20100114 : 6x9 crop of second 1e cover is here, full spread below. Unlike the other chapter spreads, this one has a mockup of the book spine. I probably should have done that for Incursion and Expulsion, but oh well - the idea is to produce the thing as One Book. If it becomes One Book In Two Parts, I'll spine 'em up then - it might be good practice for TV and DCR, as the two combined will be roughly the same length as The Dualist.
As with all of the covers, this one is effectively "art complete" but not "ready to publish" - for that to happen, the spread would need to be broken up and the art shifted around to compensate for bleed - front, back, and spine. This is why publishing the chapters as issues is tempting - it would give me a few tries to work the kinks out before committing to something Big and Expensive.
This may not be the Final Cover, but it'll do for now - the original sketches had a "flotilla" shot on the back, mixed in with Dyluck's hair. The Sabrosa, Cheops, Daedalus, Hemera, a Majestic and a couple of Lokis... and despite some extended wailing and gnashing of teeth and much hammering at several different compositions and mixes of boats... I couldn't come up with anything that I really fancied. The blockiness of ship design from this period doesn't help.
Ultimately, I went with no ships - the story is ultimately about Dyluck, after all. The space porn is really just the icing on the cake.
This is a 6:9 crop of the original 3:4 first edition hardcopy cover. Nothing has changed from a design standpoint.
Yet. A new cover will replace this one within the next... sometime. I've sketched out what I'd like to do for the TD2E covers, have come up with something I like, and just need the time to implement it. I did this after I came up with the temp cover for Incursion, of course.
You're reading the title page of the second edition of The Dualist. The first edition is here, if you want to read it. If you haven't, I strongly suggest that you don't, as by the time the second edition is finished, the first won't be canon and as such will be even more confusing than it already is.
In lieu of a brand new Statement Of Purpose write-up or some other form of chest-thumping, here's the details, from a blog post on the old site (rewritten a bit):
1. The Dualist : Second Edition (TD2E) will be 6:9, which will involve some degree of cropping and scaling and whatnot. The original is 3:4, which was fine for web deployment but is a serious pain in the ass when it comes to hardcopy. TD2E is Industry Standard.
2. I'll also be revising a lot of the dialogue. The story won't be changed, but it will be kicked around into continuity, some of the "light" conversation will be changed completely, and everything will be changed to fit with sane vehicle models while also fitting in more of the backstory if possible. This is really the main reason for the re-work, which I'd be doing even if aspect ratio wasn't an issue - 300+ pages of dialogue without a single anti-aliased word balloon.
3. Speaking of, the new prologue I've planned out serves as a transition between DCR and The Dualist, providing plot-critical background to key DCR events while also giving context to the Sabrosa's mission. The new prologue isn't the only new thing - at least four pages will be added to chapter three (which was chapter two in the first edition), and the second "book" will get an intro of its own.
4. Art will also be overhauled. I'm done with redrawing - the only new linework I intend to create for The Dualist 2e will be the various inserts I've already planned out. However, I'll be doing a "scrub" of every page to correct/tweak/rebuild bits that really piss me off. Most of the effort in this case will be focused on the first four chapters, since they need the most work.
5. TD2e will be deployed in Chapters 1-8 instead of 0-7. There may be new, more "comic" covers for each chapter, or I may just retool a couple of covers that have been pissing me off. It depends. This is the main case for keeping the current site around as old.amongthechosen.com - all of the existing metadata references the 0-7 framework in the original out-of-sequence production timeline. While posting cleaned up 6x9 pages into a new blog install, I'll be including the old metadata and old pages, and will eventually - when things are kinda done - clean up the metadata so everything links coherently into the current site. Tedium and I, we're not just friends - we're life partners.
6. TD2e will be cleaned up one chapter at a time. As each chapter is completed, a grayscale (and color if there is demand - both will be produced but the cheaper version will be made available, as I can afford the setup fees) version will be released through vanity press. The grayscale version will probably be censored (substitution of foul language, benzedrine instead of cocaine, etc). Both versions might include some back-pages "bonus" material - at this point, I'm thinking a formula of a ship or vehicle stat sheet, a couple of major character bios, a few minor character bios, and an Alan Moore-esque "excerpt" in the form of a Heirotus or Templar mission report which will help to develop the story. Since TD2e is an effective "relaunch" of The Dualist, there may also be a letters page. I like letters pages. While shades of the "extras" will be available on the site, you'll need to buy the hardcopy to read all of it. ;-)
7. Since The Dualist naturally falls into two four-chapter books, TD2e might also be collected as two trade paperbacks, each with some extra bonus material that won't be in the chapter issues. Again, censored grayscale for sure and color if there's a demand for it. Setup pricing for a grayscale edition is really favorable for a single volume that plays by the formatting rules, so a fullblown 340-360 page edition with Even More bonus stuff isn't out of the question.
8. Yes, this is a lot of work. A minimum of six months of grind if everything goes well and I can Make The Time to progress at an acceptable clip. The end result will be a cleaner, more coherent story and a product that I can shop around to any vanity press that'll print it.
9. I'm doing this because I'm really, really unhappy with a large volume of little largely-fixable things in The Dualist. I'm happy with how DCR.1 came out post-cleanup, and with the above-detailed effort, I know I'll be happier with The Dualist. So will you.
