5th panel, you might want to check it again.

I’m terrible at writing stuff like this, so I guess all I can say is I hope things work out the way you want them to, and I’ll continue checking here regularly for further news.

I’d rather you keep this story as a one-shot, so that whether you do choose to continue or not, all those pages won’t be wasted. It also looks like the story can come to a conclusion in a short amount of time too, so I think it’s worth a shot.

Sorry to hear about your misfortune. Regardless, I thank you for sharing this story with us.

I remember seeing a documentary about the makes of Finding Nemo, and they had been working on the same story for so many years they didn’t think it was funny anymore. But the audience still thought it was hilarious, and the movie was a huge success. That’s sort of what I’m going through, I’ve been exposed to this story for so long that I think it’s crap but it’s probably not really.

I’ve always been struggling with Emerald Winter to get out of this funk and get stuff rolling, but the plot that I had planned long ago is so random, I really need to just completely remake it. I should have made a lot more changes when I rebooted the story. But at that time it was kind of difficult to put any changes through, having a co-writer who was resistant to change and fans who would try to petition me every time I altered something, even though I’m only about 0.01% through the story as is.

Really, I feel like Gisela (who very few people have even seen) should have been the main character of this story all along.

It’s not that Rien is not a likable character, but without any supporting cast around to contrast to him, he’s sort of flat. He’s like Frodo without a Sam around to make you like him. Ang without Sokka and Kitara, or Harry without Ron and Herimone. I need to get the gang together earlier in this plot.

I think I know exactly what I’m going to do with Emerald Winter now (thanks in part to your response), but it will take a long time to put into effect. The current story will still be canon, I just have to change a little of the ending on the fly. But the real “start” of the story will be when Rien and Gisela run into each other.

So I guess this comic will continue as it has for eight years, on perpetual hiatus. Oh well.

Anyway, thanks very much for commenting and helping me out.

My own experience with my comic project has involved the re-writing and improving of a six year old role play between people I don’t get the chance to talk to much anymore. I keep on with it because I love the story and characters my friends and I had created. It’s not much of a chore for me because it has been incredibly fun fleshing out Mary-Sues, creating plot twists and re-imagining character histories. If your experience with Emerald Winter, a tale long in the making, does not bring you as much pleasure as my project does for me, then I would say it is obvious. Either find a way to make it fun for yourself again or move on to better things.

Should you decide to continue on with EW, however, my fan opinion would be to get to the point where Rien meets Gisela. Mostly because that’s where the previous version left off and I honestly think that that was the point where the comic was starting to get more exciting. Rien’s back story in the land of snow is nice, but selfishly I admit that going through it twice is a bit tedious. That being said, the improvements you have made in the revision are well done and it wouldn’t necessarily be fair to new fans to jump over this part. So, I’m not sure.

The first two options you have given sound viable and very similar. Treating Rien’s history as a canon one-shot and getting on to the heart of the plot is good because you 1) finish what might’ve been a creative stumbling block and 2) keep the one aspect of the story that long time fans feel nostalgic over intact. However, I have always wanted to know what happens after Rien’s banishment and I personally wouldn’t mind if that involved getting rid of Rien’s history as it stands, especially if revising his history gives you creative satisfaction.

But let’s look at what you have now. The beginning story arc isn’t bad, it isn’t wholly unoriginal. You don’t drive the fact that Rien is an orphan home to the point of making him seem pathetic or anything. He’s a strong minded individual who barely skips a beat- that’s saying a lot considering most strapping young heroes are total wimps when they start out. (Frodo Baggins anyone?) If anything, LOTR and Harry Potter and countless other popular franchises follow the same formulaic crowd pleasing plot I’m sure you’ve studied at some point called the archetypal journey. It is so hard not to constantly key into that because it is so natural. The more and more I blather on about it, the more I realize that Rien is stronger than your typical archetypal hero and maybe that’s refreshing. He’s inexperienced relative to his foes but unlike Harry and Frodo, he doesn’t start the story out from square one and he’s badass enough to go around swinging swords at the little monsters and villains.

So if anything, Rien as a character is stronger than a lot of mainstream ones because he’s starting out the story as an experienced and mature young man. Neither Frodo nor Harry are especially experienced and if you ask me; neither of them do a lot of growing up. (Well maybe Frodo does in the books, but in the movies he is annoying from the beginning to the end.) The two also constantly have to fall back on their posse of secondary characters who pick them up and brush them off only for them to idiotically run into danger all over again. The other success you’ve mentioned is Avatar. I love Avatar, but I have to admit that if I look at things critically, Aang is not exactly an atypical character either; he is a total fish out of water, he’s incredibly young and he too wouldn’t have gone too far without Katara and Sokka backing him up. So dunno, critically speaking, your characters are fine. In my opinion at least.

But maybe all of what I’m talking about is character personality? I would say so. The thing mainly is that Rien’s back story as you’ve had it does the job of solidifying and supporting his personality. His childhood experience of losing both parents and then being raised by his uncle and Nara makes him independent and a competent fighter. William’s influence in particular is what I would say gives him his determination and self sufficiency while Nara probably impressed upon him an open mind and compassion. The fact that he hasn’t settled down into an adult life is probably also to do with William and Nara, not to mention his outcast status growing up. What you have now isn’t broken and if left relatively understated, makes for a nice little humble beginnings prologue. If you decided to blend options one and two that is.

If you wanted to alter what’s happened with Rien, though, that’s really your prerogative. I’m sure you could come up with something as good as what you have now if not better. Because while I might like what you have now, none of us are paying you to do this web comic and it’s ultimately your choice to do whatever you want with your characters and your comic. I wouldn’t mind option three because we’ve not seen enough of the plot to know the difference, I don’t think. My biggest interest in Emerald Winter has been meeting all of the characters you’ve been drawing for years. Option four makes me hesitate because it sounds so different from what we’ve seen so far, but I would be willing to see where that went because I’m a fan of both William and Nara.

Now, to get back to my first point in this long, way too long, post. You need to do what makes you happy, especially since you are doing all of this on your free time for little profit to you. If making Emerald Winter makes you feel depressed then stop making it. You have been working on it for how long? I have no idea but I believe it’s close to a decade if not more than that. That is a long time to work on something to begin with. I can only imagine how frustrating it would be to work on something for that long and then suddenly turn around and change it. I don’t want to invade your personal life and make false assumptions. However, I want to say it feels like EW is really tied up with Brandon and now that he is no longer in your life, it may be for the best to leave the project behind and move on. Emerald Winter is a comic I enjoy, but I do not enjoy it enough to demand it continue on when I know your heart isn’t in it anymore. Do what’s best for you Jamie, the true fans will understand.