Making Our Way: Entering Zuda

By Lisa Fary

For 2009, one of our goals is to work toward making our projects sustainable – as in, they sustain us in more than just a creative sense. We’re going to make our way with creative work. In this series, a process series of sorts, we’re going to talk about our efforts toward making that happen starting with John’s first Zuda competition.

For a few weeks, some time ago, I watched John work on Lasers, Dragons & Lies, a comic he’s doing with sci-fi/ humor novelist John Zakour for submission to Zuda. The comic is a classic Zakour genre mash-up: an adventure/ comedy taking place in a world where magic and technology co-exist and knights ride jet-propelled hover-horses to fight mech-dragons.

While John was designing the characters and drawing Zakour’s scripts, he’d often call me in to his studio and ask my thoughts on his progress. That would usually go something like this:

“How does this look?”

I’d search the screen, trying to figure out what was different from when he asked me ten minutes before. Was that line thicker this time? Darker, maybe? Was that character’s head at a slightly different angle? I couldn’t tell. He doesn’t want to hear the usual loved ones’ response of “It’s great, honey!”, so I’d own up.

“John, I really don’t see how it’s changed.”

“This right here is different,” he’d say frantically, pointing so something on the complete opposite side of the screen. “ I can’t draw. I should just stop and we can find someone on Craigslist to draw Intergalactic Law because I can’t draw and should just get a job at a pizza place. At least I’d be able to get some free meals.”

“Honey, you have a gluten allergy,” Clearly, this wasn’t the time to remind him of that, but I’m not known around these 400 square feet for my tact.

“Damn it! I forgot I can’t eat pizza!”

And as such, I’ve seen every screen of Lasers, Dragons & Lies at every stage of its development and seeing it competing on Zuda is kind of like seeing a godchild totter off to the first day of school or use his first fake ID – at least, I’m assuming so. I didn’t have godparents and am not currently a godparent, so I’m not even sure what they do. Although, some years ago, I did teach my impressionable young nephew to say “Go Navy! Beat Army!” loudly, with spirit, and as often as possible. It was pretty gratifying to prompt him to say it at dinner and watch my older brother (who was in the Army) clench his teeth and glare.

So, seeing Lasers, Dragons & Lies on Zuda is kind of like that, but without being on the receiving end of my brother’s retaliatory, mashed potato catapult.

The competition on Zuda runs for the month with the winner being determined via a super secret formula involving votes, faves, page views, comments, and star ratings that must be calculated by a NASA supercomputer or an evil genius with a laser abacus.

To read Lasers, Dragons & Lies, go to www.lasersdragonslies.com. That will point you to its spot on Zuda. Once there, read through it – it’s more rewarding in full screen – and if you’d like to see more, give it a vote and a favorite! And a star rating! And a comment! Because all of those things go into that super secret formula.

(One more thing: you do need to register as a Zuda user to do any of that. It only takes a second, it’s free, and best of all, they don’t send emails.)

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Lisa Fary’s early exposure to classic Battlestar Galactica in 1979 is largely responsible for her lifelong interest in science fiction and her childhood ambition of being an intergalactic space cowgirl. She thinks diagramming sentences is a fun alternative to Sudoku.