Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant - a graphic novel, serialized online

July 22, 2011 7:47 AM

Join MetaFilter's own TangoCharlie (Tony Cliff) for an illustrated adventure of swordplay and wordplay set in Turkey in the 1800s, in Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant (updated on Saturday mornings with four to six new pages). What is currently a full-color serialized graphic novel in four chapters started as a short self-published greyscale comic, which was nominated for an Eisner Award in 2008. As a bonus, Tony shares tips and lessons learned in the making of Delilah Dirk on his blog. [via mefi projects]

Author's note from the MeFi Project page:

Oh, I also have to thank the Mefi users that chimed in on this question: General Tonic, deanc, likeso, StrikeTheViol, plonkee, and zaelic. I asked that question a bit late in the process, so the results of the input are minor, but I appreciate it and it'll really help moving forward when (knock on wood) I'm able to make a second volume!

As for reading the comic, you can start with the prologue, or jump right into Chapter 1, which is now complete.

Viewing tip: press the F11 key and enable kiosk or full-screen viewing in most browsers, as the comic panels are rather large.

posted by filthy light thief (16 comments total)

This didn't get nominated from projects until now? Massive group fail for those of us who read the projects page.


yes I still use 'fail' as a noun
posted by Think_Long at 8:06 AM on July 22, 2011

I think it was posted when there wasn't a lot of content online yet.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:38 AM on July 22, 2011

I've been following this via RSS. It's lot's of fun.
posted by oddman at 9:02 AM on July 22, 2011

Should be made easier to view. Lots of fun though.
posted by RyanG at 9:31 AM on July 22, 2011

Fabulous
posted by Jibuzaemon at 10:32 AM on July 22, 2011

Thanks for the link. Good story so far and appealing visuals.
posted by Gwynarra at 1:03 PM on July 22, 2011

Excellent stuff - top notch illustration.

I am amazed that he does the linework in Photoshop. Maybe the Cintiq works better than my ancient ArtPad II, but I think I'd go batty not using Illustrator.
posted by Benny Andajetz at 1:56 PM on July 22, 2011

Benny, in a comment on the Projects post, Tony wrote that the line art was pencil on paper, but it looks like his newer work is all Cintiq.
posted by filthy light thief at 2:19 PM on July 22, 2011

Also, Mr. Cliff is at the San Diego Comic Con, and I was lucky enough to get to have breakfast with him and a bunch of other creators this morning, and basically what I am saying is he is super nice and talented and everybody should read his stuff.
posted by pts at 2:31 PM on July 22, 2011 [1 favorite]

Subscribed to the RSS feed, and now I need to go read the back issues (chapter).
posted by immlass at 3:22 PM on July 22, 2011

This is really good. Actually felt really disappointed when I ran out of pages to read.
posted by WalterMitty at 9:17 AM on July 23, 2011

I was tempted to hold off until the series finished, but then you might be sad when there's nothing to look forward to reading next week.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:46 AM on July 23, 2011

This reminds me of Joann Sfar's The Rabbi's Cat, one of my favorite graphic novels, and of Jason Goodwin's detective series set in 1830s Istanbul (beginning with The Janissary Tree).

Which is to say, I am enraptured with both story and art, and can't wait for more.
posted by catlet at 1:54 PM on July 23, 2011

Whoa - many thank-yous for all the friendly comments, guys.

Filthy light thief - thank you for the flattering, [spookily] thorough post! You're a gem!

RyanG - Let me know if you have any specific suggestions. I only have my own equipment to test it on, so I'm interested to hear what other folks' experiences are like. Smaller monitors, for example, havent really been accounted for, and I'll acknowledge the experience will be sub-optimal. I have been trying out Google+/Picasa as a delivery system, but that has it's own downsides (faster, though).

pts - 1) Thanks!
2) Everyone needs to be aware of this extremely bizarre coincidence: if I'm right, this post was put up at exactly the same time as we were bonding over our shared love of MetaFilter. Significantly weird.

Catlet - ah! A very flattering comparison. I'm excited for the animated version. And I'll have to check out Goodwin's stuff.

For folks who prefer to read their comics in non-webbish formats, I'm currently pursuing iPad/tablet options, and I'm also looking for a publisher to help me get this book onto the bookshelves of the world.

I'm looking forward to sharing the rest of the story with you guys!
posted by TangoCharlie at 11:06 AM on July 25, 2011

Even though I find the teams of "badass babe" with "nice nebbish" somewhat cliche, I still had a blast reading this and I love how they're drawn (especially their faces). I've been recommending it to everyone.
posted by wobh at 1:49 PM on July 25, 2011

TC: my pleasure. You mentioned an Eisner nomination, and I wanted to know (and share) more. I was interested in how you started with a small graphic novel and expanded it into a larger story. Thanks for this!
posted by filthy light thief at 12:07 PM on July 28, 2011