Hope Aethereal takes place in a world much like our own, but with one major difference: people have discovered the existence of "daemons"!

Normally "daemons" exist only on the aether plane, where they cannot interact with the physical world; most people cannot even see them without the aid of advanced scientific equipment. But those few people that can also have the power to enslave them and bring them to physical world.

However, not much is known about the true nature of these "daemons". Are they truly those evil beings we know from myths..? Or are they something else..?

"Daemon" is the most commonly accepted name for those creatures that exist on the aether plane. They come in an enormous variety of shapes and sizes, and many possess abilities beyond human explanation. Although daemons have been known to visit the physical world on occasion, they cannot act upon it in their normal, aethereal form. Only those few people able to see them can bring them fully into the physical world. However, it's a well known fact that doing so is a dangerous endeavor, as daemons can be very vengeful creatures.

The process to create Hope Aethereal begins with Rachel and Katassa sitting down and brainstorming ideas. Once a few ideas have been thrown around, Cryo begins the planning and writing phase. Finally, once she's satisfied with the script, she hands it off to Rachel, who begins drawing some rough page layouts. Once she gets a good layout, she begins the final page layout in pencil. Curved lines are inked in felt-tip pen, and then the page is scanned so it can be cleaned and further worked on in Photoshop. Any straight lines, text, and word bubbles are added in the computer. Both Rachel and Cryo give it one final check, and then the page can finally be uploaded!

The Hope Aethereal website was written in PHP, HTML, and CSS. Rachel is responsible for the site design, and much of the coding. Thanks goes to Greg Lawler who wrote PHPSlideShow which was used as the basis for the comic page display functions, to CuteNews for providing Hope Aethereal's wonderful news functions, phpBB for Hope Aethereal's forums, and to Keith Devens for writing the site's calendar feature.

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