Mctopia is an illustrated chronicle of the world of Meldwyn Camembert, an everyman for our surreal times. This site presents stories cherry-picked arbitrarily from Meldwyn’s everyday existence.

The author uses these stories as vehicles to explore the collective psyche of our modern existence here in the 21st century. These stories provide a moral perspective the reader might well use as a compass for guidance in their own lives. One could think of Mctopia as a modern Aesop’s Fables. Well, except that Mctopia doesn’t really do the whole moral deal. Also, I made up that part about exploring the collective psyche, blah, blah blah. As a matter of fact, Mctopia may not have any redeeming qualities at all. In addition, the author of Mctopia isn't named Aesop. That would just be weird. Can you imagine how bitter these stories would be if someone named Aesop had written them after dealing with all of the abuse he would have endured throughout his public school education? Waaaaay too emo.

OK, so maybe there isn’t a deep reason for telling these stories and sharing them online except that it’s fun to do. Hopefully,the stories will make the reader giggle occasionally and maybe, just maybe, chuckle hard enough to cause a beverage to spew from their nose. If that happens even once, this endeavor will be considered a success.

This Mctopia site also features Ask Meldwyn. It’s a resource readers can use to get answers to whatever questions they might have; personal, practical, political, sports related, whatever. Meldwyn will do his best to post the answers to several questions per week with a guarantee that if he doesn’t know the answer offhand, he will do his very best to make one up. Consider this feature a less judgmental Dear Abby. Less judgmental and maybe a little snarkier. Perhaps on occasion a little cynical, maybe slightly mocking and snarky but definitely less judgmental.

Why have a feature like Ask Meldwyn on a serious literary site such as this you ask? To put it simply, Meldwyn is a giver.

This site also has an online store where visitors can purchase original paintings, and soon, selected giclee prints and t-shirts. Not only will the buyer score something fun and cool and be the envy of their friends but they will quite possibly improve their love life when prospective partners realize how fun and cool the buyer is for owning this arty schwag. Of course, it will also help the author/illustrator with that whole "food and shelter thing". I know worldly concerns such as these seem trivial and so pathetically human when the focus is on the "art" as it is here, but the author/illustrator has found that "food and shelter thing" to be quite conducive to the creative process.

By the way, to my knowledge, Aesop never had an online store where you could buy, say, a beefy t-shirt with an image of a pissed-off fox reaching vainly for some sour grapes or something. So, you know, there might not be a moral to any of these stories, but we’ve got that on him.

The process
The process is really organic. Our hero Meldwyn does stuff and your humble author/illustrator writes it down and makes a picture of it. The pictures are generally first drawn as rough thumbnail sketches on napkins, or envelops, in a small notebook or on the illustrators hand. These rough drawings are then fleshed out in somewhat tighter drawings on illustration board using the finest ball-point pens, just like the renaissance guys. These drawings are then painted with oil paint or occasionally with acrylic paint.

Rough narrations of the action depicted in the pictures are also initially jotted down on odd bits of paper or flesh, and then refined a little. The basic gist of the story, it’s sequencing or, the narrations may change at any time in the process depending on many important factors, such as; what the author had for dinner, the phase of the moon, or, what music is playing at the time. Just like with with real reporters.

The finished story is then typed up using two flying fingers. It then passes through a rigorous round of copy editing to check for inconsistencies and innacuraces and to make sure that all sources are verified. Well, actually, that’s the way it might work if this was a more professional operation. Unfortunately, being decidedly unprofessional, the copy is not edited by anyone who might have a clue about stuff like grammar and usage or, say writting. It’s actually not really edited by anyone at all. The readers understanding is therefore greatly appreciated in advance.

The technical term covering all processes involved in the making of Mctopia is winging it.