexations.

Mill Avenue Vexations Lost Sphinx Cat by Kyt Dotson is available online for readers to enjoy! And, as usual, there are free copies available to people who can get out to Mill Ave in Tempe.

Augustus Caesar, missing cat, and the little girl who loves him, Holly. Of course, this is a Vexations story, so there is a twist. Even before she starts looking, Vex discovers that what looks like an ordinary domesticated cat is actually a dangerous shapeshifter with an insatiable hunger. Through whatever means the cat landed in a pet store and then in the hands of an unsuspecting family. Vanished under unfortunate circumstances she has to decide how to handle the reunion—if any reunion between loving family and potentially perilous moggie can even happen.

Come, read this story about a bond between cat and girl that transcends the nature of the beast—that in the end, not everything is exactly how it seems. From monsters to housecats.

Cover design by Rebecca Gunter; and the entire back page is dedicated to an advertisement for Pets911.com a website dedicated to animal welfare, adoption services, and of course lost & found boards to help reunite lost pets and their families.

Vexations Fanfiction

Oh yes, it is that thou art imaging the title of this post correctly: I just saw the first installment of someone writing fanfic for Vexations.

No kidding.

I will see if I can convince them to post it up on Fanfiction.net so that everyone can see it and enjoy. Until then, I'm going to keep the news off of the general wires until something substantial can be shown off to readers.

Meanwhile, thou all can look forward to Lost Sphinx Cat upcoming this weekend.

Mill Avenue Vexations Volume 9 Released

I am proud to announce the release of Vexations Volume 9: All the Night’s a Stage. The first few copies of it have already been handed out for free on Mill Ave last Friday and Saturday and there are still quite a few remaining. So, if thou desire one of these lovely booklets, make thy way out to the Ave and snap one up.

Otherwise, they are available for free online at the Mill Avenue Vexations story section.

The cover was drawn by Rebecca Gunter and the internal artwork once again is done by Allan Gallo. This is number one of six for this publishing season, so we should have a breakneck pace of releases coming up!

Wish me good luck.

See everyone on the Ave.

Mill Avenue Vexations Volume 9 cover design released

Volume 9: All the Night's a Stage cover design has been released.

Be sure to keep an eye out for it on Mill Ave this upcoming weekend and weeks. The booklets, of course, print in black and white—but with enough input from fans color versions can be printed.

Perhaps special editions of this will be available soon. They cost about $10 to help pay for press and artwork costs.

Vexations Art Acquisitions: Xin

We originally commissioned this artist to do the cover for the upcoming volume named The Shattered Violin; but after another artist became available who we had originally wanted for it we decided to have her do the work instead. Xin, of course, has been paid but as this won't be the cover for that volume we are going to release it for our fans to see.

Be sure to visit Xin's Love an Artist thread on Mill Avenue Vexations.

Project Updates

This is just a rambling update.

Mill Avenue Vexations editing and preparation continues apace. The comic should be coming out next year as it’s 1/3^rd lettered and completed and more panels are coming in weekly. All five next volumes are 95% done and artwork is 90% completed. We are in the middle of the editing phase. Should be pretty exciting. Especially with the favorable reviews in Web Fiction Guide.

Helljammer has the teaser site and a few short stories and series are being written up for hype. It will depend largely on funding and advertising to hopefully support a web comic and a novel. People who would like to be part of the launch of Helljammer are welcomed to provide suggestions and contact information.

People eager to see more about Helljammer can visit the Non-theist Nexus Webzine and see a short story from the series published there: Red Cross’d Bones.

Even beyond these there are still more projects I am working on including a suburban fairy tale novel.

Magick is in the air. Wait and see!

Vexations Art Acquisitions: Kesiah M Gaffney

Have some lovely artwork to show off from Kesiah M Gaffney, displayed also on the Mill Avenue Vexations site right now.

Thunderstorm trounces Mill Ave

Well, it looks like the Ave took one heady pounding by that passing storm. I've got reports of damage to various things, and lots of people who had a fun evening.

I'm hoping everyone else is okay.

Michael Monti also reported that it wrecked up the sign of La Casa Vieja.

See Vex Harrow's reaction.

I'd have more info on this, but it's 4a.m. where I am and I really need to retire to bed and dream about a thunderstorm.