What Is the Comic’s Schedule?

The comic is organized by “issues,” which consist of a main story (16-22 pages) and a 4-6 page bonus story. New pages appear on the website every Monday (with a double-page post to launch the story).

Is This a “Steampunk” Comic? A “Furry” Comic? Something Else?

I am still trying to find the original reference, but some years ago, I read that a prominent editor (I want to say John W. Campbell, but I am not sure of my facts) once said about the difference between SF and fantasy: “If it has trees, it’s fantasy. If it has deck plates, it’s science fiction.”

Some people get very hung up on genres and tropes; I don’t much, myself. Arclight Adventures is a pseudo-Victorian fantasy adventure comic, sort of Cowboy Bebop meets Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. If you want to call it steampunk, I won’t stop you, although there’s not that much steam and even less punk. Fagin and the Moreaus are certainly “furries” in most reasonable senses of the term, but that’s one element of a larger canvas.

In broad terms, it’s steampunk in the same way that it isn’t a superhero comic. But if you send me comments telling me I’m doing it wrong because there aren’t enough rivets or goggles, expect to get slapped with a virtual fish. If you really want me to lock on to a genre, I’ll happily adopt Kaja Foglio’s term, “gaslamp fantasy.”

Where Exactly Is “the OTHER Other Side of the World”?

The story is set on and around the continent of Calypsitania, which is in the Atlantic Ocean, situated halfway between Africa and South America, and ranging from roughly 15°N, across the Equator, to just south of the Tropic of Capricorn. It runs more-or-less parallel to Africa, but isn’t anywhere near as wide. (And in the world of Arclight Adventures, Africa and South America are skooched a bit farther apart from each other to make room for it.)

In other words, yes, it is what’s left of the continent of Atlantis, rediscovered, after having been lost to mankind well before Plato’s time. A catastrophe of as-yet-unknown nature obliterated the civilization there and rendered most of the continent uninhabitable for quite some time. The flora and fauna that have evolved there in the time since are unique and deadly.

It was discovered by the Portuguese in 1499 and had several burgeoning colonies by 1600 and went through several wars of independence and/or succession. In 1651, the lion’s share of the continent was consolidated as the Empire of Calypsitania under Emperor Walleston I. The Empire consists of the bulk of the central continent, including the vast deserts and Orichalcum-rich mountain ranges of the frontier, but there are several other smaller nations around the edges, including Napolona, New Ruritan, South Atlantis, Plutonia, and Porto Nuevo (a Spanish colony), as well as the lawless “Pirate Isles” and the independent “city” of Flotillopolis on Vulcania.