It is probably not a good thing that it is difficult to explain what exactly my little illustrated book is. I thought it might be easier if I drew up a comic-style explanation and ``hired'' one of my characters to do the explaining for me. I'm looking forward to GIMP 2.8's text tool. 2.6's is difficult for me to use. It was actually faster for me to just hand-write all the text.

The full image is 3,200 x 8,000! Unfortunately, when I upload, I get the message

Upload 1315_mara-explains-1200.png could not be uploaded

Which is probably due to the file-size being too large. That was the reduced-resolution version, too. I guess it's just too big. Whoops. I can't make it smaller without rendering the text unreadable. So here is one panel, posted below. If you'd like to see the rest, you'll have to follow the link.

(click for bigger deviantart version)

Very enlightening story.

Graphics on page 41 captivated me (as many did).

I wonder what the trader whispered in Ranan's ear. I'm interested in learning what Marcus does to prove the Great Dachy exists (or doesn't exist).

Very cool!!

The Zork text adventure brings back memories. I used to play it all the time, as well as hitchhiker. I remember having a tough time getting the babel fish in my ear.

Oh, and I swear. I know a girl that looks just like Mara. She was married to a bass player buddy mine, who I was in several bands with. She was a groupie type chick.

That is so totally cool. I played Zork on my brother's IBM, text only, that ran on a 5.25" floppy, when memory was kb-sized.

Thanks! I have a friend that was really into Interactive Fiction. I didn't grow up with these games - I played them much later. My childhood was the late 80's and early 90's - memory was still measured in KB, and we had graphics (sometimes just ASCII graphics, though... Kingdom of Kroz, anyone?)



Thanks for reading! The proof does come out later. It's somewhat of a mathematician's joke. It can be very hard to prove something doesn't exist. There are quite a few non-existence proofs out there, but they're almost always tricky to follow (especially for new students).



I never made it far in Zork, but I remember the hitchhiker's guide better. The game got me interested in the book. I think I tend to catch on to trends about two decades after the fact. Like I wrote in the comment above, I got into these games much later.

The illustration of Mara is based off my wife (or my best attempt of - I'm still working on artistic fundamentals). Most of the character's features and clothing are based off of her's - except for the hair. I gave her my hair... although mine isn't quite that long, and not that straight. I'd give her more wavy hair, but I hit the limits of my artistic abilities on that one.