girls with wings and windmills
February was an interesting month, to say the least. There are always a lot of highs and lows that come with any kind of big announcement. A lot of good feedback, and some bad - i’ve spent some time alleviating peoples fears that there will be unwelcome changes to the books or even editing by my new publisher. There’s won’t be. I’m a control freak, Megatokyo is my baby, and DC / CMX is working WITH me, not against me. Next question please 
The best thing about getting the announcement and stuff out of the way is that now i can settle down and back to work on the books, and on the tail end of Chapter 7. I have LOT on my plate, but it’s all good. I have some new color work i want to post this afternoon that is from a new 4-color character art shirt that is now in production and should be available soon in the MegaGear store. Tune in later for that. Oh yeah, there’s new buttons in the store as well - the 3v1l set.
One of the most daunting tasks ahead of me is my re-processing of the Circuity story for the book. In it’s current form, It’s quite obviously a Haibane Renmei fanwork, which i think is fine for the web, but even so the more blatant haibane references have always bugged me.
To me, i’d like to make it stand better on its own. Quite a challenge, really, and i’m actually keen to see how successfully i can pull this off. A lot of stories have their roots and inspiration in the works of others, but only when they are set free and unthread themselves from the confines of that inspiring story do they find their own air (so to speak).
I’m honestly inspired by the challenge to do this with Circuity. For a printed volume, it is mostly out of respect for Yoshitoshi Abe that i want to do this, and to free what i feel is a solid story from the confines of a fanwork. I also do not want to seem to ride on the creative coattails of someone who’s work i admire so much.
Will she loose her wings? That’s an interesting and very metaphorical question. I don’t know yet. I plan to blog the process here because i think that it is important for readers to see what happens when fanwork ideas evolve into original work. Hopefully you will find the process interesting. 
I can’t really escape the fact that i have a thing for girls with wings and windmills
Oh, and for the record, the folks at DC / CMX feel there is no real problem printing it as is - there are generally accepted issues of parody and homage that covers this kind of work. This desire to make it stand more on its own is mine, not theirs, and i do it out of my great respect for Mr. Abe and his work.
Amusing issue really, since Haibane Renmei itself has elements to show a very direct influence of Murakami’s “Hard Boiled Wonderland” book. Inspiration is an interesting thing, isn’t it?
- pirotunes: Castlevania～暁月の円舞曲～ OST -03.プロローグ～弥那のテーマ
March 2nd, 2006 at 1:55 pm
Interesting news, there.
Personally, I LOVED ‘Circuity’ as it was, but then again, I’m also a Haibane fanboy, as well as being a fan of Abe’s work in general.
I, for one, am interested in seeing what you do to make the story completely your own.
Ganbatte, d00d3.
March 2nd, 2006 at 2:29 pm
Inspiration is the sincerest form of flattery…
Seriously, many of Shakespeare’s plays were heavily derived from earlier works. Jazz is all about doing riffs on earlier works. Most off Disney’s features were based on pre-existing works (licensed and unlicensed).
This obsession with “originality” is a fairly recent invention. Japanese and Chinese artists would often spend years copying the works of their predecessors, bringing their own insights into the works.
Copyright was intended to keep unscrupulous publishers from directly ripping off an author’s work, not to squash inspiration and innovation.
Personally, I would be very sad to see the wings and windmills go away…
David
“If I have seen further it is by standing on ye shoulders of Giants.” –Isaac Newton
March 2nd, 2006 at 3:00 pm
Oh, the windmills wont. The wings are something i’m contemplating - like i said, its a metaphorical issue
March 2nd, 2006 at 3:52 pm
Please, please, please don’t pull a Lucas. Han shot first and Haibane have wings. =P
March 2nd, 2006 at 4:50 pm
dont accuse me of pulling a lucas, that’s a heavy insult. If i change something like the winged nature of the girl in circuity, im doing it for my own reasons
March 2nd, 2006 at 6:34 pm
Hey, congratulations on the new deal with DC/CMX.Sounds like this book is going to be the thickest from what I understand…around 500-600 pages? That kicks butt. Can’t wait to buy it, and good luck with everything.
Oh, seems how it’s going to be a MUCH bigger book, is the price going to be the same as well…?
March 2nd, 2006 at 8:05 pm
Glad you’re continuing Circuity! Can’t wait till the fourth book comes out, want to read!
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As you’ve switched from DarkHorse to DC/CMX, is the cost of Megatokyo going to change?
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I think inspired work is great. Without it, there wouldn’t be as many great stories out there. I know my own drawing and stories is inspired by many artists/writers, many peices, Megatokyo being one of them.
Thank you, Fred!
March 2nd, 2006 at 8:24 pm
Most of my own stories usually get started from an inspiration I get from somewhere else. They tend to be the most well-developed ones.
Personally, all I know of Haibane Renmei is Circuity. While I was kinda lost on the details when I read Circuity, I still liked it! So an expanded version would be cool.
March 2nd, 2006 at 9:30 pm
I recall when I read Circuity, there were a bunch of people on the MT forums going on about how they didn’t understand and wanted somebody to explain Haibane Renmei to them. As for myself, I hadn’t heard of Haibane Renmei before then, I still haven’t looked into it. Not that I don’t believe everyone that it’s great, but I don’t feel that I need to know of HR to understand Circuity. Once I was aware that Circuity was a homage/fanwork of something else, I could fill in the gaps with logic. Things like wings and windmills have some obvious symbolism attached to them that is pretty common, and I think I got a lot more out of Circuity having not known about HR, since I was forced to look at Circuity based on it’s own merit and not let it’s literary merit piggyback on another work.
As for making it more able to stand on its own, I personally thought it was fine as a fanwork, but if you want to take on the extra work…
Aw, c’mon - the wings are cool. Oh well, I’ll be looking forward to check out this expanded, liberated, omake/fanwork/whatever-it-is-now.
March 2nd, 2006 at 10:42 pm
Indeed. I do recall saying in SD at the time that all you had to do was lose the one “halo” reference and swap out the wings for some other symbol of Kimiko being an “other” and all the connections to HR would be gone while leaving Circuity’s story itself completely intact. The point being that contrary to what everybody was expecting, HR isn’t required viewing for understanding Circuity. (Wave Master managed to beat me to that point this time though.
) In fact,it has almost nothing to do with understanding Circuity, since everything you learn about the Haibane from watching the anime is completely unknown to the characters of Circuity and largely irrelevant to their situation.
How interesting that the “Special edition” will be an even further step removed from the fabled “original concept” that was teased at in those FredArt drawings of Memei.
March 3rd, 2006 at 6:09 am
For me, the Hiabane references added a lot of depth to Circuity that just wouldn’t of been there without it. And it was good enough to follow even if you hadn’t seen Haibane Renmei first. Setting it in that setting made a good story even better.
To keep that depth, you would have to setup some background, a task likely to make it too long in include in the book. A rewrite of Circuity that keeps the feel of the Hiabane Renmei referenced version is something that I think would work best as a stand alone book.
Basicly, I would like to the new version in the same world setting, unless you make in to something far long then what will fit in book 4. ^^
March 3rd, 2006 at 1:14 pm
“dont accuse me of pulling a lucas, that’s a heavy insult. If i change something like the winged nature of the girl in circuity, im doing it for my own reasons”
Hmm, I see that I didn’t soften my first comment enough and you took it as an attack. Sorry ’bout that, ’twasn’t my intention. =(
My purpose was just to encourage you not to burn cycles revising history. You can, of course, do as you want but I think a lot of the charm I found in Circuity would be lost if you break it free from its fan-work underpinnings.
‘Course that’s just the history minor in me getting its geek on. Again, sorry if I came across as accusatory or mean-spirited.
March 3rd, 2006 at 1:23 pm
bonka: no worries, just… i’d never pull a stunt like changing who shot first
Not all changes are bad - if done with respect for the story, they can be good. thats my intent.
we’ll see, i really will keep you posted on my blog here.