A Deadend update...

Ok I said yesterday that I would post a few pics form Deadend. This is partly true and partly lie! I will post one pic.. but only because it is connected to something I am going to blog about now.

As I have mentioned before, I constantly surprise myself when reading through the various bits of gumpf I have written for Deadend over the years. Part of this has been due to exactly how much I had already fleshed out regarding Issue Zero.

The above pic is, I believe, a test piece Chris did based on one iteration or other of the Issue Zero concept. One of the more interesting things I found about Issue Zero was a file called "Stuff you need to design". Fairly self explanatory really. This little document pretty much contains all the elements that are/ were/ might be incorporated into Issue Zero. It also contains many of my random warbling, which is to be expected really. Feel free to give it a read.

http://www.4shared.com/file/131373597/840a5555/Stuff_you_need_to_design.html

Feedback is appreciated.

Two Posts, One Blog

Wow I have manged to do two entire posts today! Admittedly both of them are of the "blogging for blogging sake" variety.

Anyway a couple of things have been pointed out to me in the last couple of days (by someone who mysteriously goes by the name of Quazimojo in an attempt to anonymously stalk my blog... YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!!!!!). Basically I have been somewhat lax in my proof reading of my own blog posts, with spelling mistakes galore and things that just plain make don't sense. (Incidentally that was on purpose... ha ha aren't I funny...) Not wanting to appear more incompetent than normal, I have gone back and corrected all the spellings and the grammatical irregularities I could spot in all my previous posts! Yes! My day really has been that exciting!!!

Secondly, it has been requested that I post some of the Deadend images I have on my blog. I had decided that I would leave the posting of pictures to Chris but am happy to put a few up here in my next post provided he doesn't mind hehe :) I have plenty of images that Chris has sent to me in the past, so this isn't really a problem. But I do heartily recommend that you actually check out his blog here as it is better than mine.

In other news, My good buddy Den has expressed an interest in helping with our little project and may indeed provide us with lettering, if the comic ever sees some form of paper based issue... Be sure to check out his blog here for far more interesting things than I post on mine.

Hope Springs Eternal

Part of what we always intended with Deadend was to create a universe that was a fully fleshed out as possible. To this end, we decided to write an Issue Zero that would set up the universe a little more fully than jumping straight into the main plot.

The main objective of this was not to introduce any of the main characters, that would wait for the first issue. Instead this was more to give a taster of the background and the events that lead humanity to where it will be when the story proper begins.

In Deadend, Humanity is pretty much a bottom feeding lower class citizen in a vast galactic alliance. How we ended up in this position, and indeed how we even become a part of the alliance, was to be covered in the Zero issue. At the beginning of our tale Earth is on the verge of total ecological meltdown (in fact, come the start of Deadend, Earth was intended to be fundamentally abandoned, with the majority of Humanity on other colonised worlds or in orbiting stations around Earth.) However an attempt was made to save the human race and indeed earth when the governments of Earth got together and created a star ship from which they could find a new habitable world for Humanity to colonize. The ship was called Hope Springs Eternal and its exploits and indeed fate where to be the main subject of Deadend Issue Zero.

Whilst going through all the Deadend stuff, I found that I actually have the majority of Issue Zero already written. It needs work... and finishing, but I thought it would be interesting to post a vague description of how far I got.

It starts with the launch of the Hope, with the President of the U.S. giving some kind of inspirational speech. The next few pages focus on the journey of the Hope, told through news clips on TV. I was going for an almost documentary style with the issue, to give it a sense of history. Anyway... I don't want to give too much away, but the fate of the Hope leads to unavoidable tension back on Earth and eventual war. When humanity is at it's weakest, The Mentarthans make their presence known and war erupts.

So by the end off the issue, Humanity has had to pull them selves out of World War and battle an alien threat. But I'll let you read the issue to find out exactly how it all goes down!

A long time ago...

No this post isn't Star Wars related...

Ok so kind of in tandem with some stuff that my good buddy Chris has been posting over on his blog Edible Brain (go look! it has stuff!), I have been thinking a lot about the comic project that he and I have been working on for the past... actually I don't like to think how long it has been going on!

Most of the basics about the comic are already detailed in various posts on his blog (here, here, here, here and here) so I wont go too much into it at this point. What i will say is that having him post all this has got me thinking about revisiting what I have already done to the comic. Looking on it with fresh (albeit older and dare I say wiser) eyes may give me the kick I need to actually crack out an issue or three for Chris to play with.

You see, as Chris has said, the comic itself is actually remarkably fleshed out. All the main characters are pretty much designed, as are many of the various alien species that inhabit the universe. The main "mythology" had been established and a few of the initial plot lines were also pretty much done. Really all that is actually missing is an actually completed issue, in either written or drawn form.

So here is my goal. I want to have an actually completed issue of Dead End written by the end of the year. I will keep an update on my blog as to my progress with it (as that is pretty much what blogging is all about!), as I will be doing this in my spare time I wouldn't expect too much progress too quickly.

First job is to find all of the Dead End stuff I have stored on my hard drive at home to see exactly where we were with it...