PAGE THIRTY

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Welcome to the first page of Track 3 of ‘Free Mars.’  This week is a little surreal for a few reasons.  First, the page itself is kinda trippy.  I think you’ll agree.  Nic has done some amazing stylized versions of our girls; they almost look like children’s book versions of Vikki, Taryn, and Sam.

Second, I just realized that we’ve hit 30 pages and over 230,000 hits on the website.  Pretty big milestones for a humble webcomic.  I know I say this a lot, but I don’t think we’d have gotten this far without you ladies and gentlemen.

Lastly, C2E2 is just over the horizon and that means our print edition will arrive in a few weeks.  I still don’t know how we managed a Dan Abnett foreword.

There is a musical pairing this week, but we’ve hid it within the page itself.  It might be a little esoteric, but this scene should seem familiar to at least some of you.  Let’s do this, the first person that gives me the correct song, based on this week’s page, gets a free set of mini-prints sent to them.  You can post your guess here or email us .  I’ll check the time-stamps if there’s multiple correct answers.  Good luck,

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Who Takes Care of our Marketing?

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With this high population, the people around the city engage in economic activities such as businesses to make their ends meet. With various types of businesses, there is need for business organizations or individuals to conduct proper marketing if they are to make any meaningful progress. With the growth of technology, online marketing has taken over. More and more people look for products and services online. This necessitates the need for business organizations or individuals to adopt proper SEO Services for the purposes of improving their online presence in terms of marketing.

What are the benefits of SEO Services?
When it comes to online marketing, there is no doubt that SEO Services are very important. Many benefits come with them and below are some of them:

Increase traffic
If you are a business organization or individual, a bit of more traffic to your website is something that is always welcome. With SEO, this is possible as it is main role anyway. SEO works by making your site among the positions on the search engine results. When people are looking for a product/s that relates to what you are offering, they will get suggestions to click on your site. Many people go for the top options that they get while searching for content on the search engines so definitely they will check out your products.

Cost effective
In a business venture, you will go for anything that guarantees to cut your expenses. On the marketing front, SEO Services will save you in cutting the costs. SEO is cost effective as it directly deals with the people who are interested in your product and services. This is far cheaper and effective as compared to other methods of marketing such as cold calling.

Brand awareness
SEO services can help more people become aware of your brand. By ranking your site amongst the top positions, it provides it with the much-needed exposure. Many people will be able to identify your site easily thereby boosting the awareness of your brand online.

Other benefits of SEO Services include; they increase site usability and provides you with trackable and quantifiable results.

Conclusion
In a big city with a high population who engage in various business activities. In that case, there is a high need for business organization and individuals to acquire the services of SEO. Many benefits as seen above come with them.

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PAGE FIVE

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Page Five.  My favorite page yet.  For everyone asking me if there would be actual dialogue in the SG comic, here ya go.

I love this page because it really does start to give the girls some character beyond appearance.  We start to get a feel for their individual personalities.

Appearance is still important, and I love that Nic worked in a very Bowie-esque make-up job for Sam.  In fact, I think this week’s music pairing would be some ‘Ziggy Stardust’ playing in the background.  I imagine clubs on Mars would have a certain affinity for Bowie…

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INTERLUDE 2

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With a couple weeks off between Tracks 2 and 3, we decided to post a few extra pages of work.  First, we have a companion piece to our Vikki Grimm Interlude.  In this piece, we get to see Samantha enjoying some downtime; relaxing in her micro-hab with a good “book”.  I think the specs give her a new look, very academic, if a little hipsteresque.  She’s probably smarter than Vexx gives her credit for, in any case.

The text this week is not written by me, but by none other than Nicolas R. Giacondino, the noted Argentinean artist.  Nic asked me if he could write a short excerpt from a book by a famed Martian revolutionary and I thought it was an excellent idea.   We agreed that Sam, of the three, was most likely to be reading something like this.  It wasn’t lost on me that the subject matter becomes a little more poignant coming from an Argentinean.  We had to edit the text quite a bit to fit on this page, so we’re including Nic’s full excerpt in the FM-verse section.  It’ll be up this weekend and I encourage you to check it out.

I think Sam is listening to something suitably chill.  So I’m going with Cut Copy and ‘Take Me Over

Speaking of music, I put together an iTunes Playlist where I’m collecting some of the songs mentioned in these posts, as well as songs/artists that inspired The Sisters Grimm.

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PAGE TWENTYNINE

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Here endeth Track 2.  In a homage to the potboiler, we’ve got a bit of a cliffhanger.  Our heroine has had a bad week or so and it certainly hasn’t ended any better.  I love how Nic’s got little bits of burning debris falling around her.

Nic and I discussed the music pairing at some length this week.  We didn’t completely agree, so I’m posting both choices.  Nic is going with Pink Floyd’s ‘Goodbye, Cruel World.’  Obviously a classic and I admit that it does work well with this grim (no pun intended) panel. Though I personally find that entire album to be a bit of a naffing downer.  Full disclosure: I’m not a huge Pink Floyd fan.  Maybe I just never got over Syd Barrett’s departure from the band.

For my own part, I’m taking a different approach.  I see my pick this week as the end credits song for our second chapter.  So I wanted a little irony; something poppy and upbeat.  Plus this song has been stuck in my head for like a week (I blame the XM).  The Primitives’ Crash.

So Marsers, Track 2 is in the can, the print version of these first two chapters is en route to the printer, and C2E2 is right around the corner.  Stay tuned for more news (big news) coming soon.  In the mean time, between today and the start of Track 3 ‘Volcano Girls’, we’ll be posting our print cover and another ‘Interlude’ piece.

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LIVING A LIFE IN CALGARY

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Introduction

Immigration to Canada has always been popular, and it might be more popular than ever before as a result of the concerns over the shifting nature of American politics. People all around the world are going to be affected by this sort of thing, and people might start to see Canada as a sort of oasis in a desert. Canada is going to be affected by all of this as well, and people should not believe that is going to insulate anyone. However, finding a Calgary apartment for rent is going to get a lot of people started on a new path in life, and that can be enough regardless of the exact motivations that people might have chosen for moving there.

 

Calgary Life

The median age in Calgary is around thirty-six. People who are elderly and teenagers are relatively rare there, even though both groups are present. This is a city for young professionals for the most part and for people in early middle age. Anyone who is planning on moving ahead in that life stage might like Calgary. While there are lots of Christians in Calgary, there are also plenty of people who do not identify strongly with any religion. Americans who are interested in a more secular place to live often talk about moving to places like Calgary, and there is some truth in that endeavor. A Calgary apartment for rent is going to put them in proximity to a very different group of people.

The personal and family incomes in Calgary have a tendency to be very high. Unemployment in this part of the country is also very low, which is good news for the people who are used to living in areas where some people have jobs that pay very well and some people have no jobs at all. This is an area where economic inequality is relatively low, and a lot of Americans who want to escape the extreme economic stratification in the United States might appreciate that Calgary is going to be very different compared to their homeland.

Many people say that Calgary is a beautiful city, and it is a city that has a somewhat agricultural culture. They are in touch with their agricultural history in spite of the fact that people often consider rural and urban environments to be opposites. Calgary is a city that has a lot to offer people from all over the world.

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PAGE TWENTYEIGHT

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Happy Friday, Marsers.  I write to you now from the ruins of Chicago; me and the other snowmeggedon survivors have banded together to find food and update our webcomics.  I don’t want to alarm anyone, but is that our Vikki Grimm flying through the air?  I can gauge the success of Nic’s action sequence here by the fact that, even though I wrote the script, I’m still cringing.  Poor girl even lost her boot.  Naff.

We’re gonna go a little industrial this week, I think.  Front 242′s Headhunter:

We are gearing up for c2E2.  Hope you can make it to the Expo.  We’ll be debuting our printed edition there, if everything goes according to schedule.  Might have a couple additional surprises, so stay tuned.  Then two weeks after the C to the E, is Adepticon.  Adepticon is primarily a miniature gaming convention, but this year’s Guest of Honour is none other than Dan Abnett himself.  He kinda spans the comic/miniature gaming worlds and has even written some Dr. Who radio dramas.  Triple threat.  He’s almost like the nerd J-Lo

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PAGE TWENTYSEVEN

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I know the whole “best page yet” mantra is probably getting a little old.  But I think I’m safe in declaring this our best page yet.  To think I was worried that the script for this page tried to pack too much into one week.  In fact, this is why I don’t generally feel that bad that we’re a weekly comic; you definitely get a lot each week.

Vikki Grimm takes the lead here in an attempt to find some cover from the battle that rages around them.  We find that Sam, like Vexx, has an interesting past (or at least she says she does).  Finally, we’re left with a nice cliff-hanger.  The page is so dynamic, almost frenetic, that I think Nic has outdone himself.

The music pairing this week is by a similarly amazing artist.  Rachid Taha is an Algerian singer/DJ whose song ‘Barra Barra’ (Out! Out!) was used in the film Blackhawk Down.  And though I’m copping out a little and choosing that song (it is naffing awesome), I totally recommend checking out more of his stuff, particularly the album Made in Medina. He also does a cool cover of The Clash’s ‘Rock the Casbah’ (used in the Joe Strummer movie).  So fire up the Rhapsody or iTunes and check this guy out if you are currently unfamiliar.  Here’s ‘Barra Barra’:

Housekeeping-wise, I’m doing a links page this week, so look for the ‘Off-World Comms.’  I’m trying to collect links to FM reviews and mentions, but also list some of the other science-fiction webcomics we look at on a regular basis.  As well as some generally cool sci-fi and comic websites (and maybe some miniatures sites for painters/gamers).

The end of Track 2 grows near, which means we’ll be taking the first two chapters and some new bonus material, and putting together a print compilation for C2E2.  We’ve also been thinking about the cover.  We sort of decided we’d like to see our printed comic covers become tributes to some of our favorite album covers.  We think we’ve narrowed down this first cover, but we’re considering future options.  Which leads me to this week’s two-part question for you Earthers:  First, would you be interested in a printed version of the webcomic that included exclusive material?  Second, what iconic album cover would look cool ‘Free Mars’-ified?

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PAGE TWENTYSIX

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In retrospect, Vikki’s reaction last week seems relatively subdued.  The scene outside the crashed ‘lifter seems, at least, somewhat problematic for our heroines.

To think that Nic was worried about designing all the vehicles: tanks, VTOLs, and MLF converted mining haulers all make an appearance.  I think he gave everything a unique look, design-wise, but you can see a common “evolutionary” thread.  The vehicles all have their own character, but they all look Martian.

Again, as usual, the page warrants a few close looks.  The detail here reaches a new level.  It’s tantamount to a Free Mars ‘Where’s Waldo?’

Nic’s music pairing this week is Prodigy.  ”Anything from Fat of the Land,” said the Argentinian artist.  I concur that the technophonic pulse works for the frenetic chaos of the battle.  For my own part, I have to go with one of my favorite bands.  ’Know Your Enemy’ by Green Day.

Our Volcano City Merch Table is open, by the way.  It wouldn’t be a rock show without a merch table.  So if you feel like acquiring some new art (and soon a printed version of the comic with bonus pages)

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PAGE TWENTYFIVE

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PAGE TWENTY FIVE.  Interior commercial freightlifter.  Jovis.  15:37 MST.  Jovis happens to be the fifth day of the Martian week, corresponding with Earth’s Thursday, going with the Darian nomenclature.

We’ve come to the end of Nic’s ‘Red Period.’  I still think this last sequence and its lack of color showed just how detailed Nic’s art really is.

On the writing side, I hope we were successful in demonstrating that there’s more to our girls than might meet the eye….

Music-wise this week, I’m choosing one more “eerie” song to go with the final red page.  Lush, ‘Light From A Dead Star.’  Lush is a band that I almost forgot about, but have been revisiting lately.  I love Meriel Barham’s voice and could almost hear Vexx’s backing vocals sounding similar.

A couple house-keeping notes.  First, we have finally got all the prints together.  We have one larger poster and two smaller mini-prints and one postcard.  I’m compiling all the info and setting up a ‘Volcano City Mercantile’ page this weekend.  So look for it next week.  We’re also doing some website/server maintenance, so if you find us “down” you’ll know why.

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