Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind is a movie by Hayao Miyazaki that I first watched some 20+ years ago and has had enormous influence in my desire to do this sort of stuff. Here’s my little homage to it, then, with Daughter dressed up as the titular Nausicaä, even if you can’t see much of her.

I’m trying to do something slightly different here in the artistic department; perhaps you can tell. Now that Imaginary Daughter is over, I think I should devote some effort to actually, you know, draw better? Let’s call this an experiment then, if not necessarily a step in the right direction.

Come back tomorrow for another glimpse of the new comic I’m working on!

Imaginary Daughter has finished! You should start reading from the beginning!

Father really owed her at least this much, I think.

All that’s left for me to do is to thank you all for accompanying Father, Daughter and me through this journey, which I hope you’ve enjoyed as much as I did.

There are more stories to tell, even as we leave Father behind to deal with his life and his Imaginary Daughter, and so I invite you to continue being a part of this.

Thank you for reading this far.

…

Aw, shucks, that turned out far more emotional and serious than I had intended. Let’s finish this in a trippy way, shall we?

weeeeeeird

Here’s a drawing of one of the main characters of my next comic.At least, I think so. A lot of that is still in the air, so we’ll see what happens.

I’m a bit terrified about tackling on this idea. Hopefully it won’t turn out so bad.

The story has ended, but there’s still one more page to go. I’ll see you on Friday for the goodbyes.

In the meantime, if you have any doubts about the story, now is the time to ask! I can’t promise to answer everything though, because I think there is value in preserving your own interpretations of what happened. But I’ll give it a try

Also: don’t forget to check again tomorrow for a glimpse of my next comic.

Ah, Evangelion, how have you made us all suffer for you. But we bare with it because you brought us Asuka, here cosplayed by Daughter in a sort of Spike moment (but this only if you read after the jump for the full and BIG version of the image)

You need to watch Evangelion once in your life. You might love it or hate it, you might not understand it or not understand it, but this is one of the most influential series ever crafted by someone who hated his audience, and though it is now 15 years old it still sends ripples across the animation universe.

There are some parallels between this series and Imaginary Daughter, but finding them is an exercise left to the readers

Anyways, here you have a LARGE version of the above image. I get lots of hits of people searching for 1920×1080 wallpapers and to them I say PFFFT! I laugh in the face of your wimpy 1920px wide monitors! This image is 3071×1080 pixels, which makes it fit for absolutely no monitor I know of, but perhaps someone with dual monitors may use it? Whatever. Enjoy.

BANG

Next (after a short break): a surprise – even for me, at this point.

And so we come to the end of Father’s imaginary journey. Please check again on Wednesday for the end of the story proper.

Welcome, people from the User Friendly forums. You’re just in time. Thanks for dropping by

Please read the announcements after the jump!

We are, indeed, almost there. Imaginary Daughter ends next week, so be sure not to miss even one update

So here are a few announcements that I’d prefer to make now in order not to interfere with the story.

First is a reminder that Daughter herself continues to appear in the Imaginary Daughter Bonus section, in case you miss her. Even Father and the Spectre show up sometimes. Bonuses will appear two to five times per week – I’m still undecided. They will bridge the time between the end of Imaginary Daughter and the beginning of the next comic.

Speaking of the next comic, it will be a short affair, lasting roughly two months. I intend to keep the M-W-F schedule and work on some short comics during the rest of the year, though again this is subject to changes. There will be a few preview images of the next comic, the first of which will appear this Thursday.

Finally, the printed version of Imaginary Daughter is in the works. I expect to send it to the presses (??) next week, but there might be delays owning to having to wait until I get my review copies, fix possible mistakes and so on. With some luck, the book will be coming out by the end of March. Keep checking the site and you won’t miss the announcement when it does come out.

That’s it for now. See you next week for the grand (!?) finale!

I was torn between drawing Daughter as Shinku or Suiseiseki. In the end, Shinku won by physical likeness alone. Both of them were good matches personality-wise, though.

In revisiting Rozen Maiden as preparation for drawing this, I was startled by some similarities between this story and Imaginary Daughter that I didn’t even remember anymore. I won’t spoil it for you -- this is a great series, so go and watch it instead.

For those who’ve seen it already, let me just add that I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard while watching TV than during the “staircase” episode. Also, the ending is epically bittersweet and awesomely epic, if you pardon my internet vocabulary.

I’ll leave you with the opening to Ouvertüre, which is both visually striking and features one of my favourites songs, Baragoku Otome, by ALI Project, a band I love:

Next: second child

Oh Spectre, who would have thought you were such a big crybaby. And not very good at handling yourself in a fight, either.

Kiki’s Delivery Service is my favourite movie, bar none. It was made by my favourite director, and it contains some of my favourite music:

To say that I recommend it is the understatement of the year.

This is the movie I watch whenever I’m feeling down. It’s impossible not to feel uplifted after watching Kiki, even if it is the tenth time in the year you’ve watched it.

So… yeah, I’m a bit of a fan of this movie

Next: ruby doll

What are you trying to do, Father?You people seem to be having fun theorizing about the Spectre, so I won’t swoop in to meddle in that discussion (much). As long as you get the general idea, that’s fine with me

So… lots of big, sharp teeth. Yeah.

So I finished Imaginary Daughter and am now working on the printed version. It’s going slowly; I hoped to have it done by the time the final page was published on the site, but it looks like that won’t be possible. Partly because it’s just a lot of work, and partly because finishing ID has left me drained and kind of bummed out

Anyways, I thought I’d let you take a look at what is probably going to end up being the cover for the book (still very much a work in progress, as you can see). Looking forwards to your comments.

That’s FOE, not F.O.E., which admittedly would have been much more awesome:

…yeah, any excuse to share that video is good. Hell, any excuse to share any IOSYS video is good.

Another work that influenced Imaginary Daughter, by another author that’s influenced me. Yotsuba and! is a charming and hilarious manga by Kiyohiko Azuma, of Azumanga Daioh fame, featuring a very young and rather clueless daughter, full of energy and innocence, and her relationship with her father (a single guy), his friends and neighbors, as she discovers what this world is like.

Very much recommended; Yotsuba simply never fails to put a smile on my face… Oh, scratch that. It never fails to have me laughing like a moron (shut up). The acronym ROTFL was coined because of this series. Check it out.

Next: witch abroad!