Wonder City Stories

What is Wonder City Stories?

Wonder City Stories is an ongoing serial that explores gender, race, and sexuality in a richly-populated superhero comic book universe, actively deconstructing the persistent themes of the genre through the eyes of a group of compelling characters who are unusual in that context: women, elderly people, POCs, LGBTQI people, and more.

It's a universe where the equivalent of Superman is a short, round, middle-aged black woman, and its version of Captain America is a homeless, elderly veteran living out of her van. Where superpowers don't guarantee special treatment, money, or success, and where time continues to flow forward so that most people age and have to live with consequences, with no reboots or retcons.

Wonder City Stories is a cyberfunded creativity project. Cyberfunded creativity allows writers and other artistic creators to sell their goods directly to audiences online, and further allows people to support creators they admire, which encourages those creators to produce more of what their audience members enjoy.

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Getting Started in Wonder City

The Table of Contents
The Cast of Characters

Ways to Read WCS
Reviews of Wonder City Stories

Links to Online Serial Fiction and Webcomics

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How to Help Power Wonder City Stories

I started writing Wonder City Stories because I wanted to read comic-book-style stories with solid female characters, characters of color, and queer characters, and there weren't many around. I hope that these stories and characters help fill that gap for some of my readers, and provide entertainment for everyone who reads them.

However, the stories can't happen without refills of the brainjuice that powers them! So here's what I'd love to feed the power grid, so I can keep the writing going. If you do any of these things, you are encouraging me to write more.

1. Feedback! Comments to me, on Dreamwidth or personal email (jude DOT mclaughlin AT gmail DOT com) are greatly appreciated.
2. More readers! Please feel free to rec Wonder City Stories to anyone you think might enjoy it.
3. Reviews on appropriate sites, like Web Fiction Guide or Muse's Success! Honest ones: I hope that means they're pretty good, but definitely honest.
4. Vote for us at Top Web Fiction!
5. Link WCS on your blog or website!
6. Artwork!
7. Donate! This is cyber-funded creativity. I'm happy to accept tips and will probably do something nice for you (like a cameo) if you give me one.

8. Send other creative or fun stuff!

And if you don't do any of that, please keep reading Wonder City Stories anyway. That's what it's for.

This post lists the Wonder City Stories in order for folks who like to navigate thusly.

( Volume 1: Of Gods and Little Fishes )

( Volume 2: Deep Freeze )

( Volume 3: Trust No #1 )

( Interludes )

( Compass Rose )

( Phoenix Wing )

Sometimes it's hard to find good reading material online. Here's my small contribution to the filter and referral system!
( Read more... )

The marvelous meeks has updated her sketch of Death, her boys, Watson, and Megan in Death's shop.

She has also given us a really lovely sketch of Sophie and Nereid in the Young Cosmics parlor. Remember? From this scene?

Please go comment on the posts or tip the artist if you can! She's marvelous for doing these free initial sketches, and will revise the initial sketches if she gets enough comments!

Hey, all you lovely people: Happy New Year!

I stalled quite a while in creating a new store for Wonder City merch, but this vacation finally provided me with the mental wherewithal to do so. I'm still working on the design of the shop, but viola, I present Wonder City Wonders at Cafe Press.

Because several of you have mentioned that you would like it, I have added a new design: Team Simon, created with the assistance of the wonderful tool Tagxedo and the input of you readers. I hope very much that the design on shirts (and whatnot) comes out as well as the previews appear to make it. (And oh gods if you see any artifacts left on the image, please let me know so I can clean it up.)

If you like it (or the Intersection design) and would like to spread Wonder City joy to your friends, I would certainly welcome new reader traffic! I note that Cafe Press seems to make sharing pretty darn easy.

Thank you, everyone, for a marvelous 2011. I'm looking forward to 2012, wherein I hope to:
- complete volume 2
- post the last outstanding Interlude
- post a couple more Interludes that have been simmering on the back burner
- possibly post a bit from another project I've been poking at
- start volume 3!

On a final note, nominations have opened for the Rose & Bay Awards for crowdfunded projects. Last year, someone kindly nominated Wonder City Stories for this award, and I would certainly not be averse to seeing it nominated again!

Zazzle decided that my most recent t-shirt design ("Robot Fag Hag") was in violation of their guidelines, the presence of a multitude of other products containing the phrase "fag hag" and "fag". I attempted to point out the use of the phrase in the community, and also the other products, but their Content Management police were also plagued by a terminal lack of reading comprehension.

Therefore, I have closed the Wonder City Zazzle store and will be actively seeking a better (read: actually gay-friendly) venue for schwag. Suggestions are welcome.

So I asked meeks for another piece of art, and she chose to illustrate the greeting of Nereid, Wire (not seen), and the Equestrian at the faerie wedding. The rough sketch is here!

I pointed her to Didodikali's version of Nereid, which I really really loved, as a visual reference for Nereid, and she took . I am in love with how very DISAPPROVING Molly is on Maelstrom's back. Also, the LOOMING quality of the puma-woman.

Please go comment on the art! Or give her a tip! At 6 comments or $30 in tips, remember, she'll do a cleaned-up sketch for our delectation.

Also, please note my new WCS icon, for use in approved situations: Simon in wolf form.

Hello, all you lovely people,

meeks posted a most generous offer of crowdfunded illustration for independent authors, and so I took her up on it. I pointed her to the "Experto Crede" interlude (with the Equestrian and Hel) and asked for art of the scene in which Molly is talking to Hel.

She has produced a beautiful rough sketch, of which the below is just a snip. Click through to see the whole thing!


Please give her feedback on the sketch! (I've already posted, and made a suggestion about Molly's shirt over on the LJ version.) If 6 people give feedback on the sketch (or if she gets $30 in tips), she'll post a cleaned-up version of the sketch!

If she gets $75 in tips, she'll do a full value study of the image. At $100, she will do a color study or ink drawing of it, and a full-color painting if tips for this image hit $150.

Please help support her! She's being extraordinarily generous with her skills. If you can't tip, please leave her comments! There are several other lovely pieces that she's worked on for other authors, and you can browse through and comment on them too.

Best,
Jude

PS: If she gives me the go-ahead (I don't want to hog her time), I'll post a poll sometime in the next few days so that you readers can give input on what scene I should offer as a prompt.

As I mentioned yesterday, I am holding a mini-fundraiser for lesbian author and editor Julia Penelope. She is a writer and editor of books about and for the lesbian community. (A quick glance at Amazon shows that she has a number of titles published in the 80s and 90s.) These days, though, she has congestive heart failure that doctors are working to get under control, and she is in dire need of financial assistance.

I picked $200 for the Julia Penelope fundraiser because it seemed like a really nice round number, and one of her friends had mentioned that she'd calculated some of Julia's new out-of-pocket medical expenses at $200/month (this is in addition to whatever expenses she already had). $200 therefore seemed like a good, solid, pie-in-the-sky figure.

I know that there are much larger crises happening in the world, but if you have an extra $5 you could throw into the hat, that's part of a medication copay right there, or paying for some of her supplements (used to increase her energy and fend off some of the side effects of her many medications), or part of a payment for a cell phone so her friends can call her.

Thank you for anything you can give!

Here's the Wonder City deal for you:
- if donations hit $50 by April 4, I will post a new short story, starring Hel, everyone's favorite sentient airship, called "Woman Born Digital"
- if donations hit $100 by April 4, I will post that story AND a story starring Simon's sister Ivy, called "What I Did On My Summer Vacation"
- if donations hit $150 by April 4, I will post both those stories AND a story about Pearl Wong, called "Case Studies"
- and if donations somehow miraculously hit $200 by April 4, I will post all three stories AND a story about Zoltan, called "His Faded Idol"

(All stories will be posted during the month of April, barring real life coming and eating my head.)



All proceeds will be sent to Julia via Woman Earth & Spirit, the organization that helped us wrangle the monies for the DebsLiverLovers fundraiser. If you prefer to donate directly to WES, remember to mark your donation "For Julia Penelope" (and let me know you've done it so your donation will count toward the fundraiser).

Thanks to you all, Wonder City Stories has made it to Round 2 of the Best Fiction voting for the Rose & Bay Award! Please take a moment and go vote for your preferred finalist! It would be lovely if Wonder City were to be your choice, of course!