This post is named after the Temple of the Dog track that The X never plays. I think I’ve heard it once on college radio. In the mid 1990s.

It’s an appropriate title for two reasons – first, as detailed in an amendment to the current site notes, I’ve overhauled all comic navigation. It’s presently filtered to previous/next between story pages, pushing covers aside to favor the presentation of a seamless narrative. That was a bit of a push, forward.

Second, Return To Color (Transitional Voices chapter two) has been pushed back while I focus on Observer Effect, which should take a couple of months to produce. Hopefully less. I’m moving forward with new pages, but I’m also moving forward back in the sense that the current block of work takes place before Dead City Radio.

While Observer Effect will end with a lead-in to DCR, it isn’t a straight-up DCR prologue – it’s an ATC prologue. It sets the tone for Templar actions on earth and if it comes out as intended it will provide some context for the actions of John West, Raven Lockheart, Beef Knuckleback, and Thad & Ornix. It’ll also set up some of the events of DCR.1, and hopefully set the tone for DCR in a way that DCR.1 doesn’t.

I don’t have a timetable for OE at present – I know it’ll be ten pages if I can’t cut it to eight, I know it’ll need to match up to DCR.1, I know pretty much what I’m doing for pages two and three and 7-10, and I’m stuck on four and five. OE covers two years in ten pages – the WGP briefing got the first page, at present Jason gets three, and the remainder will be composed of two page scenes that will each address something relevant to the existing books.

The objective of Observer Effect is to answer the question “What’s this thing about?” in a fashion that will satisfy long-time readers without confusing new readers. It’s also a chance to fiddle with some CG I won’t get a chance to otherwise and an excuse to see what the cast looks like in the mid 90s. It also also puts modern art in front of DCR.1, and that’s a good thing!

Also also also. With OE in production, the new site is now very nearly at full operating capacity. It won’t be Go For Real until TV.2.1 is on the front page, but as of this morning all planned sections are active… which is more than I can say for previous versions of the site.