Begin your Journey Here
Table of Contents
“Wondrous stories await you below, and I am here you to guide you through these haphazard piles of books strewn about everywhere around the shop.
Please come in and look at our goods!”
A strange, crooked man leads into an impressively cluttered room, it’s too late to leave now…
The best way to navigate our page is through the desktop version but I am putting this together to make your experience on the app a little better too.
What is what?
This all started as a place for me to document and share my journey in writing “The Magic Lantern” books (still in progress), I have a whole series planned, starting with a measly 6. If you scroll down the archive you can very easily follow up the path where I tell you everything that led up to today, but there are a couple of other things I write about.
The Magic Lantern Lore
While these are not the books themselves, as I consolidate parts of the story I am sharing it with you. But here are a couple of things to start with.
Character Portraits: I initially was making sketches of these characters just to help me get a better idea of their traits and quirks, just to help me write about them really. But very quickly I got way too into it and painted the lot so I could share them with everyone!
The beginning: This is the origin story of it all, how the idea for the magic lantern and Mago came to be, and having a record of this story was also the reason for me to start this newsletter.
Illustration Style: This may be a bigger deal for me than it is for you, but settling on a style is a big commitment! And this was the first time I put the years of preparation all into a mockup page, a little glimpse of what I hope the books look like.
The Explorers of Obalan.
Now these are meant to be the full Monty, I am writing and illustrating a just for Substack series of diary entries from a bunch of explorers that trot around the world of The Magic Lantern.
This is the series I am writing at the time of me publishing this page and I want it to be out by this Summer, 2025. Much work to do!
Character Portraits: Going with the theme of what I did for The Magic Lantern, I of course started by painting some character portraits of all the different explorers in the same style. A terribly interesting bunch they are!
The First Diary: Everything has to start somewhere, and this is officially the first story set in this world. I really just wanted to have something for you to snack on while I write the rest!
“And this concludes the tour around our shop, we’ve looked at everything from the cobwebs on the top shelf to the dusty boxes under the counter, now are you going to get something or not?”
He nudges you violently, you really should have left when you had the chance.
To you, from the home of magic.
Marco D Blanco.
Last Updated: April 2025