fantastical adventures in black and white

I haven’t written about Aera in a bit, and I really should get better at talking about my work, so.

Episode 6 is up, and I’m pretty happy with it. I’m not sure whether or not it works as the miniature horror movie I’d intended, but it looks cool and that’s ninety percent of what I aspire to.

There’s a lot I want to say about the larger story and where it’s going, but I’m hesitant to get into that yet. When I was first thinking about this series I was really into the idea of the viewer discovering the shape of the story as it emerges (which is one of my favorite experiences with fiction), and I don’t want to undermine that by tipping my hand too early. Which is maybe a pompous thing to say about such a shoestring project. Have I really earned the right to be that coy? I don’t know.

So anyway, check out Aera if you want. Tell your friends, like & subscribe, blah blah blah. I would love to have an audience for this thing. Here’s a still from Episode 7, currently in progress:

Now seems as good a time as any to mention that the animated serial I’ve been working on for the better part of a year is well underway, and the first four episodes will go online tomorrow (January 29th), here and on my YouTube channel.

Aera is an ongoing story, best described as:
-a meditation on interspecies communication in a fantasy context, or
-a Moebius-inspired retelling of Homeward Bound, or
-a swords-and-sorcery epic containing neither swords nor sorcery*

If any of that piques your interest, check it out! The episodes are really very short; attention span strictly optional.

*or in any case only minimal, ambient sorcery