Shifters is a world of the future, as much as it might have not seemed it in the past, it really is. The original concept was to set it in a ‘cyberpunk’ future, and the Redux really is going to push that concept. The type of music that inspires the mood of the Shifters universe is the sort of music that has that futuristic edge. Techno, House, progressive, trance, industrial rock, and some various remixes and mashups that in particular have the ‘feel’ I’m going for. There are several anime title songs that have the right sort of edge, typically from anime which have the same kind of genre. When I’m working on Shifters, this is the sort of music I load up on my iTunes playlist.

A sample of this is something like this:

This would be Sharam – Be the Change

Another song that always bring’s Shifters to my head is one of the songs from the anime Bubblegum Crisis 2040, the opening song Y’know.

This one is a wicked tune, and the words themselves resound to many concepts I have in my head for Shifters. I avidly listen to this one, particularly creative remixes of it. This is Ernesto vs Bastian – The Darkside of the Moon

Of course, this all factored in when I got a chance to actually work with a mucisian to some mutual benefit to create an actual Shifters theme song. Yes, you heard me, Shifters does have an actual theme song and its awesome. The score is original, created and performed by D. John Hitchcock, who is a part of the band Cyrios. If you are wondering who did their awesome logo, that would be me. You can also check out their facebook page.

The track is called “New Moon” and is completely unrelated to the sparkly vampire drivel by she who shall not be named. It was out there before they released that tripe on the world as a movie. Sadly I can’t imbed this one, BUT you can listen to it on his myspace page. And yes, that is REAL guitar in there. He plays that shit. Awesomeness, no? If you enjoy it, you should drop him a line and tell him how much he rocks.

Eventually I’d like to produce a short music video to go with the music, BUT sadly my animation skills are kinda lame, so it will take a while for me to do something animated, but we’ll see what else I can come up with.

So here is where you guys get to participate. Post a comment here or in the forums about what song YOU think speaks/feels most about Shifters to you. I would like to put together a playlist of shifters songs, not just the ones I feel speak about Shifters, but also that YOU, the fans, think speaks about it.

Once I collect all the feedback, I will create a list as best I can on playlist.com and imbed it here so people can listen to all the Shifters music. If you are already on playlist.com, my profile is here.

Oh, and a by the by, if you’d like your comments to show up immediately the best way is to register for an account. I have enabled registrations on the blog, so if you want to register for an account here you can.

Now don’t panic, don’t wet yourself with excitement, I’m just doing a little housekeeping/dusting here, working on the website and such. As to WHY I’m working on the website, well… a few reasons actually.

First is that seeing that people still come here and are still so anticipating the return of Shifters touches me, really it does, so I figure, if I’m not releasing the pages, I should at least do something. This format lets me do a little more sort of art blogging and updating you people on progress behind the scenes. I kind of realize that it helps to have SOME sort of idea of what’s going on, even if you aren’t seeing pages that I’m alive and the site isn’t completely dead. Even if you aren’t getting what you want exactly, seeing progress is still gives more hope than a parked website with no updates for like 2 years.

In addition to posting sketches and such, I’ll be pointing out some of the new features of the site as I get them added. I’ve just added a gallery, for example and I’m still populating it.  I also have some other stuff to add as well as creating a new section for what the Shifters world was originally intended for… roleplaying.

That’s right kiddies, the world of Shifters was originally a roleplaying environment that I was working on based on some of my favorite things. Cyberpunk, magic, werewolfs, vampires, conspiracies, dark futures, etc, with its whole rich mythology and city. I’m still working on aspects of it, but this lets me post stuff about the world that might not be readily avaliable apparent in the comic, but also stuff that’s been developing over time from the RP in the forums and stuff I’ve done tabletop with my group over the years. I originally had my own system for Shifters, but I might adapt it to D20, or GURPS, or a few different templates depending on demand. I sort of had dreams of one day sticking it all in a dead tree format book for the die hard tabletop gamers such as myself. Something truly awesome about getting together with friends and rolling dice, raiding corp head quarters, and blowing shit up.

SO, this website will live, and it will be the only one with siginficant updates, so if you have the old keenspace/comicgen site in your bookmarks, replace it with this site.  If you are vigilant and attentive, you may even get to see sneak previews of the new pages. I have a Ustream channel and I have used it to show people sneak peeks of the new pages, but people have to show up and ask. I’m also working on a new supporter site, that a few select hardcore fans are testing at the moment, when I’m satisfied the bugs are worked out, I’ll tell you folks more.

For now, you can comment on the blog, but if you really want to interact and engage, please use the forums.

Is this comic dead?

I’ve gotten a lot of questions about that.

No its not dead. Let me make that very clear. I am WORKING on it, I’m just not releasing pages yet. I will begin releasing new pages when I’ve got a buffer I’m comfortable with. I’m working on the site right now, and you will see it morph and change. Don’t blow your wad tho just yet about it coming back. Trust me that you will know when I start releasing new pages, I will make quite a stink about it.

Although this WILL be the only site that updates with new content for now. I probably will not be updating the old comicgenesis site. Its too much of a pain in the ass. So make sure you book mark it.

You can sign up for the RSS feed on this site to get streaming updates. I also will be posting information via twitter.