The Continentals: Murder, mystery, adventure--And cross dressing!!!


For the folks who like a little murder, mystery, and adventure with their steam punk cross dressing webcomics--THE CONTINENTALS HAS FINALLY ARRIVED!!!

1889. Barely a year after the mysterious Jack the Rippers murderous rampage and equally mysterious disappearance the city of Mansfordshire, England is shaken by a series of brutal "mangling" murders that plunge the city into an abyss of fear.

Investigating the case, Continental Operatives Jeffrey Tiffen Smythe and his partner the gender bending adventuress lady Fiona Fiziwigg uncover the threads that bind the murderer, his victims, the highest echelons of society, it's lowest dregs, and even the police officers investigating the case in a tangled web of mystery, adventure, intrigue, and murder that is like Sherlock Holmes, mixed with equal parts of the 60's tv show "The Avengers", with a dash of James Bond for flavor.

The Continentals will be showing monday, wednesday, and friday for its debut week before settling into it's "mondays only " schedule. And now, what better way to start a cross dressing steam punk murder/mystery--THEN WITH A PRISON BREAK!!!

The Continentals
http://www.webcomicsnation.com/moniquem/continenta ls/series.php


Dee

Dee?
Have you posted just the one page (the prison break from Timberdark Manor)?
How many pages do you intend to release each Monday?
I really like the moody, atmospheric black and white art. It reminds me of the greatest comic strip of all time, Zenith.

Thanks. I'll tell Monique you like her artwork. :)

Next page is up on Wednesday and then another one on Friday. And next week we settle into our "mondays only" schedule. So, after this week there will be one page a week. We wanted to get you guys into the story as quickly as possible, so that's why the multi-update debut week.

Releasing more then a page a week takes huge effort to produce the quality of the artwork Monique is doing. So we have to take into account that she's a working freelance artist with bills to pay, 3 other webcomics of her own, and a life to live. So now that The Continentals has started after such a long wait we don't want to ever have to lapse into hiatus hell to restock our pages because life or work got in the way. We can just soldier on and give you guys the goodness every week--On Mondays.

Hope you don't mind.

Dee

BTW. Underneath the comic page are the "first" and "previous" buttons and the dropdown navigation scroll bar (they are admittedly in a bad spot) that takes you back through all the "Making of the Continentals" stuff. There's an encyclopedia worth of stuff to read at the site and not just the one page.

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THE CONTINENTALS. Murder, mystery, intrigue, adventure--And cross dressing.
www.webcomicsnation.com/moniquem/continentals/seri es.php

I love the moodiness of the black&white artwork. It makes the asylum in the background look like a haunted house. But I guess that's what all victorian asylums should look like, huh?

Next page on wednesday? I'm there. :)

There's a new update at The Continentals. Here's the teaser:

"THE DOGS OF WAR!!!"

When the asylum guards unleash their snarling dogs on him , the escaped convict takes matters into his own hands in order not to be recaptured. Literally.

And it just might get him reported to the ASPCA for animal cruelty

The Continentals
http://www.webcomicsnation.com/moniquem/continenta ls/series.php

Bl**dy hell!
Those poor pooches...
:-)

Hey, it's a kill or be caught kinda world for him. Once you see the inside of TimbreDark Asylum ( a bit later when Fiona and Smythe are investigating), and the medival house of horrors that it is, you'll understand why the dogs had to go.

Dee

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THE CONTINENTALS. Murder, mystery, intrigue, adventure--And cross dressing.
www.webcomicsnation.com/moniquem/continentals/seri es.php

Shouldn't it be "The Guard Dogs of War"? LOL!

And judging from the first page, TimbreDark didn't exactly look like a bed-n-breakfast on the outside, so the steampunky side of me is anxious to see it's inner workings.

Pros

All the plot elements you listed in your initial post are things that I enjoy in stories. I look forward to seeing this comic develop.

Glad to hear it. :)

I worked hard on this creating what I hope is an entertaining story and Monique is working hard (some of these pages take almost a week to do) making sure the artwork is amazing too. So we hope that you have as much fun reading The Continentals as we did creating it for you. :)

Dee

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THE CONTINENTALS. Murder, mystery, intrigue, adventure--And cross dressing.
www.webcomicsnation.com/moniquem/continentals/seri es.php

Something I just recently realized: Your user name is not thedeerman. Ive been misreading it for a while...

The "Deer" man? Now that IS funny. LOL! :)

Dee

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THE CONTINENTALS. Murder, mystery, intrigue, adventure--And cross dressing
www.webcomicsnation.com/moniquem/continentals/seri es.php

There's a new update at The Continentals. Here's the teaser:

"HUNTER'S MOON"

If Tim Burton and Edgar Allen Poe built a city form the ground up this would be it.

Welcome to Mansfordshire. Population: 800,000 men, women, children--And one psychotic, blood thirsty killer!

The Continentals
http://www.webcomicsnation.com/moniquem/continenta ls/series.php

Dee

I just love this page. Classic old english creepiness.

And thanks for enlarging the lettering. The lettering on the origin you posted as a preview was a bit hard to read.

Pros

Dee.
I've already seen this page from the previews you posted so I won't repeat my praise.... what the heck, it's great!
Is there any way you could number the pages? I can see the interface becoming a bit cumbersome when several hundred pages are up. Will they be divided into chapters?

Yes, the comic pages are collected in chapters. So if you missed an update, when you press the "previous" button (which is oddly positioned under the comments box for some reason. Don't ask), you will be able to see every page in the chapter to date one right after the other like a pdf. That's how Monique has it set up. Here's how it looks;

http://www.webcomicsnation.com/moniquem/continenta ls/series.php?view=archive&chapter=40681&name=cont inentals


The "Making The Continentals" character profiles and stuff are collected in the month that they were shown. So, if you use the scroll bar you'll see january, february, etc. But if you press the "first" button and then the "next" you will go through all the collected pages month by month right on up to the newest collection of comic pages.

Hope that helps. :)

Dee

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THE CONTINENTALS. Murder, mystery, intrigue, adventure--And cross dressing.
www.webcomicsnation.com/moniquem/continentals/seri es.php

There's a new update at The Continentals. Here's the teaser:

"SIN AND MURDER GO KNIFE IN HAND!!!"

In a city that never sleeps sin is the national past time. But in Mansfordshire, with a serial killer on the loose in the red light district, sin and murder go knife in hand.

The Continentals
http://www.webcomicsnation.com/moniquem/continenta ls/series.php

BTW. We switch over to "mondays only" updates from here on out.

Dee

I like it - I like the evocative art style - as I have mentioned to you privately Dee - it reminds me a lot of the old Boys comics I read as a child- Leopard of Lime Street for instance which I believe was originally in Vulcan - anyway very good and very British looking.

"I like the evocative artstyle...Very good and very british"

That's all Monique. She really wanted to get it right. And by "it" I'm not just talking about the victorian setting, fashion, architectutre, etc, but the old timey dimestore detective magazine vibe I was going for.

This is our second effort together ( G.A.A.K: Groovy Ass Alien Kreatures for which we were nominated for a 2007 Glyph Comic Award being our first) and it just gets easier to do good work with her. Hopefully it'll be a collaboration that'll last and we can do more good stuff together in the future.

Dee

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THE CONTINENTALS. Murder, mystery, intrigue, adventure--And cross dressing.
www.webcomicsnation.com/moniquem/continentals/seri es.php

Well tell her from me - she has succeeded - admirably.

Excellent stuff... Lots of corsetery to come my dear Dee...
Great artwork and can appreciate the time your freind puts into her work and as before... I wait the next page with baited breathe!!!

I like the contrast between the have's and the have not's in the first two panels. Just goes to show that not much has changed in 100+ years.

But that poor horse in panel two is just plain depressing.

Pros

Glad you're enjoying it, Keshara.

Yes, corsetry aplenty ahead. And a bit of a rant a bit later on in the story from Fiona against them as a "cruel, restrictive, repressive instrument of torture" placed upon women by men so that women won't have breath enough to protest society's misogyny. But then Fiona prefers finely tailored men's wear and I've never worn a corset, so I'm only guessing there. LOL! :)

And Pros? I felt the same way when I first saw that horse. Not exactly Kentucky Derby ready, is he?

Dee

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THE CONTINENTALS. Murder, mystery, intrigue, adventure--And cross dressing.
www.webcomicsnation.com/moniquem/continentals/seri es.php

There's a new update at The Continentals. Here's the teaser:

"A DESCENT INTO MURDER!!!"

The old wives tale was wrong. That thing that goes bump in the night? The one that's lurking in the darkness ready to kill you? It isn't always behind you--Sometimes it's above you!!!

The Continentals
http://www.webcomicsnation.com/moniquem/continenta ls/series.php

That's a nice picture. I love the gritty, grainy quality of it. Kudos to Monique.

It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "death from above". LOL!

Pros

Hooked.

Line and sinker? LOL!

Glad you like it. :) Tell all your friends where you got it. LOL!

New page up in a few.

Dee

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THE CONTINENTALS. Murder, mystery, intrigue, adventure--And cross dressing.
www.webcomicsnation.com/moniquem/continentals/seri es.php

There's a new update at The Continentals. Here's the teaser:


"SCREAM, "BLOODY MURDER!"--SCREAM!!!"

A dead body will always make someone scream, "bloody murder". Scream "bloody murder" and it will always make the headlines. With the arrival of the murderous "Mangler", suddenly the headlines in all the Mansfordshire newspapers are all screaming--"Bloody Murder!!!"

The Continentals
http://www.webcomicsnation.com/moniquem/continenta ls/series.php

Sorry folks. Spoke too soon. We're having a bit of a technical problem getting the new page to load properly. Please check back in a bit while we try to fix the problem.

Dee
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THE CONTINENTALS. Murder, mystery, intrigue, adventure--And cross dressing.
www.webcomicsnation.com/moniquem/continentals/seri es.php

Everythings up and running on our home site. The new page is up.

Sorry about the mix up. I usually check the new page to see that it's up BEFORE telling you guys that it's up. Last night I just assumed so without checking and when I finally did it was too late.

Again, sorry about the mix up.

Dee

.................................................. .......
THE CONTINENTALS. Murder, mystery, intrigue, adventure--And cross dressing.
www.webcomicsnation.com/moniquem/continentals/seri es.php