InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "It's for my prince."

essaybee (essaybee) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-07-17 21:40:00

Entry tags:

in-joke: shameless plug, medium: webcomic, title: fusion

Preview of "Fusion" (My original comic)
Over on the old Scans Daily site, I posted a NSFW erotic parody of JLU known as the "Great Scott Saga." (It was composed of 4 parts: "Great Scott," "Fool Me Once . . ." "Birds of a Feather," and "Hell or High Water.")

Well, I've started my first original comic titled "Fusion" (which is SFW, by the way), and thought I'd post the initial preview here. The following is my own work, so there should be no problems with the page-limit restrictions. Hope you folks enjoy the preview. (And I know Harold's freckles disappear. I'll correct that when I finish the issue.)

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stolisomancer
2009-07-17 11:04 pm UTC (link)

I would recommend that you do some reading with an eye towards exposition. It's like you want to cram as many words into the book as possible, which I don't have a problem with for its own sake, but page 2 is really clunky.

It's why so many superhero books begin with the origin, or with a flashback to the origin, or with somebody finding out the character's secret and needing to be told what's up.

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essaybee
2009-07-18 01:43 am UTC (link)

". . . or with a flashback to the origin . . ."

Although I cut the preview off before getting to the end of the flashback (which will be on page 10), the flashback is her origin. And, as you said, it's a structure that "so many superhero books begin with," hence Bob's complaint about predictable story structure at the beginning of the flashback.

Clunkiness is something that I hope to avoid (most of my late script changes have been to add transitions to improve the flow of narrative to dialogue) and is something that I strive to avoid. Just curious, but, regarding page 2, how easy is it to follow the flow of the boxes? They should be read in a Z pattern.

Regarding wordiness . . . I'll address that in my response to the next comment. Thanks for the feedback!

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rab62
2009-07-17 11:08 pm UTC (link)

As a fan of the "Great Scott" stories I'm delighted to see this.

The idea of a character breaking the fourth wall knowing she's a comic book character owing to her experience with parallel universes and regarding it as equivalent to starring in a reality show is an idea that will have other creators kicking themselves for not having thought of it first.

My only quibble is that Fusion's narration tends to be overly wordy. I totally understand the temptation but you have to be especially harsh with yourself. I always favored the rule (alternately credited to Stan Lee or Mort Weisinger) than a standard comics panel can only usefully hold 30-35 words. That's counting all word balloons, thought balloons, narration, and footnotes. (N.B.: that's based on a five or six panel page, so really what you're aiming for is to avoid going much over 200 words on a page.) Obviously the rule CAN be broken with impunity, but it's one of those "you need to know the rule and practice it before you should break it" deals.

Other than that, I'm liking it and definitely interested in seeing more.

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essaybee
2009-07-18 01:58 am UTC (link)

Glad to see a Great Scott fan here!

The wordiness is partly by design and partly by the way I reworked my script to get the first issue down to 20-21 pages.

Page 2 and the first 2 panels of page 3 were originally supposed to make up the text for 2 pages, and the third panel of page 3 was originally a full-page splash. However, to save a page, I cut the 3 pages down to 2 (which didn't bother me since all pre-flashback panels are just Fusion flying, so an extra panel of her flying seemed kinda redundant to me). So the reasons for so much text per panel is a result of trying to fit the story in the page restrictions I'm setting for myself.

Now, as to why Fusion's exposition is so wordy . . . that's a lot by design, and will become a bit more apparent as the series progresses. Right now, the whole concept of having people watch her life is pretty exciting for her, so she tends to chat with the reader a lot. As the series continues, her conversation with the reader will decrease as the novelty of having her own show wears off and the reality of her life through a comic becomes more mundane. To continue with the reality TV metaphor, it's how people may at first be conscious of the camera on them, but as the crews become a standard part of life, the cameras and the knowledge that they're on camera kinda fades into the background. However, the reader will be an important part of her life--especially when things start to get a bit more serious further down the road. At those times, the reader will serve as a confidant and someone for her to pour her heart out to.

However, I will try to keep a tighter rein on her, although the girl does tend to blabber on whenever she's excited or nervous. And hopefully Bob can keep her inner dialogue more on target in the future.

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	xammax 2009-07-18 01:24 am UTC (link)
	I am enjoying what I read. On another level, could some repost Great Scott... come on you know we all want it. Also was that cliffhanger ever resolved? (Reply to this) (Thread)

	essaybee 2009-07-18 01:35 am UTC (link)
	I'm currently working on page 68 of "Hell or High Water," which is the last part of the saga. I figure there's probably 15 pages to go, or so. But I've been bad at estimating the size of these stories. I can post them all when I'm done. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	xammax 2009-07-18 02:05 am UTC (link)
	Thanks. And again I enjoy your new more work friendly stuff. I love you art. (Reply to this) (Parent)

psychop_rex
2009-07-18 05:23 am UTC (link)

I like the concept of a comic book character who's AWARE that she's a comic book character. And I like the character of Savunn - she's a cutie.
I do have one comment, though. It seemed to me that you may be relying a bit much on the hand/hands on hip/s pose when it comes to Savunn. She seems to strike that pose an awful lot, and really, I've hardly ever seen anybody do that for more than a few seconds. Granted, this is just the preview, so I don't know what she's doing in the rest of the comic, but I just thought I should mention it.

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essaybee
2009-07-18 02:57 pm UTC (link)

Crap. I was hoping this wouldn't be very noticeable, and it's a very valid criticism.

Here's one of my dirty little secrets. . . . The hands on hips is me cheating. I did several turnarounds of Savunn (civilian clothes, Fusion, and Fusion powered-up). Everyone of the hands-on-hips pics is the result of me cutting and pasting from my turnarounds (and resizing a bit). The pic with both hands on hips is just cutting, pasting, and rotating her left arm from said turnaround and making it her right arm too. I periodically do cheats like this to speed up page production. If you've seen my Great Scott saga, you might notice that I recycle certain faces. A lot of times I'll redraw the mouth or eyes to change the expression, but the basic outline linework stays the same. I try to keep a steady output of material, and with a family and full-time job (and hour-long commute), I don't have as much time to spend on doing these comics as I'd like, so I periodically employ cheats like this to maintain a steady pace of page output. Good news is I don't think I use this pose any more in the comic (well, this issue at least).

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psychop_rex
2009-07-18 09:14 pm UTC (link)

Well, I don't think I would have noticed it if it hadn't showed up so much in the first few pages. If it were scattered throughout the issue more - once on page 3, again on page 10, again on page 20 - it wouldn't be anywhere near as noticeable. (Well, maybe to me it would, but I'm one of those guys who pores through my 'Zits' collections looking for repeated strips. It's really amazing how often they do it; some of those suckers must have been printed about five times in as many books.)

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