And yes, the Automaton was quite impatient with slow players. It would roll its eyes, tap its hand on the cabinet, and do all sorts of creepy, intimidating stuff to freak out its opponent.

*****

Boy, all sorts of fun stuff this week. For starters, I received my very first piece of Turk Fan art:

(If you don't understand the joke, it's because you have to know about my husband's new webcomic for it to make sense.

Wizard World was a lot of fun, and while I was there, I did this really awesome Steampunky photoshoot with fellow indie publisher Carla Speed McNeil, thanks to Jennie Breeden. Check it out!

I also did a fantastic interview with the guys from Fist Full of Comics, and I'll be sure to post it up as soon as I hear about it.

That's about all till next week... so I'll just leave poor Count Cobenzl to contemplate his endgame.

And for those of you getting bored with all the chess moves, don't worry; this is the only full game in the whole story. You can pretty safely skip all the technical moves and just pay attention to the characters' reactions-- you won't lose much if you do.

However, for the real chessplayers among you: the game does play out correctly (thanks again to Matt Messana for checking all my moves), and is based on an actual historical game. I'll provide a link to it once doing so won't spoil anything.

**

In other news, June 26-29th is Wizard World Chicago, and Paul and I will be there. We're at table 4910, and we'll be very near the Food Court in Artist's Alley. Stop by and say hey! If you come on Saturday (and I don't chicken out) you'll be able to see me in full steampunk regalia. Woo!

Also: This is the first really big crowd scene I've ever drawn. Intimidating!

I look at Clockwork Game as one big artistic challenge. It's essentially Artist Boot Camp for me, teaching me several things I've needed to work on for the longest time. Like stamina. Having a new page every week is a stretch for me, and now, boy do I ever respect artists who can do more than one a week. It's also forcing me to learn how to draw clothing better, and how to crosshatch more efficiently, and how to compress my storytelling, and how to ink with a brush. And perspective. Yipes. Thank goodness I have a resident perspective genius in the house.

So yeah. Clockwork Game is forcing me to relearn a lot of forgotten skills, to break out of old habits, and to develop a better work ethic. Pretty good stuff for a little webcomic.

In other news, Motor City went really well! I had a great time, caught up with old friends and met some new ones, and got to share ideas with fellow creators. The promo cards arrived about six hours after we left, according to the UPS website -- and they look great!

click to view larger image

I'm really pleased with them, and can't wait to hand them out at Wizard World next month. If you can't come to Chicago or SPX, and still want one, send me a self-addressed stamped envelope big enough to hold a 4 x 6" card and I'll send you one for free.

I've got the minicomics ready to go, and the first ten people to buy a mini get ones with hand-colored covers! Plus, if all goes well (and they arrive tomorrow!) I will have some really neat giveaways for Motor City. They're fun little "collector's cards" based on this postcard for an American copycat chess-playing-automaton -- every once in a while one pops up on eBay for hundreds of dollars. Let's hope my cards get here on time; otherwise they'll have to wait until Wizard World Chicago. Either way, if you're in the neighborhood, stop on by and say hello!

As for this week's history-nerd installment, here are some references for the characters on this page, so you can see I'm not just making up all the faces. Count Cobenzl, Maria Theresa, Joseph II, and, of course, von Kempelen (this is actually a self-portrait!).

EDITED TO ADD: DENIED! UPS did not deliver the cool promo cards today. Alas, they must wait until Wizard World and SPX.

**
In other news, I will be making an appearance next weekend at Motor City Comicon in Novi, Michigan. My name isn't on the website or program book because I didn't get on the stick soon enough to ask them to mention me, but I will be sharing a table with my husband Paul. In addition to having both my Vögelein books for sale, I'll also be offering a short-run minicomic of Clockwork Game that will feature this current scene in its entirety -- including pages that won't be available online for several weeks! So if you're anxious to see how this scene will play out, stop by my table and pick up a sneak preview! After the con, if I have any left, I'll offer them for sale here.

I also have to say how much I love Panel 4 of this page, showing the Automaton with all its doors open. Von Kempelen made a point of leaving the keys in the lock and letting the doors all flap around on their hinges as he rotated it. Nothing to hide here!

**

On a related note, I've been doing some advertising, so if you're a new reader, welcome! I've also added the link images to the downloads page in case anybody wants to link here. Thanks for reading!

The design of the front of the cabinet was a little tricky. I based mine (with permission, of course) on the replica built by John Gaughan, which includes that vertical strut between the paired front doors. The earliest drawings of the automaton seem to show that the paired doors were actually one big door, which hinged on the viewer's right. I've got to say that, for the staging of the comic, it actually makes sense to have two separate doors with the strut in the middle, and having it there adds to the claustrophobic feel of the larger chamber.

Oh, and since I already linked to this image, I should also mention a bit of The Turk's history that I had to omit due to story considerations: the letter board, which you can just barely make out under the pillow in that engraving. After its main chessplaying performance, von Kempelen would place an alphabet board over the chessboard and allow the audience to ask questions, which the automaton would answer by pointing to each letter in sequence -- kind of like a self-driven Ouija board -- and would respond in French, German and English. It's a great story, and I'd love to have included it, but the opening scene was already overlong, and so it got left on the cutting-room floor, so to speak.

If anyone's interested, Bradley Ewart's book, Chess: Man vs Machine lists some of the questions and answers, as recorded by an author who attended one of the later performances.

From the standpoint of the nobility gathered at Schönbrunn Palace, this automaton -- which von Kempelen claimed could think just like a human being -- would not have been a mere amusement. A thinking machine, even one that could only play chess, constituted a breakthrough of unimaginable proportion and consequence, and especially when considering the scientific discoveries of that era such a machine must have seemed entirely plausible.

Oh, and while I'm nerding out, I might as well mention the chess set. If it looks a little odd, that's because the design that most people associate with chess, the Staunton Set, wouldn't be released for another eighty years or so. The only close-up we have of The Turk's Chess pieces is from this engraving by Racknitz, from 1789 -- and so I took my primary design from that image, but blended it slightly with the Staunton set to make the individual pieces more immediately recognizable to modern readers. Here's a great page with lots of information on early European chess sets -- it looks like The Turk's pieces were based on the "Selenus" design, given the Racknitz image.

One note on the panel where he's illuminating the interior with the candle -- there should be a second tier of gears behind the ones in front, but I just couldn't get them in there, and still show the candle besides. I may try to fix that, eventually.

******

Two more things unrelated to today's comic:

1) I've added a new downloads page this week. At the moment, there're only a couple of wallpapers, but I hope to have some new stuff up in a few days, like link images and banners and such.

2) Did you know that there are actually eight pages of Clockwork Game currently available? I was a little unclear when I launched the site (most likely due to lack of sleep) and neglected to mention that there's a five-page prologue that comes before page 1 of part 1. So if you haven't seen it already, you can click here to start from the very beginning.

On the original art, which measures 8 1/2 x 11", the bottom panel is essentially a 12:1 scale drawing of The Turk. The cabinet was 3 1/2 feet long, 2 1/2 feet high, and 2 feet deep. The figure probably sat about 5 feet high at the crown of its turban.

An interesting bit of trivia: though Peter Shaffer's Amadeus took place in Schönbrunn Palace, it was actually filmed on location in Prague. Sophia Coppola's excellent Marie Antoinette was filmed in part at Schönbrunn, and featured Marianne Faithful as a quite convincing Empress Maria Theresa.