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Posts tagged as “Centaurs”

Who Am I?

Published September 7, 2011 by centaur
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me in front of the bell bridge books promotional material for BLOOD ROCK Who are you? Good question. I'm Anthony Francis, and I write stuff and make computers jump through hoops for a living. What have you done? I'm most notable for the EPIC award winning urban fantasy novel FROST MOON and its sequel, BLOOD ROCK, which are about magical tattoo artist Dakota Frost and are therefore hopefully both more interesting than my ~700 page PhD thesis on context-sensitive computer memory. Also on the computer side, I've done some exploration of robot emotions. What are you doing next? Forthcoming in the Dakota Frost series is the third book, LIQUID FIRE, and this November for National Novel Writing Month I plan to work on HEX CODE, the first in a spin-off series featuring Dakota's adopted daughter Cinnamon Frost. Are you working on anything other than Dakota Frost? I've also recently completed a rough draft of the first book in a new series, JEREMIAH WILLSTONE AND THE CLOCKWORK TIME MACHINE. A short story set in this universe, "Steampunk Fairy Chick", will be included in the forthcoming anthology UnCONventional. What are you working on currently? I'm also currently working on a fourth new series with the working title STRANDED, a young adult science fiction novel set a thousand years in the future, featuring a spoiled young centauress who must rescue a shipload of children who have crashlanded upon a world she wanted to claim as her own. This story's set in the "Library of Dresan" universe from which this blog takes its name and which was setting of my very first unpublished novel "homo centauris", which I am now happily milking for its 57 billion year backstory. Anything else? I have a flash fiction story called "The Secret of the T-Rex's Arms" to appear on the Smashed Cat Magazine. I've also published one short story, "Sibling Rivalry" in the Leading Edge Magazine. I have a webcomic, f@nu fiku, on hiatus. And I'm actively involved with helping people succeed at 24 Hour Comics through tutorials that I and my friend Nathan Vargas have put together at Blitz Comics. Is that enough questions for now? Yes, it is. Please enjoy. -the Centaur

Future Books

Published July 18, 2011 by centaur
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piles of notes between caffeine fuel and computational engine An exchange from Facebook:
Anthony: Just finished a rough draft of JEREMIAH WILLSTONE AND THE CLOCKWORK TIME MACHINE ... my fourth completed novel! Wallace: Anthony it is great that you have 4 what are they? We know Frost Moon, blood Rock, what was the 3rd? Barbara enjoyed putting them on audio. Anthony ‎#1 is one you haven't heard of ... HOMO CENTAURIS is my first completed novel written in the early 90's. The next two were FROST MOON and BLOOD ROCK ... the third one in that series, LIQUID FIRE, is about 75% done. THE CLOCKWORK TIME MACHINE is the first in a new series. P.S. The working titles of the next three Dakota Frosts (4,5,and 6) are SPECTRAL IRON, PHANTOM SILVER and SPIRITUAL GOLD. The working titles of the next next three (7,8, and 9) are something like SPIRAL NEEDLE, HELICAL LANCE, and CIRCULAR KNIFE. And the working titles of ... I'll stop there. I can keep going, but I won't ... don't want to spoil the surprise. I've already mentioned some of the later ones online. :-)
Assuming I get that far ... no, I'm planning to get that far, and farther, God willing. -the Centaur Pictured: piles of notes between caffeine fuel and my computational engine.

A noble failure

Published October 3, 2010 by centaur
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Well, it was a noble failure, but a failure it was. I had indeed not overcome my food poisoning, not that I threw up or anything but I indeed got gurgly. During Page 7, I started having sleep microbursts during my crosshatching. And finally, as I was recovering from gurgle and looking at Page 8, I realized it was even more complicated than the previous page, and flipping through the remainder realized I needed to finish each page in ten to twenty minutes ... and I was taking forty five minutes per page. There was no way to make it. So that was it. Took a brief nap, freshened up, and started packing it up. What a fantastic experience. I have a complete 24 page story roughed out, 7 inked pages, and a lot more learning under my belt. Two of the five people who were at our site look like they are going to finish. Oh well ... next year! Ad comika! -the Centaur

The Halfway Point

Published October 2, 2010 by centaur
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What you see is Page 24 of my rough layouts - THE HALFWAY POINT: On time, on schedule. 24 roughed up pages complete. For those who don't know my process, the act of putting together a comic
  • begins with some scribbled sketches and notes
  • continues with 24 tiny scribbled panels all one page
  • continues with 24 super rough letter size (actually 9x12, what I had on me) pages
  • continues with 24 "detail roughs" on larger (10x14, what I had on me) pages
  • then I pull out the lightbox and the vellum and trace each page over and over itself until it looks good
Normally I'd scan those pages and screw around a lot with Photoshop, Illustrator, Painter and Xara, but screw that. This time I'm inking, lettering, drawing panel borders by hand. No time. No time. To help me along, these are the tools of the trade, my crutches, and my models ... that and Google Images. We're doing this at Noisebridge in San Francisco, a great shared hacker space I should blog. Later. It's their second, or third, birthday. Huge loud distracting party. I've met quite a few friends from The Search Engine That Starts With A G. I've explained 24 hour comics day like 24 times. More on that ... later. Here's another hardworking comicker: Here's Nathan Vargas, who shanghaied me into this: And here I am, from a few hours ago, looking a lot fresher than I do now. And this is me closing the laptop and getting back to work. Out of time to blog. Page 1 of the roughs becomes a real page now. See you in 12. -the Centaur

24 Hour Comic Day Begins

Published October 2, 2010 by centaur
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SO once again I'm participating in 24 hour comics day, the insane attempt to complete a new 24 page comic from scratch in 24 hours. Add to that that I've gotten less than 8 hours of sleep in the past 48 hours because of food poisoning, fully expect the food poisoning to kick back in in about 12 hours, and the fact I need to go back to my church and set up some tables, I think this is more likely going to be a 4 hour comics day. :-( However, I'm not going to bail too early: my buddy Nathan Vargas has shanghaied me up to Noisebridge in San Francisco, a great shared hacker space you can see below. So here goes nothing! TRANSNEWTONIAN OVERDRIVE: The Front begins now...

Centaurs In Space III

Published December 31, 2003 by centaur
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Continuing the translation of "articles" to modern blog entries... Part III of Article 30 from December 31, 2003.



Last in the series "Centaurs in Space", with text drawn from my short story "Death Wish" and images drawn from my sequential adaptation of the same story.

Death Wish
by Dr. Anthony G. Francis, Jr.

...then the remains of the shuttle slammed into the black surface of the asteroid.

Porsche flinched at the impact, then glared as the sparking hulk of the kyore carrier tumbled past the jagged scarp that had caught the shuttle and impacted the far end.

The edges of the black expanse seemed to shiver, and glowing bits of kyore scattered across the far end of the dumbbell like pretty little fireworks...

Centaurs In Space II

Published December 18, 2003 by centaur
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Continuing the translation of "articles" to modern blog entries... Part II of Article 30 from December 18, 2003.



Second in the series of "Centaurs in Space", with text drawn from my short story "Death Wish" and images drawn from my sequential adaptation of the same story.


Death Wish
by Dr. Anthony G. Francis, Jr.

...The mission started well enough: a thousand light years in a trusty B4 shuttle, charting a star factory trailing the shock wave of the Perseus spiral arm. Two days out, and the routine was starting to settle in: dust clouds curdled here, disks of collapsing gas there, and blue supergiants everywhere, burning the candles at both ends.

It looked to be an uneventful jaunt, and she was already getting an itch to see her husband back on the Dragonfire...

Centaurs In Space I

Published December 10, 2003 by centaur
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Continuing the translation of "articles" to modern blog entries... Part I of Article 30 from December 10, 2003.



Done Been Gone Too Long. Well, friends, it's been almost 9 months since I've updated the site. In that time, I've been through crunch time on a major project, bought a new computer, took a road trip from the Stanford Linear Accelerator, through the Pacific Coast Highway, and ultimately to the Grand Canyon, wrote another 10,000 words on my novel, started a new comic book, and been sick twice (once including a trip to the hospital).

Which is still no excuse for not posting. I'm going to try to rectify that soon ... until then, let me tide you over with some art. With no further ado or departure from my sterotypical subject matter, I present "Centaurs in Space" ... first of a series of 3 sketches for the upcoming comic "Death Wish".

Death Wish
by Dr. Anthony G. Francis, Jr.

Ten seconds to impact, the centauress leapt out an airlock without a spacesuit...