Peregrine Lake – A Weekly Webcomic Written by Trae Dorn and Drawn by Ethan Flanagan

Well, it’s time for my first convention of 2025! This weekend (February 28th-March 2nd) I’m going to be at Evercon just outside Wausau, WI. I’m going to be in the vendor room with copies of my novels, comics, and the Super Awesome Action Heroes RPG system for sale.

Besides me though, you can also find a bunch of Nerd & Tie creators at Evercon in the Artist Alley — including Peregrine Lake‘s talented artist Ethan Flanagan! Ethan will be at table 21, right next to Gen Prock at table 20. Celeste is going to be helping work their spouse Rena’s table over at table 1 too!

Honestly, I’m super excited and I hope to see you there!

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So the world may be on fire, but we don’t stop living just because we’re also doing our best surviving, y’know? This Saturday I’m going to be at UWEC GEEKcon 2024, a one day convention held at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire Davies Center in (you guessed it) Eau Claire, WI!

I’m going to have copies of UnCONventional print editions, and (of course) copies of my Mia Graves novels. Importantly I will have copies of Shadowcasting, the third book in the series, a week earlier than the general sale date. Yep, you can get book three early and meet me.

The best part? GEEKcon is inexpensive to attend as well. If you’re a student, entry is free with showing your ID, and if you’re not there’s a suggested donation of either $3 or 2 non-perishable food items.

Honestly, small college shows like this are my favorite kind of convention. Just people running a geeky event for the fun of it and the community. It’s my favorite kind of con, and if you start going to them, they’ll probably become your favorite too.

So if you’re in the Eau Claire, WI area and free December 7th (and you’re the kind of person who’d be reading this blog entry), why not come down and say hi? I think it’s going to be a good time.

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So the big difference between Peregrine Lake and my earlier comics is, obviously, that I’m not the one drawing it. When I was doing my earlier comics, I never wrote down what I was planning, I just had it in my head and would translate it directly to the page. At most I’d write one sentence lines about strips so I could plot out pacing. I did a few thumbnails early on to figure out page layouts, but more often than not the pages didn’t exist in any form until I wrote them.

That obviously isn’t a way we can work for this comic.

I can’t sit there over Ethan’s shoulder while they draw, since that would be weird and we don’t live in the same city. So I do what comic writers have been doing for quite some time. I write scripts. That’s where every page for Peregrine Lake starts. Then, if Ethan needs any clarification on a description or has an alternate suggestion for a setting or scene, we talk about it.

But again, we start by my writing a script.

So I thought it might be fun to take a look at a recent installment and compare the final art to the initial script I wrote. Our example is the October 22nd page titled “Greg.” It is, unsurprisingly, the first page where we see the final of our four main characters.

I love this page, but let’s see the initial script:

Panel 1

Greg emerges from the curtained doorway. Tall panel. If this were television or film, we’d smear some Vaseline on the lens for the best gooey soft focus shot we could get. God damn, we want everyone seeing this to want a piece of Greg. Like take a second slice home in a take out box and eat it while watching Netflix. Let’s make this far more detailed than any other panel. Let’s get people to demand we print this man on body pillows.

Panel 2

Close up of Bev’s face. She wants to just lay Greg down and cover him in butter.

Bev: (tiny ass words, whispering to self) Yeah… not talking good.

Panel 3

Greg leans on the counter towards Lynn, Bev is… “reacting” quietly, but no one’s paying her any attention

Greg: Hey Lynn, Bob hasn’t gotten me those antique iron nails yet. I said I’d call when they come in.

Lynn: Thanks, but not what I’m here for. I may have an… off the books job for you

Greg: How off the books

Panel 4

Close up of Lynn. Lynn is very serious.

Lynn: Off the books off the books. Greg, this is my new friend Bev.

Panel 5

Back to a shot of the three of them, Greg turns to Bev smiling

Greg: Hi! Nice to meet you.

Bev: (tiny words) Hello tall man

Yep. That is… that is pretty close to what we got. We moved some of the dialogue around to fit better with the art (moving some of Greg’s stuff to panel one from panel three), but overall we stick pretty true to it. Ethan read my ridiculous descriptions and understood the assignment.

And yeah, I think it’s safe to assume at least some of our audience wants a piece of Greg now.

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