BE Story Club Presents: Spells R Us #4

[Snowglare]

Oops. Right you are, the wizard's there at the start, looking a good deal creepier than I imagined him from the text stories.

[humble.fool]

Although there may be a "to be continued...", the original author has vanished, and Bill Pratt, who wrote this installment, mentioned on the BEA forums that he was not planning on writing any more.

[Vengeance1701]

....Then why on earth would you put it as TBC? Weird.

[LK]

They change writers in mainstream comics. This should be no different.

[Vengeance1701]

Ah, that wasn't how I read it, honestly. It made it sound like the whole series was finished. That's what caught me and I don't read comics enough to have guessed that.

[catfish27]

Originally Posted by humble.fool

Although there may be a "to be continued...", the original author has vanished, and Bill Pratt, who wrote this installment, mentioned on the BEA forums that he was not planning on writing any more.

I believe Part IV was still the work of the original author -- at least, my copy here credits it to "Anonymoose," who is also credited for the first three parts. I mentioned over on the BEA forums that I'd like to see Bill Pratt continue "Dream Girl" from here, based on his writing work for "Remote Out of Control," another comic that's in progress over on the BE Story Club. (As well as his prose BE stories, which are pretty darn good.)

Originally Posted by ryantherebel

*Geek mode on*
EC comics was a comic book company that lasted from the 1940s through the 1950s. titles include Tales from the Crypt, The Vault of Horror, The Haunt of Fear and MAD magazine.

EC didn't cease to exist in the '50s; they just eliminated all of their titles except MAD, which they converted from a "comic book" format into a "magazine" format so that it wouldn't be covered by the Comics Code. Technically, they're still in business, although nowadays they're the division of DC Comics that publishes MAD.
*super-annoying geek correction mode off*

[Kheben]

What Catfish says is the truth. Pretty much Anonymoose disappeared but had completed and submitted enough for part 4. Whether we see a part 5 is pretty much up to the head honchos as to whether they want to risk letting another author take over and whether anyone even wants to accept the responsibility.

Personally, it sounds like the plot kept going along the dismal line it was heading in by part 3 and with the added negative of no further changes/process, I'd say we've pretty much hit a brick wall on Dream Girl. Sad, but true.

However, I have heard great things about Pratt's "Remote out of Control" and wouldn't mind getting my hands on that. So there might be hope for the BESC yet.

Of course, as it turns out they also just put the membership cost up (about the same time Dream Girl 4 got released <_<) to about $25 per month, so that may have to wait for now. Ah well.

[LK]

Well, you can hold out until the comic I wrote gets published. It is anything but dreary. That should be next week.

BE Story Club has a new distribution model in place that should hopefully make it worth your $25. At the very least, you are getting access to all the old stories for that rate as well.

[dragon6860]

dsojourn, I have to agree with you. The art is very good, yes, but the story, man, it's depressing. Basically you have a girl who wants to get big boobs, something you'd think we'd encourage, and it ends up biting her in the ass the whole time. And I KNOW people say, "It's a spells-R-Us story" but come on...Just seems way too negative and dark of a story. I've never understood the Spells-R-Us idea anywho..."A Girl wants to get big boobs? PUNISH HER!" Just seems to go against things.

[Prophet Tenebrae]

There MAY - and I stress merely the possibility of the event, rather than the inevitability - be a contest to decide on the ending... I rather suspect that it would require at least 2-3 more chapters to conclude satisfactorily.

I'll probably construct a panel of judges for this one... I'm not particularly keen on the nastiness that has pervaded the story... but yes, feel free to start thinking on how to wrap it up, if that's your fancy. We'll see how things go.

SRU stories are actually more often about guys getting big boobs, as far as I can tell...

[Snowglare]

I love me some Bill Pratt. If anything's worth getting a subscription to the BESC for, it's exclusive Bill Pratt stories.

[Kheben]

Originally Posted by dragon6860

dsojourn, And I KNOW people say, "It's a spells-R-Us story" but come on...Just seems way too negative and dark of a story. I've never understood the Spells-R-Us idea anywho..."A Girl wants to get big boobs? PUNISH HER!" Just seems to go against things.

The thing is Spells R Us stories aren't just BE stories (usually TG as Tenebrae mentioned, though it really spans all genres) and the moral is usually the concept of "don't play with magic or it'll bite you in the ass." Or in some cases the shopkeeper is outright just sort of a prankster who knows you're going to screw it up but doesn't care.

So I mean, yeh, it's expected that she would get boned (pun semi intended), but things just kind of seemed to start dragging by the third chapter, not to mention going into full-blown "hahaha you're screwed there's no more fun!" mode.

And Lorekeep, when you say they're updating their distribution model, do you mean they plan to actually bring out more than 2 (rarely 3) stories per month? That could possibly make it worth it. As for getting the older stuff, I agree that's a bonus, but only if you've not been a member for a long time or ever at all.