(no subject)

Books I am currently reading: Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies by Ben Macintyre. Spies + history = catnip for me anyway, but it's very engagingly written and I'm really enjoying it.

Popular image of spying: glamorous, competent people sipping martinis and seducing sexy enemy agents.

Actual spying: an equal blend of bureaucracy and crazy people.

At some point I need to transcribe or scan the book's section(s) on pigeons, because the pigeon stuff is AMAZING. It involves MI5 agent Richard Melville Walker ("He adored pigeons. He lived for pigeons. His reports were long, cooing poems of love.") who was convinced that Germany was going to smuggle intelligence out of the country with homing pigeons, despite the total lack of evidence for this, and deployed a series of anti-pigeon countermeasures, such as a brigade of trained falcons that only managed to succeed in taking down British pigeons ("friendly fire," the book comments dryly) and attempted pigeon double agents that quietly went native in French pigeon coops. A few choice bits are quoted here.

The "what happened to everyone after the war" chapter includes the following for Gustav the pigeon, who carried invasion news from the Normandy beach front and is the only war pigeon named in the book:

Gustav died soon after the war when his breeder trod on him while mucking out his loft.

Apparently Gustav was also awarded the Dickin Medal, the UK's distinguished service award for animals.

Kismet stuff

In the run-up to restarting Kismet: Sun-Cutter on Sept. 1, I've been posting character bios and bits of information to the Kismet tumblr. Most of this is getting reblogged over to my regular tumblr as well. Here's what I have thus far.

Worldbuilding stuff
Tertia and Secuba history
Fake memories

Character mini-bios (so far)
Shelley Fleetwood
Jackie Lobo
Signy 12
Linton 95
Elaine Jagir
Colette Novak
Judas Hawkins
Leslie Fleetwood

For my own reference - characters who still need bios, and things I want to write mini-articles on, like the two above.

( Under a cut )

Anything else you're curious about? What sort of information might intrigue you enough to start reading a new-to-you webcomic?

(This is also x-posted to my tragically neglected real-name journal; apologies to people who are following me in both places and getting double-posted at.)

More Kismet stuff

When I (re)launch Kismet, I'm also going to launch a funding page on patreon.com, which is basically a crowdfunding platform that allows people to pledge/pay a certain small amount that's either due monthly or per work funded; mine would be monthly.

I want to make it clear that I do NOT expect people to pay to read the comic, or feel guilty if they can't/don't want to. Kismet will always be online for free. Actually, one of the things I'm struggling with, as I set up my funding donation levels, is rewarding people for paying me while not setting up a tiered hierarchy of readers, with an inner circle of paying readers and an outer circle of free ones. I don't want that! I want everyone to be able to enjoy the comic while also paying if, and ONLY if, they can afford it and want to, and not feel like they're missing out on some sort of inner circle of preferred readers if they can't or don't want to pay.

I'd love some input on setting up my funding levels, though.

Right now I have it set up like this:

( Cutting the rest of it because there's no need to clog everyone's reading list )

Thoughts?