Signal Boost: The Pundit's New RPG & Arkhaven Goes Digital

Two things to signal boost today. The first is that the RPG Pundit has a new offering up at DriveThru RPG: Star Adventure.

The blurb says:"Celebrating the 100th issue of RPGPundit Presents, Star Adventurer is a concise exciting OSR game for running "space-opera" style adventures. Based on the mechanics of the world's first RPG and the rule-set of RPGPundit's Lion & Dragon RPG, Star Adventurer contains rules for creating unique OSR characters, alien archetypes, sci-fi backgrounds, psychic/mystic powers, space-operatic starship battles, and more!"

Click on the image to get to the store page.

The second is that Arkhaven Comics is now on Webtoons. Chuck Dixon's Avalon, Right-Ho Jeeves, Hypergamouse, and Alt-Hero are all there and updated weekly.

Vox Day had this to say about the recent launch of Arkhaven titles on this platform:

"As Arkhaven has embraced Webtoons - and if the backers want it, we are even considering our own custom site and app, which would be considerably simpler than SG2, UATV2, or Infogalactic - Marvel is retreating from web-based comics. (...) Vertical panels are the future since they display much better on smartphones. All of our comics are now being created and constructed with that in mind, even if they're not designed specifically as panels for vertical digital display."

Leave it to the Big Two to find a way to further shoot themselves in the foot by retreating from digital publishing in the wake of a collapse of their print business model. Arkhaven is wise to add Webtoons to their array of content delivery options, for the reason I quoted above.

I concur that going forward--and so long as the mobile tech remains focused around smartphones--vertical panel flow has to be accounted for in comics publication. If other big publishers elsewhere in the world get on board with this then the Big Two are done and dusted no matter what they do; they are unable to react fast enough to survive.

If you're into the indie comics scene, and you're not paying attention to Webtoons and others like it catering to smart phones, then you're leaving money on the table. If you're looking to get a comic adaptation of a book done, you're foolish to not account for this new media variation.