The Zodiac 340 has been solved!

The Zodiac 340, the second-most famous unsolved encrypted message after the Voynich Manuscript, has been deciphered by code breakers David Oranchak (USA), Sam Blake (Australia) and Jarl Van Eycke (Belgium)!


Looking for editor for Gaia making-of book

I’ve received enough applications already. Please don’t apply anymore!

As you may know, the Gaia anthology will be supplemented by a making-of book. The book is now almost finished and already in a pretty good shape in my opinion. I’m now looking for an editor, who must be a native speaker, to give it a last editing pass.

The editor must look for remaining spelling mistakes, grammar errors and phrases that sound off to a native speaker. As the book isn’t meant to win a literary prize, I’m not interested in (more expensive) in-depth editing. In particular, I’m not interested in extensive discussions about minute details. Moreover, significant changes would break the page layout, so those should be kept to a minimum.

The text has 24,000 words and comes in form of a nicely formatted Microsoft Word document. I’d suggest that the editor provides the fixes and comments by using Word’s editing features. But I’m open to another workflow as long as it doesn’t result in too much additional work on my end.

If you’re interested, please send your application to novil@gmx.de which must include:

  • Your rate for editing the book
  • A short description why you think you’d be a good choice (references, etc.)
  • If reading story spoilers would bother you

I can pay with PayPal or Transferwise.

There will probably be additional editing jobs in the future.


The Complete Gaia – Status update, No. 3

I’ve made an important decision regarding the artwork drawn by other artists: I will put the drawings into the making-of book Gaia: sic mundus creatus est instead of the anthology The Complete Gaia. Because of this, Gaia: sic mundus creatus est will also be printed in color instead of black-and-white as initially planned. This will make the making-of book significantly more interesting and also reduce the thickness and weight of the main volumes.

In the last two weeks, I was mainly busy with improving the word bubbles used in the chapters The Red Hall and Shadowdancers which were often too large or small. I also fixed a couple of minor artwork errors. My work on the word bubbles will continue in the next weeks with the chapters The Tower in the Sky and The Letter of Jael Bara. The word bubbles used in the chapters after that are fine.


The Complete Gaia – Status update, No. 2

I’ve made significant progress regarding the planned comic anthology The Complete Gaia. As you may already know, it will contain the whole comic and the best fanart in two fully colored A4 hardover volumes. It will very likely be published as part of a Kickstarter campaign once the end of the comic is in sight.

Here’s a status update. Everything with a check mark has been done or at least been almost done.

The Complete Gaia

  • ✓ Workflow how to create the book
  • ✓ General page layout
  • ✓ Concept for the design of both covers
  • Artwork section on 40 pages
    • ✓ Selection of all pieces of artwork (around 100 drawings)
    • ✓ Page layout of all 40 pages

However, there’s also still a lot to do. But I’m confident that I will get everything done in time.

Gaia: sic mundus creatus est

This will be a supplementary making-of book containing all of the following on about 60 pages in a black-and-white A4 hardcover volume:

  • ✓ Introduction to the Comic
  • ✓ From Script to Finished Page: various examples given
  • ✓ Setting: history, geography, society, magic, and more!
  • ✓ Untold Stories: planned but unused plot points
  • ✓ Cast: info about all the characters
  • ✓ Author commentary: hints, secrets and opinions about more than 250 pages
  • Sketches
  • ✓ Glossary

The following is also done:

  • ✓ Workflow how to create the book
  • ✓ General page layout
  • ✓ Concept for the design of the cover

I’ve written more than 22,000 words for the book! Only the sketches and the stuff related to the yet unreleased chapters are still missing. So this book is already in a very good shape!

PS: The Latin phrase means “Thus, the world was created.” in English. It’s taken from the Netflix series Dark and a perfect fit for a making-of book in my opinion.


Some of the best YouTube channels

In the last years and months, I’ve discovered a couple of independent YouTubers who produce content that is truly exceptional. I’d like to present them in this news entry. All of them are enjoyable for people of all backgrounds and political affiliations.

  • LEMMiNO produces well-researched top-10 lists and documentaries with a focus on popular mysteries like the origin of the Universal S and the lost colony of Roanoke. While the videos of many other documentarians mostly consist of read out Reddit posts, his videos boast high production values and a cool visual style.
  • CGP Grey also produces documentaries about a wide range of topics. Most of them feature funny looking stick figures. He also tackles topics that you may have never heard of before, like the race to win Staten Island and the trouble with tumbleweed. If you can’t get enough of short documentaries, you may also want to check out Tom Scott. But his stuff just isn’t as original and exciting as LEMMiNO’s and CGP Grey’s.
  • Summoning Salt creates videos that present the world record progression for the fastest speedruns of games like Super Mario Bros. and Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out. If you haven’t been interested in speedruns before, chances are high that you’ll become a regular on speedrun.com after watching a couple of his meticulous composed videos. You’ll watch a 55 minute long video on Castlevania and will be sad that it’s already over… If you’re interested in individual speedrunners afterwards, I suggest the channel of Super Mario Bros. runner Kosmic.
  • The LockPickingLawyer picks locks. That’s pretty much all he does, but his unusually pleasant voice and the little stories about the history of the locks he picks make his videos true highlights. Most of them are very short, since the crappy locks are no match for his leet lock picking skills. If you can’t get enough of lock picking, you can also check out the videos of his friend BosnianBill.