Blog - Tony Cliff

Practical Defence Against Piracy Production Diary Roundup, March 2026 Edition

Tony Cliff — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 22:23:17 +0000

All the pages for Chapter Six, no longer sweating it out on the “incomplete” shelf (top), but tucked safe and sound onto the “finished” shelf.

For the last… (checks most recent blog post) …360 days, I’ve had my head down, working away furiously at PRACTICAL DEFENCE AGAINST PIRACY. Since this time last year, I’ve finished Chapter Five and posted it in its entirety, made a few secret things for secret reasons, sent off grant applications, written and thumbnailed Chapter Seven, and drawn Chapter Six!

I’m currently colouring Chapter Six and will begin posting finished pages within a week! They’ll be available exclusively to Secret Readers over on the ol’ Patreon.

That is also where I have exclusively been publishing my Production Diary — regular updates and insights on the comic’s progress. This was not intentional, I just started focusing on the work more. Here’s a roundup of some highlights from the last year or so!

Posts for all!

A Compositional Investigation

Last Spring, I was sitting in a local coffee shop and, I don’t know, got kind of entranced by a large-scale photo on the wall. There wasn’t anything especially engaging about the subject except maybe that it was familiar subject matter (I’ve lived around this sort of thing my whole life), so I wondered what exactly about it meant I kept wanting to look at it. It has an almost abstract quality, so I figured it would be a good image to test a bunch of compositional ideas against. Over the years, as someone practicing the visual arts, I’ve encountered a ton of guidelines, rules, and methods for tackling the composition of an image. Were any of them at work here? I thought I might find out. Click through (it’s a public post, just like all of them in this section) to see what I discovered.

A ramble about lighting nighttime scenes, and more…

There’s a lot in this one, but it was written primarily to scratch an itch I encounter every now and then: sometimes, when an artist is rendering a nighttime or other dark scene, they will decide the resulting image must, necessarily, be dark, to the point where it sacrifices “readability,” or the viewer’s ability to interpret the image. The results don’t look “dark,” they just look murky and hard to understand. I think night or day, your image should be readable. So I offered some suggestions as to how to illuminate a scene that needs to feel dark, but which still needs to be understood.

I also used video game series ASSASSIN’S CREED as a jumping-off point to talk about how writing and a sense of character affects the game-playing experience.

Tricking my brain into making better drawings

I have a hard time shifting gears between the different processes involved in making this book. It’s a bit tough to go from colouring to writing, but it’s most difficult to go from writing and thumbnailing to “pencilling.” This was once more the case with Chapter Six, so once the gears were turning smoothly again, I shared some of the tricks I use to help myself get there.

The Flight Anthologies are being reprinted!

Long-time readers may or may not know that my first published comics work was as part of the anthology, FLIGHT: VOLUME THREE. That was back in 2005 or so. As of last year, the books are being reprinted! I took the opportunity to reflect on what FLIGHT means to me, and the things that editor Kazu Kibuishi did to create and nurture a community of artists. At the time, I took his efforts for granted. In retrospect, they are exceptional, and deserve recognition.

This post starts off with a quick acknowledgement of miserable current events. Not personal ones, just the sort that (as of this writing) seem to be occurring regularly. I share some links in case you want to know where I get my news. I’m just one guy in Canada making comics; I’m doing what I can among my own communities, to the extent of my abilities, and I hope you’ll do the same. I only mention this because of a general feeling that everyone who puts things online ought to be talking about The Big Topics. But there’s too much noise, and I think it distracts from more meaningful uses of our time (perhaps by design). I’ll keep posting about the comic I’m making, and I hope that as far as interacting with an internet stranger goes, that is sufficient for you and me.

A raft of recommendations

The most recent post: a grab-bag of nice things. There’s a video interview with George Saunders and articles by Oliver Burkeman, both touching on themes of human connection. That seems like a silly thing to have to emphasize, except, of course, for “AI.” I also can’t help but share my favourite, deeply silly podcasts.

Finally, for you tea perverts out there, I happened upon a tea blend at a friend’s house that was surprisingly similar to one that reader Nikki Beifel concocted way, way, way back in the Livejournal days, very early in the history of Delilah Dirk, before the first book had been properly published. I revised THE TURKISH LIEUTENANT to include her recipe as the one that Selim rifles off in at the beginning (see above). It’s available from “Tea Time” here. (I am not affiliated, I’m just a fan.)

Plus much more…

Those four posts are available to anyone who wants to enjoy them, but there are many more tucked away for Secret Readers to discover.

By far the funniest thing to happen over the last little while is this: I’ve been drawing sailing ships for years now. During all that time, I’ve been cobbling together reference from all sorts of sources, all over the place. And all that time, I’ve had this book within arm’s reach, and I didn’t even know it…

…it’s Stephen Biesty’s CROSS SECTIONS: MAN OF WAR. It’s chock full of drawings and information about every tiny little detail about exactly the type of ship I’ve been drawing for so long. This would have been so handy to have while I was working on DD2, and I could have had it, if only I’d known to ask or look. Take a deeper look and laugh along at my gentle misfortune right here.

Of course, the entirety of Chapter Five is available to read, handily organized into this collection.

Would you like to know much more about Delilah Dirk’s flying sailboat? I share some of the inspiration and thinking behind this unexpectedly beloved element of the books.

Over the course of last summer I got buried in some secret tasks and challenges, but I also discovered the beautiful work of Georges Beuville, and posted some highlights.

In September, I posted a summary of where all the upcoming chapters are, progress-wise. I wasn’t sure whether I’d be able to finish inks for Chapter Six before Christmas, and didn’t, but I came really close.

If you’d like a deep-dive into what my thumbnailing process looks like, this post is for you. It also includes fun tangents on “writing as a puzzle,” and whether that’s a good way to look at it, and “comics versus storyboarding,” two disciplines which are less alike than it may seem.

This post is the first of many filled with photos of raw, inked pages. I also took some time to dive into the topic of intangible terms and the value they might have for discussing artwork. Things like “fuzz,” “sauce,” “spice,” and one that I like, “placeness.” They are indefinable terms. Years ago, I would have dismissed them as useless, but I think I’ve changed my mind. That sort of language can be misused — it’s hard to know how to work toward an intangible target — but I think it’s also useful to have words that at least acknowledge the intangible qualities we can see in artwork.

More recently, as I was working on the colour keys for Chapter Six, I posted about one of my very favourite ideas: most of the time, light-dark values are much more important to an image than any specifics of the colour. I got to dig up one of my favourite examples (above), “Nuclear Cows” by Lisa Palombo, as featured in Nita Leland’s EXPLORING COLOR. Knowing that “if it works in black and white, it’ll work in colour” has always made it a lot easier for me to tackle the sometimes-overwhelming task of colouring the comic.

I hope you’ll consider becoming a Secret Reader. Of course, PRACTICAL DEFENCE is entirely hand-made, and for better or worse, the person doing all that work is me. There’s still a daunting amount of it left, but I’m heartened to know that while I am the only one moving the pencils around, I’m not alone. Secret Readers make all of this possible — thank you! — and I love the challenge of making exciting new things to share with them.

Whether you’re involved in a creative field yourself, whether you’d like to know more about a very human process at a time when such things seem to be devalued, whether you’d like the thrill of catching me in stupid mistakes (like having chickens out of their coop at night), or whether you’re simply curious, there’s a lot to dive into in the PRACTICAL DEFENCE AGAINST PIRACY Production Diary.

Production Diary Roundup!

Tony Cliff — Sat, 08 Mar 2025 01:07:46 +0000

Things have been busy, working on PRACTICAL DEFENCE AGAINST PIRACY. Since the last time I updated this blog, I’ve inked and lettered Chapter Five! Here’s what I’ve been posting over the last few months:

Posts for all!

I’m posting all my updates over on Patreon for now, and I try to make these available to everyone, regardless of whether you’re a paying subscriber or not. (Personally, I subscribe to the ideal that Patreon is for people to financially support projects they like, you know, just like being… a… patron.) If you don’t like Patreon for whatever reason, I’m sorry, that’s fair!

NO NEW CHARACTERS

… featuring some light philosophy on the practice of editing, some principles I gave myself for that practice, a cute photo of our kiddo doing work with me, and a quick ranking of all Taskmaster series.

SHARING WHAT I CAN

Motivated by, umm, certain events in the news, I shared some peaceful flower photos in high-resolution, which you’re welcome to download and use for your personal enjoyment. There’s also a list of some of my then-favourite comfort viewing.

THERE ARE TWO WOLVES INSIDE OF YOU AND THEY BOTH WANT YOU TO TIGHTEN THAT JIGGLY CUPBOARD HANDLE

A look back at 2024, as well as a meditation on how hugely meaningful it can be to accomplish small tasks.

RELIABLE TOOLS AND BEAUTIFUL NERDS

A real grab-bag of fun topics, including:

Krita! The free, open-source painting application. Come with me as I discover its automated flatting tools.
The changing software landscape — Will Smith launched a newsletter dedicated to navigating the miserable nature of modern software. I encourage everyone with even half an interest to adopt him as our guide through this swamp.
Specialized tools — do expensive tools make the craftsman? To what degree are they an indication of professionalism, or serious intent?
And two recommendations for soul-reviving viewing: Mister Rogers’ Neighbourhood (which you’ve heard of) and Goodnight Oppy (which you might not have).

Posts for some!

If you happen to be a Secret Reader — a member of the Patreon campaign for PRACTICAL DEFENCE — you’ve got access to the following absolute slices.

CHAPTER SIX CONCEPT DESIGNS

After thumbnailing Chapter Six, it became clear I’d need to make designs for the new characters that pop up in it. Here they are, with the stories behind them (including the fun detail that defines the two men, above)!

INKING CONTINUES, PLUS, “WHY IS THIS BOOK SO LONG?”

Most of the posts between last November and this February are focused on sharing complete inked pages from Chapter Five. This post additionally tackles the big question, “why is this book so long?” or, “why is this project taking forever?” Believe me, I wanted the answer as much as anyone, and it turned out to be surprisingly simple.

I OFFER YOU THESE UNCUT GEMS

An absolute boatload of hot, fresh inked pages, including discussion of balancing shape and form with line and contour, experiments in watercolour, and trying to keep things loose… but not too loose. Plus, I started diving deep on the French Revolution, and share some of my resources and discoveries.

CHAPTER FIVE LETTERING IS COMPLETE!

The most recent update is another grab-bag from the mind of someone who thinks too much while he nudges pixels around a screen all day, including…

A reminder that inspiration is mostly bunk,
The way in which Photoshop is like a piano,
An encouragement to root out the animator in your life and shove them into the light,
And some extended thoughts on the challenges with laying out text on a comic page, or “lettering.” I try to figure out which of the following two arrangements looks best, and why.

These are but four of the many posts that have gone up recently!

Go stick your head over there and dive into the rest! Look, I’m sorry they’re on Patreon and they’re not free, it’s just that I’m working on this super long project and it’s financially irresponsible and I don’t know what else to do about it!

I hope you’re all doing well out there. Be kind to one another! I’ll be back in a while with Chapter Five of PRACTICAL DEFENCE AGAINST PIRACY!

Chapter Four of PRACTICAL DEFENCE is Now Live!

Tony Cliff — Thu, 22 Aug 2024 17:12:00 +0000

Come for the hot fresh comics, stay for a personal coda to the Olympic Games!

Happy August, Dear Reader. If your summer has been lacking in a little Mediterranean Pirate Adventure, I'm happy to say that the first instalment of Chapter Four of Practical Defence Against Piracy is up, ready to read, right now.

Click here to dive in!

Plus, instead of doing what I've done with previous instalments — sharing chapters four-to-six pages at a time, each week — I'm uploading Chapter Four in fewer instalments. Probably two or three, depending on how the story breaks. This is because I don't like updating my websites, and serving the story in such small chunks doesn't benefit the reading experience, anyway.

Enjoy!

THE PILLARS OF HERCULES RETROSPECTIVE

Over the past few weeks, I've been sharing a retrospective look back at the third Delilah Dirk book, Delilah Dirk and the Pillars of Hercules. Think of it like a cross between a director's DVD commentary and Bill Watterson's Calvin & Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book, if you're familiar. It's been fun revisiting these books with the benefit of the little bit of objectivity that the passage of time has granted.

DD3 was a difficult book to finish — how do the results hold up? Should I frame it and put it on the wall or set it on fire and chuck it in the swamp? Are those my only two options?

Go find out!

… assuming you're a paid patron, that is. And in case you've missed the news, if you would like to become a patron, do not sign up using the iOS app. (It's safe to say: do not use the iOS app at all, if you can help it. It's just not a good or useful app.)

HORSE DRAWINGS

I'm pencilling Chapter Five right now, and Chapter Five involves drawing a LOT of horses. So I took a day to either procrastinate aggressively or conscientiously prepare myself for the challenge ahead, by drawing from a paused video replay of the Olympic Equestrian Cross Country event. (If you’re reading this in an RSS reader, the image carousel above might look strange for you.)

I love doing this type of drawing. It's a shame I don't make time to do more of it. I should, too, because while it felt indulgent at the time, drawing the horses in Chapter Five has since been much easier than I was anticipating.

I also love the Olympics, and I am sad that they're over. I get the same melancholy feeling after an Olympic Games that I do after returning home from a good vacation. Underneath… all this (gestures to self)… I think I am an idealist, and (regardless of my biases) I do secretly believe in the Olympics' notions of peace and international good will through sportsmanship.

And then there are the biases. Well, here's my mom, furthest to the right, running a 400m heat in the 1968 Summer Olympics, held in Mexico City:

She was an Olympian! She held the national record for the Women's 400m for several years. After her own athletic career, she spent her life helping youth work toward their own similar dreams. Plus, this year, the same Women's 400m preliminaries were held on what would have been her birthday.

You would think being in The Olympics is something she would have talked about… at all, ever… but she didn't. Not around me, at least. For the longest time, I never understood that, but I think I get it now.

So since she neither can nor would toot her own starter's pistol, I will do it here, and wish her a belated birthday, too. I hope you enjoyed the Olympics, and if you didn't, couldn't, or wouldn't have wanted to, I hope at least its ideals have a place in your life somewhere.

— TC

Chapter Four of Practical Defence Against Piracy Will Be Here Soon

Tony Cliff — Thu, 18 Jul 2024 18:54:03 +0000

The newest chapter of PRACTICAL DEFENCE AGAINST PIRACY will be here soon, complete and ready to sweep you away to the Mediterranean of the 19th century.

All Alexandra Nichols wanted was to get home to England in time for her birthday, where she would blossom into the bold adventurer of her imagination. Instead, to hide from the threat of pirates on the open seas, her parents have detoured to a small Ionian island. As Chapter Three came to a close, Alexandra was enduring a birthday celebration held by the town’s vacuous ruler, the Provveditore Vignelli. As she was discovering the precise depth and breadth of his despicable character, a mysterious ship appeared in the harbour, shrouded in an unnatural mist, flying a pirate flag. What are their intentions? We are about to find out.

PRACTICAL DEFENCE AGAINST PIRACY is an epic graphic novel adventure about one defiant young girl’s journey of self-discovery as her eyes are opened to the bewildering, often-contradictory ways in which adults navigate the world. It is shared online as it is completed, chapter-by-chapter. The first three chapters are available in their entirety, and the fourth will join them soon.

If you’re following this blog, you’ll know when the pages go up. You’re also welcome to keep in touch via Mastodon, Instagram, or Bluesky.

You’re also welcome to become a free member of this project’s Patreon campaign, or you can become a paying member, support the work that goes into this project, and you can read Chapter Four right now.

Practical Defence Against Piracy nominated for a Will Eisner Award!

Tony Cliff — Thu, 16 May 2024 20:50:46 +0000

Practical Defence Against Piracy has been nominated for a Will Eisner Award, in the category of “Best Digital Comic!”

This is the second time Practical Defence has been nominated for an Eisner, and continues to be an honour for which I am extremely grateful.

If you’re able to vote (and if you’re a comics industry professional, this includes you), the voting process starts here. Obviously a vote for Practical Defence would be appreciated, but I can see the competition is stiff. Congratulations to all my fellow nominees!

As ever, a heartfelt thank you to Practical Defence’s Patron Readers. Their support, encouragement, and implicit permission makes it possible to continue this work. I hope some day to be able to sing their praises from a podium on a stage!

Practical Defence Against Piracy is a work-in-progress graphic novel / webcomic. Set on a fictional Mediterranean island in the late 18th century, it is a story about growing friendships, expert swordsmanship, corrupt leadership, and terrifying pirate ships.

Read the comic from the beginning here, or follow this blog and its RSS feed for updates. As of this writing, Secret Patron Readers are seeing brand new pages from Chapter Four as they are completed. If you’d like to read ahead, support this project, and see all manner of behind-the-scenes material, consider becoming a Secret Reader!

Practical Defence Against Piracy: Chapter Three, pages 180-183

Tony Cliff — Tue, 19 Sep 2023 16:00:00 +0000

Last week, an eerie mist rolled into the harbour. It washed over HMS Cordelia and through its hatches, and cruel iron grappling hooks took hold of the gunwales. What is happening in the fair town of Archipoli?

On an entirely unrelated note, happy International Talk-Like-A-Pirate Day to all who observe! I hope I’ve been able to add a little bit of piratey menace to your day.

(These pages look their best and are easier to page through on DelilahDirk.com.)

This is the conclusion of Chapter Three! What does the arrival of this ominous new ship mean for the town of Archipoli? Will Alexandra be able to find her mother? Will she be able to apologize? And what will become of the crew of the Cordelia? These are all questions for Chapter Four, which is (as of this writing) currently being illustrated.

If you’d like to know when Chapter Four is available to read…

Sign up for the infrequent newsletter! Seriously, I send it maybe a handful of times per year, and I don’t do anything else with your email address.
Subscribe to the RSS feed for this blog!
Follow along on Tumblr,
or on Mastodon,
or Instagram,
or become a patron! Not only will you see the finished pages first, but you’ll receive weekly updates from every stage of the process and when pirates return to threaten our poor town, you’ll rest assured in knowing you had a hand in making it happen!

See you soon! 🏴‍☠️

I’m proud to offer you this comic free from ads and cookies and the usual trash cluttering up our good, sweet internet these days. If you’re able to help support this endeavour, consider joining the Patreon, and become the wind in Alexandra’s sails. You’ll find weekly updates, the stupidest goofs, behind-the-scenes stuff, roughs and pencils and inks (oh my), the finished pages show up there first, and more! Thank you to this chapter’s generous patrons.

Practical Defence Against Piracy is the fourth book in the Delilah Dirk series of adventure graphic novels. I’m sharing it, chapter-by-chapter, as I finish it. There is no release date for a traditional book-book… yet. To keep up-to-date, subscribe to the RSS or join the infrequent newsletter.

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Practical Defence Against Piracy: Chapter Three, pages 176-179

Tony Cliff — Fri, 15 Sep 2023 16:00:00 +0000

Alexandra stares into the darkness of a bottomless pit, and something strange is happening in the harbour.

Next week’s instalment will be early because September 19th is International Talk-Like-A-Pirate Day! I wonder how that could possibly be relevant to our interests.

(These pages look their best and are easier to page through on DelilahDirk.com.)

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Practical Defence Against Piracy: Chapter Three, pages 172-175

Tony Cliff — Fri, 08 Sep 2023 16:00:00 +0000

Faced with Vignelli’s incomprehensible stupidity and/or ignorance, Alexandra crafts the only plausible explanation for his behaviour.

(These pages look their best and are easier to page through on DelilahDirk.com.)

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Practical Defence Against Piracy: Chapter Three, pages 168-171

Tony Cliff — Fri, 01 Sep 2023 16:00:00 +0000

This week: Alexandra doesn’t exactly find her mother, and a competition to see who does not dance the most.

(These pages look their best and are easier to page through on DelilahDirk.com.)

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Practical Defence Against Piracy: Chapter Three, pages 164-167

Tony Cliff — Fri, 25 Aug 2023 16:00:00 +0000

This week, Alexandra struggles under competing miseries: the impending dance, and her need to apologize to her mother.

(These pages look their best and are easier to page through on DelilahDirk.com.)

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Practical Defence Against Piracy: Chapter Three, pages 160-163

Tony Cliff — Fri, 18 Aug 2023 16:00:00 +0000

This week, sweat among the candlelight as things get heated at Vignelli’s ball.

(These pages look their best on DelilahDirk.com.)

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Practical Defence Against Piracy: Chapter Three, pages 156-159

Tony Cliff — Fri, 11 Aug 2023 16:28:00 +0000

Last week, Alexandra impressed her mother with her carriage and presentation, only to spurn her mother’s affection. This week, she perhaps does not exactly revel in her victory.

(These pages look their best on DelilahDirk.com.)

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Practical Defence Against Piracy: Chapter Three, pages 150-155

Tony Cliff — Fri, 04 Aug 2023 16:00:00 +0000

While Alexandra and Katerina prepare for the ball, Alexandra’s mother is at home, having an absolute blast.

(These pages look their best on DelilahDirk.com.)

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Practical Defence Against Piracy: Chapter Three, pages 142-149

Tony Cliff — Sat, 29 Jul 2023 16:00:00 +0000

We begin Chapter Three with a double instalment, as Katerina helps Alexandra prepare for the Provveditore’s upcoming ball, where Alexandra believes she will shine so brightly and so independently that her mother will buckle under the strength of her character.

(These pages look their best on DelilahDirk.com.)

Read these pages on DelilahDirk.com!

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Thanks to Chapter Three’s Patrons!

Tony Cliff — Thu, 27 Jul 2023 17:00:00 +0000

The continuing work of making Practical Defence Against Piracy is only possible because there is a small group of generous individuals who help defray the months’ expenses by being part of the book’s Patreon Campaign. These are those people! (Or click here for a larger view.)

Practical Defence is a project that is taking a long time, not just because I split my time between it and looking after our toddler, but also because it’s simply turning out to be a long book. I do not specifically want it to be a long book; I want it to be exactly as long as it needs to be and no more or less. Thank you, patrons, for helping to offer the security needed to get to that point.

If you would like to become a patron, give it a shot! There’s a lot to enjoy — patrons see pages from rough pencils to the finished product, get to see goofs and sploops, enjoy book recommendations and thoughts on storytelling and comics-making craft, and more. And of course patrons are acknowledged everywhere the comic is published. The big names you see above are members at the “Benevolent Sponsor” level and up, but every post is available for less than the price of a floppy comic each month. I send out a post each week — email you can look forward to! Join us today!

Chapter Three of PRACTICAL DEFENCE is coming this weekend…

Tony Cliff — Tue, 25 Jul 2023 19:30:00 +0000

Dear Reader! This weekend — Saturday, July 29th — I’ll start posting the third chapter of Delilah Dirk Book Four, or Practical Defence Against Piracy.

Will Alexandra have her revenge for the cruel surprises with which her mother has hit her? Will Katerina get to go to a ball? How well are Vignelli and the Venetians living on the other side of the wall? Will there be pirates? Will Alexandra have to… dance?

Find out in Chapter Three of Practical Defence Against Piracy!

To follow along with the weekly instalments, there are three options:

Subscribe to the RSS feed for this blog. I’ll be posting each week’s instalments right here. Feed this URL to your RSS reader!
Bookmark DelilahDirk.com and follow along over there. It’s less automatic, but the experience is as close to reading a book as I can make it for you.
Or you can read the entire chapter right now if you join the project’s Patreon campaign.

If you’d like a weekly reminder via social media, point yourself to…

See you this weekend!

Find me at VanCAF 2023!

Tony Cliff — Wed, 17 May 2023 20:38:05 +0000

Vancouver folks: I'll be at VanCAF this year (May 20th and 21st at the Yaletown Roundhouse), my first convention since 2019! If you're in the area and able to attend, please do so. I'm at table E-10 or, more usefully, just look for the stacks of Delilah Dirk books and/or the "Tony Cliff" banner.

On VanCAF Sunday, I'll also be moderating a panel on "Parenting and Creativity," featuring Kyle Vingoe-Cram, Natalie Pendergast, Aisha Franz, and Meredith Gran. I'm hoping to transition seamlessly from "which nickname did you give your kids' grandparents and how did you decide" to "tell us how you fend off the gnawing spectre of mortality."

Last night I tidied up my beard in preparation to emerge from my hermit cave, only to remember that I will absolutely be wearing a mask the entire time. Oh well.

Come say Hi!

Everything you need to know about attending VanCAF can be found right here!

( Thank you to Haley Boros for her assistance getting those Practical Defence postcards successfully printed up!)

Practical Defence Nominated for Will Eisner Award

Tony Cliff — Wed, 17 May 2023 20:34:00 +0000

I am pleased to inform you that PRACTICAL DEFENCE AGAINST PIRACY has been nominated for a Will Eisner award, in the category of "Best Webcomic!"

This is very exciting. The judging sounds like a difficult, exhausting process, and it feels like a huge relief that PDAP was able to shine through in such a situation. I am wildly grateful to the judges for selecting PDAP to be part of the Eisner award tradition. Teenage me — who spent so much time poring over Wizard magazine — would lose his tiny mind. Congratulations, as well, to my fellow nominees!

Voting is open to comics-industry professionals which might include you. If you're able, please consider voting for PRACTICAL DEFENCE.

Practical Defence Against Piracy: Chapter Two, pages 132-137

Tony Cliff — Fri, 10 Mar 2023 15:30:00 +0000

This week’s big six-page update is the conclusion of Chapter Two! Will Alexandra say yes to the ball? Will she reconcile with her mother or her new friend Katerina, and how?

These pages look their best on DelilahDirk.com.

Want to read Chapter Three as it's being completed?
Join the Patreon! For less than the price of a monthly floppy comic, you get to see all the finished pages first, plus delightful updates every week (email you can look forward to!), and more, including the legitimately heart-warming feeling of helping to make this project possible.

Want to know when Chapter Three is posted publicly?
Easy peasy! Pick an option that works best for you…

If you've been enjoying this comic, please help spread the word about it. Be shameless and cavalier, jump in with both feet. For example, I never go over on Reddit. Do you? Is anyone talking about it over there? Or tell your librarian friends about it. Start a book club! Help this comic find all the weird adventure-loving readers like you and I, wherever they may be hiding.

Thank you to everyone who's been sending in kind messages, and thank you to the patron readers who help drive this work.

Read these pages on DelilahDirk.com!

See you in a few months for Chapter Three, when we'll discover…

What Alexandra has in store for her mother!
How Alexandra learns to dance!
What is up with her dad's mysterious bejewelled dagger!
And how effective, exactly, are the town's defences against pirates.

I’m proud to offer you this comic free from ads and cookies and the usual trash cluttering up our good, sweet internet these days. If you’re able to help support this endeavour, consider joining the Patreon, and become the wind in Alexandra’s sails. You’ll find weekly updates, the stupidest goofs, behind-the-scenes stuff, pages show up there first, and more… all for less than the price of a single floppy comic per month.

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Practical Defence Against Piracy: Chapter Two, pages 128-131

Tony Cliff — Fri, 03 Mar 2023 15:30:00 +0000

This week: the penultimate update for Chapter Two! The Provveditore has returned. He seems upset about the British ship in his harbour. Will he find a reason to change his tune?

These pages look their best on DelilahDirk.com.

Read these pages on DelilahDirk.com!

The only reason for that link, “Read this on DelilahDirk.com,” is to offer you a maybe-nicer reading experience. There are no ads over there, no traffic counts or tracking nonsense. I have no idea how or where you’re reading this comic and I don’t really care. I just want you to enjoy it.

Practical Defence Against Piracy is the fourth book in the Delilah Dirk series of adventure graphic novels. I’m sharing it, chapter-by-chapter, as I finish it. There is no release date… yet. To keep up-to-date, subscribe to the RSS or join the infrequent newsletter.

Work on this comic is supported by the generous patronage of readers like you, on ol’ Patreon Dot Com. If you are enjoying it and are able to contribute to its production, please do so, and become the wind in Alexandra’s sails. You’ll find weekly updates, the stupidest goofs, behind-the-scenes stuff, pages show up there first, and more… all for less than the price of a single floppy comic per month.

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