TL;DR:  I’m taking the files from the old Book of Dark Places project, converting them to video, and uploading them to my new Youtube channel.   My goal is to post one a week.  If you remember what the Book of Dark Places is/was, then this is all you need to know.    If not, then read on for details.

So what’s this Book of Dark Places thing?Not quite a decade ago, I got the idea to do a horror anthology webcomic.   I love comics (‘web’ and otherwise)  and I love dark stories, so why the hell not?  The fact that I have zero artistic talent was no obstacle, because I had technology!    Specifically, I had Poser, Paint Shop Pro, and Flash.  Sure, I had no actual SKILL in any of those programs, but what did that matter?    And heck, if I was going to be using Flash then I might as well make a comic that moved and had sound effects!     So what do you get when you mix hubris, software, dark creative urges and an abundance of free time?

You get the Book of Dark Places.

In the years that followed I completed three horror serials (and began a fourth) in a multimedia format that wasn’t quite a standard comic and yet wasn’t an animation.   You’ll have to see one to know what I’m talking about.   In hindsight, the quality of the visuals was sub-par, but I think the stories were solid enough to make people forget that, as a multimedia creator, I was clearly faking it.   At least I’d like to hope so.    I certainly had fun.

So what happened?

The comic never became popular among people who weren’t already my fans, and my formerly abundant free time dried up from other demands.   The Book of Dark Places was a huge time and money sink, and it soon stopped being fun.    I abandoned it in the middle of the fourth story and mostly pretended that the whole experiment never happened.

Fast Forward a few years until… well… a last week.

If I had ANY intentions for the Book of Dark Places, it was simply to let it live on forever in obscurity.   I paid the domain name and hosting costs for years with no motives or plans for the content.    While I could keep the website online, the same can’t be said for the technology that powers the multimedia webcomics.   Adobe Flash is rapidly being phased out (or taken out back and shot in the head) by the major browsers.     Soon, users of Firefox and Chrome wouldn’t be able to view the webcomic without jumping through lots of hoops and compromising the security of their browsers.    Then I realized that, even though I no longer have the software to edit the Flash files, I DO have the software to convert them to regular video files.

And what better place to put video files than YouTube?

So I created a channel and I’m going to release the converted videos one at a time until they’re done.     Maybe they will find a wider audience on YouTube than they ever found on their original home.   And maybe people will see through the admittedly amateurish graphics to appreciate what I feel are some good dark stories.    Aaaannnd maybe one or two of those people might find their way over to Amazon to buy an ebook or two.

So that’s the sad tale of the Book of Dark Places.    Perhaps on YouTube it will have a happier ending.   …unlike most of the stories themselves.