About the comic
Gaia is a fantasy comic about the odyssey of Ilias Oter and his friends in the self-created world of Gaia. Ilias is a student at the “Academy for Arcane Studies and Material Arts” which is located close to the capital city of Cania. In recent years, tension has grown between Cania and Midgard, the leading nation since the two big wars at the end of the First Age. Ilias, though, is much more interested in his classmate, the beautiful and talented wizard Lilith Caillean, than in politics. There is just something magical about her… At the beginning of the story, Ilias and the other students face the first serious test in their life, the final exams of the Academy.
The comic is based on a campaign which was developed by Oliver Knörzer (Novil), his mother Ute Knörzer (Milena) and some other team members as a modification for the computer game Neverwinter Nights 2 in 2004 and 2005. The project was eventually cancelled, but a large amount of dialog had already been written for the campaign at that point. This was taken as the basis for the comic in its current form. However, many changes have been made to make the story more interesting and to adapt it to the new medium. In Gaia you will find elements from the Final Fantasy games, especially VIII and IX, as well as elements from classic Western fantasy stories.
The story of Gaia will have a definite ending; and it will be a real one, not an annoying cliffhanger.
Contact information
Writer, webmaster and forum administrator:
- Oliver Knörzer (Novil)
- Mayenner Straße 48
- 71332 Waiblingen, Germany
- novil@gmx.de (If you have general questions about Gaia, you should write a mail to me and not to Powree.)
Artist:
- Puri Andini (Powree)
- Bandung, Indonesia
- Powree’s DeviantArt gallery
- powree@yahoo.com
Second writer of Gaia’s original story:
- Ute Knörzer (Milena)
Editors:
- Charles Wang (DerelictJet in our forum)
- Chris (the_antichris in our forum)
- C. Wray (guyy in our forum)
- guyy’s Pixel Gravity simulation software
- Sarah Dunphy (Neveko in our forum)
- Neveko’s stories at DeviantArt
Legal stuff
This website and all of its content is published according to German law. The exclusion of liability contains additional information about copyright, privacy and responsibilities of the website owner. / Die Veröffentlichung dieser Website und der auf ihr zu sehenden Inhalte erfolgt gemäß deutschem Recht. Der Haftungsausschluss enthält weitere Informationen über Urheberrechte, Datenschutz und Pflichten des Website-Betreibers.
See also our privacy policy.
Gaia is published under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
This means you are free to share the comic pages, that means to copy, distribute and transmit them under the following conditions:
- Attribution: You must attribute the creators and the source of the comic page. This means you aren’t allowed to remove the creator names and the website url at the bottom of the comic page. If you want to use a cropped piece of a comic page, the same information has to be found in text format next to the image. An additional link to http://www.gaiacomic.com/ must be provided for online publications.
- Noncommercial: You may not use the comic page for commercial purposes.
- No derivative works: You may not alter, transform, or build upon the comic page.
“Noncommercial” means that only an insignificant amount of money is made, e.g. with ads on the website. Up to three comic pages can be posted on commercial websites without monetary compensation as well if it’s a webcomic website or if the comic pages are posted as part of a review of Gaia.
This free license only applies to all the comic pages in the main comic archive written by Oliver Knörzer (Novil) and drawn by Puri Andini (Powree). It doesn’t apply to all other pieces of artwork found on our websites.
Awards and reviews
Reviews
- Review by El Santo, the author of The Webcomic Overlook:
- “The ongoing character transformations from playful students to responsible adults are natural, believable, and never heavy-handed. [...] Finally, Powree’s art is a great fit for a fantasy setting.”
- Review by Lauren Davis, author at io9:
- “From its very first pages, Gaia is a lively comic, both in its art and its characterizations. The characters are immediately warm and likable, [...]”
- Video review by Tyas, the author of Tyas Looks At…:
- “…”
Short reviews and opinions
- Review by Eishtmo, the author of Wild Webcomic Review:
- “Gaia is a high fantasy comic from the creator of Sandra and Woo, and it’s very, VERY good.”
- Review by Helen, the author of Narrative Investigations:
- “A younger comic but since it seems to be both moving and updating at a brisk pace, [...] I’m going to take the plunge and recommend it anyway.”
- Review by Mint, the author of Minty Musings:
- “In my opinion, the art is great, and although there’s only 18 pages up at the moment, the characters are already coming across well and the story has purpose and a good pace.”
- Review by Quan Williams, the author of The Seizure:
- “It is a very well-crafted story with great art.”
- Review by William Drummond, author at Musings From Us:
- “I can’t wait to see what happens next with this online webcomic of romance, magic and suspense…”
Other
- Mention by Sean Kleefeld, the author of Kleefeld on Webcomics at MTV Geek
FAQ
How did Novil and Powree start to work together?
After writing two dozen scripts for Sandra and Woo, I [Novil] posted a job offer in the ConceptArt.org and DigitalWebbing.com forums in October 2008. I got over 60 replies and Powree, who read my offer at DigitalWebbing.com, was my first choice. Just one week later, we published the first Sandra and Woo strip on our website.
Can I post a Gaia page on my website / blog / forum?
Yes, you can, as long as it’s noncommercial. Gaia is published under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. See the Legal stuff chapter for details.
Can I translate Gaia into another language?
No, you aren’t allowed to change the English or German text of the pages! We had a bad experience with a fan-made Spanish translation of our second comic Sandra and Woo since its quality didn’t meet our standard. There’s also the chance that a translator misses some subtleties of the dialog which will become important sometime later in the story. It’s also the rule rather than the exception that webcomic translators lose interest after a while, leaving behind just a few dozen translated comics. If you want to post a Gaia page on a website (see above), you should provide the translation beneath the page.
Do you do link exchanges?
No. Each comic listed on our link page is there because we believe that it’s a good comic that our readers might enjoy, not because we had to put it there in exchange for a backlink.
Can you draw a comic/illustration for me that I need for…?
No matter what you need the comic/illustration for, the answer to that question is most likely “No.” It’s already a lot of work to maintain our regular update schedule, so we have basically no time to do other things on top of that. At least not for free.
Is Gaia suitable for children?
Generally yes, as long as they’re not too scared of violence.
Why is the size of the word bubbles inconsistent?
The word bubbles are drawn by Powree and the text is added afterwards by Novil. It is therefore possible that some word bubbles are a bit too big or small. But that’s by far not as important as the fact that all Sandra and Woo strips are published in German and English. German sentences can be twice as long as their English equivalent. Because of this, some word bubbles may appear unnecessarily large in the English version although they’re just right for the German translation.
Why do you have so many editors?
We have so many editors because it’s very important to us to publish comics without any grammatical errors or weird phrases.
