As most of you know, the last comic strip I attempted to put out fell to pieces three weeks back, which put my artistic talent into a crisis and this web site in jeopardy. Fortunately, I have enough advice and ideas to make a plan to move forward with something I hope will last somewhat longer than that strip I had to scrap.
Right now the only thing I done right with that mentioned strip was the format. I used a Sunday-style format that gave me the most balance of real estate to play with as well as readability. The three-panel strip was too small to work with, and full sized comic book pages proved too big to read. Therefore, this format will provide an acceptable medium for me. In the event that I have multiple strips in action at the same time, I'll just shave the bottom third off the dimensions which will speed up the production somewhat.
Now, for the hard part. Which title should I start on and in which format? Due to all the hashing and brainstorming I have done these past weeks, I have seven ideas to work on, and I would like to start off on not more than three of them. This is why I'm writing this: I invite you to read these short descriptions and provide me some feedback on which ones will work best:
- Book of FoxFire: This is the idea I got from Ivan Mayne, where all of the previous owners of The Book of FoxFire--a repository of every story of every lives, with their pasts, presents, and possible futures are told--and the ways their lives have been touched by this book. There are several scenarios supplied by Mr. Mayne which is located in the Bulletin Board. However, turning these story ideas into a useable script will take some time, since story ideas and their development are still in it's infancy.
- Davey-Kins' Comic Diary: This will definitely be a 'fun' comic, since I'll have a revision of my SI character. (I'll add it if I have just one or two leading ideas among all the feedback I get. I will not be just doing this project by itself.) He'll get a name change to Adam Packard which will be the legal name in the comic strip. "Daveykins" would be used purely as an internet alias. He'll be joined with Tara Kit, and Aline Rabbit, and set up shop in a quiet part of town to make a comic strip based on the stories in the Book of FoxFire. It might a good idea to have this run concurrently with the Book of FoxFire strip. Or for that matter, it'll run alongside with any current FoxFire Project. It will only be a 'fun' strip set as a 'slice of life' tale where the trials of making a comic strip online which will have promise for greater things.
- Scarlet: I always wanted to restart on this, but I have developed several new wrinkles. First off, I know that Cartoonist on the Internet has been done, so I'll make Jim Goodlow a rookie detective as desparate for a job as he is for a date, or for that matter, desparate for some body building. Picture what Scarlet would do to him ^-^. Also I decided to take a radical turn for one of her former loves: Is the world ready for a good guy Pippkin?!
- Kitsune .44 (Needs a new title): Another result of an Ivan Mayne hashing of an
old idea of mine. An Irish Missionary travels through time to Feudal Japan where one of the
faction's leaders has caught wind of WWII! The missionary is joined by a female kitsune who has
a fighting style stolen from "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon" and together they stop this leader
from changing the course of history. But will they do it themselves? Remember, this is the US
vs. Japan war we're talking about here.
There are spin-offs where one of the Japanese lieutenants of this mentioned war is a descendant of this mentioned medieval lord, and doesn't know the truth about this lord until The Book of FoxFire tells him. I don't know where this will be placed at. But I'll find a way. - Enraptia: Ivan Mayne's epic which is completely posted in his wing. This is by far his biggest series and I definitely wanted to put it into a strip. The complexity of storyline and characters are a specialty of Mr. Mayne.
- The Sky Bride: Also available are Ivan's other epic. The love and war affair that is his biggest and he'd say best project to date. This title alone may keep someone busy his whole life making a strip for this 170-page-plus story.
- Fauna Force: And finally JB's version of Sonic the Hedgehog. I desperately need to change parts of the three existing issues of Fauna Force as I compile them all into a single graphic novel. Especially with the opening of Ish 1 and the closing of Ish 3. Once I do so I'll be able to move forward with this title with additional issues. Either I do this, or I start over from scratch, with the reasons for doing so very similar to the reasons behind redoing the Scarlet Story, or for that matter the Comic Strip 2.0 as well.
Not only am I asking which of the many projects you want me to work on right now--we can always do the others later on when my rapport with my readers improves--but I also would want to know if any of you would want to help me out here. I would like to have some extra brains to trade ideas on, and mostly keep me honest along the way, but also to assist me with the actual artwork of the strips, which will be a major help to me. It is apparent to me that I have more ideas here than I have drawing arm. (If I'm ever going to make any of these projects, I can't do it alone.) And please, don't just tell me that all of them suck beyond reconciliation and that I have no business being online. Give me suggestions on how I should push these items forward, correct some problems, and how I can keep these projects from being lame. If you have a better idea on where I should take these storylines and characters, let me know what you propose. If you have nothing besides flames to send my way, don't even bother.
You can send me your reply to this E-Mail address that I have created just for this debate: david_gonterman@email.com
