It's been a long time in my mind, this idea, and if I don't get it out soon it's just going to stay there and never get done. So, here I am, taking a leap. This is a call to arms, a challenge for anyone interested in the Escapist Community, to help me with a project. I'm looking for web-builders and artists to help me make... A WEBCOMIC! Yes, that old cliche of a web creation, nevertheless I have a story, a talent for writing, and a lack of talent for art, and I want to share it with the world! The story and the talent for writing, that is. Like hell I'm going to unleash my crappy art skills on the world.
So, yeah, story teaser in the spoiler box. It's not the first time I've tried to get people on this site to help me with such projects, however, and such atttempts have always met with failure or withlack of interest and been buried underneath crappy repeat threads about various irrelevant topics. So, I'm taking a different tack here.
Anyone interested in helping me on this, show me what you've got.
Yes, these strips are pretty crappy, but this isn't to show off my skills as a writer, it's for you to all show off your artistic skills so I know what people are capable of. Thoe briefs were thought up just now in five minutes, whereas for the comic itself I'll be using Celtx (screenwriting software) and its comic format templates to design the layout and write the script for each strip, and I'll probably spend hours writing to actually get a good story and professional level work. So please don't be put off by the crappy writing in the aforementioned briefs.
In any case, whoever wants to get involved, get a set of strips drawn up and send them in, and I'll pick a winning collaborator in the near future!
[small]EDIT: Forgot to give the character descriptions. This is a brief rundown, feel free to change as you see fit, though they'll be fixed for the actual project. Though for a 'brief' rundown I could probably have made them shorter.
[/small]
The premise is fairly simple, and hopefully interesting enough to want to be involved with. Think Being Human meet Supernatural meets Spooks. With a dash of I Want You To Feel The Pressure (which is an awesome webcomic that is in its early days, sadly it only updates once a week and deserves a lot more love...). Imagine Earth as it is today, except that the supernatural is a normal part of daily life. The British Home Secretary is a vampire and the Speaker of the House is a centaur. The NHS in the UK has blood banks specifically for vampires. Colonies of merpeople off the Australian coast are spearheading the fight against Japanese whalers. The US Marines have a special contingent of battle mages. And so on.
In the middle of all this, in the UK, the Ministry of Defence has a third intelligence force alongside MI5 and MI6, the Department of Paranormal Defence (DPD). In London, the local division of this is called Echo Division and deals with any supernatural-based espionage in the south of England and in the capital. This is the basic premise. In the middle of this, we have young intelligence agents Robert Carter and Niamh Flannery, who have both been part of Echo Division's core team for a year after graduating university. Prior to that they were assets for the division, having each received the proverbial tap on the shoulder while studying. After the senior intelligence officer on the team dies in an operation gone wrong some time before the comic starts, Rob and Niamh have been promoted as team leaders. They live together along with the third member of their team, intelligence analyst and 'man in Havana' Lucas Bailey, who supports them and their assets and agents while in the field. The team is led overall by Jack Slater, who acts as section chief and reports directly to the Home Secretary.
The comic starts when the team are asked to investigate what seems to be nothing more than a police issue, a spate of unregulated vampire attacks and disappearances of homeless people. However, it becomes clear fairly soon that Echo Division are dealing with a much larger threat, one that seems to be linked to an incident in Niamh's past back in her home city, Dublin. Meanwhile, Abigail Crowe, an ex-girlfriend of Rob's from university and now a successful businesswoman, turns up and causes tensions within the group. Is she involved in whatever the team are on the verge of uncovering?
In the middle of all this, in the UK, the Ministry of Defence has a third intelligence force alongside MI5 and MI6, the Department of Paranormal Defence (DPD). In London, the local division of this is called Echo Division and deals with any supernatural-based espionage in the south of England and in the capital. This is the basic premise. In the middle of this, we have young intelligence agents Robert Carter and Niamh Flannery, who have both been part of Echo Division's core team for a year after graduating university. Prior to that they were assets for the division, having each received the proverbial tap on the shoulder while studying. After the senior intelligence officer on the team dies in an operation gone wrong some time before the comic starts, Rob and Niamh have been promoted as team leaders. They live together along with the third member of their team, intelligence analyst and 'man in Havana' Lucas Bailey, who supports them and their assets and agents while in the field. The team is led overall by Jack Slater, who acts as section chief and reports directly to the Home Secretary.
The comic starts when the team are asked to investigate what seems to be nothing more than a police issue, a spate of unregulated vampire attacks and disappearances of homeless people. However, it becomes clear fairly soon that Echo Division are dealing with a much larger threat, one that seems to be linked to an incident in Niamh's past back in her home city, Dublin. Meanwhile, Abigail Crowe, an ex-girlfriend of Rob's from university and now a successful businesswoman, turns up and causes tensions within the group. Is she involved in whatever the team are on the verge of uncovering?
So, yeah, story teaser in the spoiler box. It's not the first time I've tried to get people on this site to help me with such projects, however, and such atttempts have always met with failure or withlack of interest and been buried underneath crappy repeat threads about various irrelevant topics. So, I'm taking a different tack here.
Anyone interested in helping me on this, show me what you've got.
In the spoiler boxes below are a rough draft of the first five strips, with ideas for dialogue and action. These are free to be changed and edited as you wish, but what I want people to do is submit to me by email ([email protected]), by PM, or in this thread, their artwork and finished strips based on the below drafts. You can choose the number of panels, the artstyle, what the characters look like (except for anything I specify, such as the main characters), anything you feel is relevant, as long as it roughly fits the drafts below. I'll pick the best submission or submissions and approach those artists to work with me. As for web developers, there's no test, but anyone willing to build the website is free to just get in touch as they want.
As for payment, well, it all depends on popularity. When I have a team or collaborator then I want to set up a Kickstarter to fund the costs of developing the website and hosting the comic, and to be able to pay said artist(s), wages depending on the amount raised. When the comic is more popular then advertising space can be sold to bring in the money. I don't expect this is ever going to be a career or anything, I have a full time job and the beginnings of a decent career in quantity surveying, so this would be a side thing for me to entertain people and maybe earn a little on the side, but being able to pay an artist and web developer and cover the costs of running the comic without dipping into my own funds would be important from the start. Just in case anyone is concerned about that.
Aside from the previously mentioned rules and provisos, there's not much else to say except to give the brief for the test strips! If anyone has any questions then feel free to ask in the thread or by PM, either way
.
As for payment, well, it all depends on popularity. When I have a team or collaborator then I want to set up a Kickstarter to fund the costs of developing the website and hosting the comic, and to be able to pay said artist(s), wages depending on the amount raised. When the comic is more popular then advertising space can be sold to bring in the money. I don't expect this is ever going to be a career or anything, I have a full time job and the beginnings of a decent career in quantity surveying, so this would be a side thing for me to entertain people and maybe earn a little on the side, but being able to pay an artist and web developer and cover the costs of running the comic without dipping into my own funds would be important from the start. Just in case anyone is concerned about that.
Aside from the previously mentioned rules and provisos, there's not much else to say except to give the brief for the test strips! If anyone has any questions then feel free to ask in the thread or by PM, either way
.Strip 1:
Brief explanation of the comic world, however you feel would best explain the world the series is set in while saving space. The main picture is a panoramic view of modern-day London, though possibly a few key differences in buildings. Ideally keeping St Pauls and the Millennium Bridge in, as I have big plans for them a lot further down the line...
Strip 2:
Continuing the description from the previous strip, we see a few panels showing snapshots of police at a crime scene in a London alleyway. In the last panel we see part of a dead male body, possibly covered by a sheet, with forensics around him.
Strip 3:
The panels depict Rob and Niamh arriving at the crime scene. They're discussing the situation, how it's hardly spy work, though they avoid mentioning the word 'spy' around the regular police.
Rob - "This is beneath us..."
Niamh - "We heard the same briefing, this is our case. Like it or not."
Lucas (over earpieces, from base) - "Stop fussing and just do your jobs. Grab the stiff and get the hell out."
Strip 4:
A black SUV is driving through London streets, Niamh is driving with Rob in the back at a makeshift autopsy table fixed to the floor of the vehicle. They are continuing the dicsussion from earlier.
Rob - "All I'm saying is this is grunt work, why are we dealing with cases like this?"
Lucas (over earpieces again) - "Scotland Yard are stumped, remember? And take a look at the wounds."
The panels show Rob looking down at the body, but don't show the wounds.
Rob - "I saw them. I saw them on the last body, and the one before, and before that."
Strip 5:
A full page single panel strip, showing the whole body (clothed or not is artist's choice) covered by a sheet, with a closeup inset of the deceased's neck. Puncture wounds, like a vampire bite, are visible on the neck. Rob is standing looking at the body and holding onto the SUV's internal handbar for support.
Rob - "I don't need to look anymore."
Brief explanation of the comic world, however you feel would best explain the world the series is set in while saving space. The main picture is a panoramic view of modern-day London, though possibly a few key differences in buildings. Ideally keeping St Pauls and the Millennium Bridge in, as I have big plans for them a lot further down the line...
Strip 2:
Continuing the description from the previous strip, we see a few panels showing snapshots of police at a crime scene in a London alleyway. In the last panel we see part of a dead male body, possibly covered by a sheet, with forensics around him.
Strip 3:
The panels depict Rob and Niamh arriving at the crime scene. They're discussing the situation, how it's hardly spy work, though they avoid mentioning the word 'spy' around the regular police.
Rob - "This is beneath us..."
Niamh - "We heard the same briefing, this is our case. Like it or not."
Lucas (over earpieces, from base) - "Stop fussing and just do your jobs. Grab the stiff and get the hell out."
Strip 4:
A black SUV is driving through London streets, Niamh is driving with Rob in the back at a makeshift autopsy table fixed to the floor of the vehicle. They are continuing the dicsussion from earlier.
Rob - "All I'm saying is this is grunt work, why are we dealing with cases like this?"
Lucas (over earpieces again) - "Scotland Yard are stumped, remember? And take a look at the wounds."
The panels show Rob looking down at the body, but don't show the wounds.
Rob - "I saw them. I saw them on the last body, and the one before, and before that."
Strip 5:
A full page single panel strip, showing the whole body (clothed or not is artist's choice) covered by a sheet, with a closeup inset of the deceased's neck. Puncture wounds, like a vampire bite, are visible on the neck. Rob is standing looking at the body and holding onto the SUV's internal handbar for support.
Rob - "I don't need to look anymore."
Yes, these strips are pretty crappy, but this isn't to show off my skills as a writer, it's for you to all show off your artistic skills so I know what people are capable of. Thoe briefs were thought up just now in five minutes, whereas for the comic itself I'll be using Celtx (screenwriting software) and its comic format templates to design the layout and write the script for each strip, and I'll probably spend hours writing to actually get a good story and professional level work. So please don't be put off by the crappy writing in the aforementioned briefs.
In any case, whoever wants to get involved, get a set of strips drawn up and send them in, and I'll pick a winning collaborator in the near future!
[small]EDIT: Forgot to give the character descriptions. This is a brief rundown, feel free to change as you see fit, though they'll be fixed for the actual project. Though for a 'brief' rundown I could probably have made them shorter.
Rob - Fairly tall, dark messy hair, not heavily built but not skinny either, decent actor and can blend in to a crowd pretty easily. More of a gun fighter than a physical sort. He tends to wear casual shirts and jeans but could look halfway decent in a formal suit when he needs to, for professional situations. Would rather just wear the shirt and jeans though. Born and raised in the Midlands of the UK, went to university in London to study Maths, took a special interest in cryptography. Stays fit and active for his work, mainly enjoys cycling and climbing. Decent mage, specialises in elemental magic, both offensive and defensive. Has a good psychic ability as well.
Niamh - Tall, but a little shorter than Rob. Long black hair, a little bit wavy. Cute more so than sexy, but definitely decent looking, she's also something of an actor and has a liking for long range weaponry, taking a marksman role while performing wetwork ops. Born and raised in Dublin, moved to London for university and later to work for the government. Has a fondness for long flowing skirts and tights or stockings. Went through a 'perky goth' phase at university, where she studied Psychology, but grew out of it, though she hints at it with some of her clothing choices. Also enjoys cycling, as well as hiking and swimming. Very perceptive of the world around her. Also a decent mage, mainly specialising in empathic and extra-sensory magic and enhancing her senses (all, not just the traditional five), as well as being able to pick up on memories and emotions from the area around her. As an empath and a psychology graduate, plus having an innate ability for 'truth-reading', she has a remarkable skill as a human lie detector.
Niamh - Tall, but a little shorter than Rob. Long black hair, a little bit wavy. Cute more so than sexy, but definitely decent looking, she's also something of an actor and has a liking for long range weaponry, taking a marksman role while performing wetwork ops. Born and raised in Dublin, moved to London for university and later to work for the government. Has a fondness for long flowing skirts and tights or stockings. Went through a 'perky goth' phase at university, where she studied Psychology, but grew out of it, though she hints at it with some of her clothing choices. Also enjoys cycling, as well as hiking and swimming. Very perceptive of the world around her. Also a decent mage, mainly specialising in empathic and extra-sensory magic and enhancing her senses (all, not just the traditional five), as well as being able to pick up on memories and emotions from the area around her. As an empath and a psychology graduate, plus having an innate ability for 'truth-reading', she has a remarkable skill as a human lie detector.
