Comic Collaboration Idea: The Greatastic War

Begin.

The idea is rather simple. Get some talented comic-writers / comic-teams together. Each person/group creates a country, filled with their own brand of odd-ball characters. These people (societally speaking) can be any stereotype imagined, and can physically be anything from geometric shapes to angry kitchen appliances. They are given a brief-history and a political outlook. They can be anything from terrified scaredy-cats with hideble cities to power-hungry slugs with a Nazi-estic bent.

With the participation of the comic-makers, the countries are placed on a map, and borders are drawn up, and sides are taken. The comic-makers are now aware of their enemies, and can collaborate with them on a cohesive timeline.

But effectively, each comic-maker (or group if multiple people work on one country) is now at war, and will draw their comic from the limited PoV of their country's members. The style of the story is theirs to choose (though comedy would be preferred so as to keep things light), and the actions of their nation are theirs to control.

Now we get on to the interesting part.

Each comic details the war from their country's perspective, and as a country makes an action, the other comics (told from the PoV of the other countries) react to that action. Not every action has to be acknowledged, but it should be accepted as canon.

I.E. if the Evil Overlord Manic Spiffy launches a nuclear warhead at his rival, then another comic can't say, "well it's a good thing no one's used nukes yet." (unless of course, the character speaking is blissfully unaware that such an action has taken place).

To make this work there will have to be some ground rules.
1. No bullying other comic-maker countries. If you want to have a long war with them, then the two of you should collaborate to come up with a plausable and fun storyline. If you can't make something work, you can't attack them. (of course, this cuts both ways)
2. No surprises. To this end, a message board will be created, and a unified timeline will be followed. Participants will share, in a secure location, their upcoming issues so that people will have time to react.
3. The unified timeline will be made flexible, so that montages and other story-telling tricks will be allowed to happen, but effectively, all the comics published at a given time will have a given timeframe for them to occur.
4. Events that occur (attacks, news worthy items, world-events, etc) will happen in a set order. Comics which feature those must be displayed before other comics can react to them. This may take some work.
5. NPCs can and should be shared by all. NPCs are the only group which can be eradicated completely (they don't have comics, who cares what happens to them).
6. All participants are expected to update at least once a week. The more times/week you post, the slower the pace of your comic will be (as you'll have more time for chit-chat between each major event).
7. There will be a world-master, who will be in charge of managing the events and controlling the timeline. The timeline will likely be counted in weeks or months, and will advance slowly so as not to rush through the war. The world-master will collaborate with the comic-makers and control, to some extent, the actions and goals of the NPCs.
8. It will also be the world-master who will resolve such issues as comics falling behind in the timeline (or not updating), and they will largely be in charge of the meta-comic experience.
9. When using an NPC or comic-maker's country, you are expected to attempt to portray them as they are in their own comic (or in the case of NPCs, in the comic they were introduced). You are allowed to merge them into your style, but if they're listed as being giant militant carrots, that's what you have to draw them as.
10. It should be noted that the ultimate goal is to produce completely separate comics, which intertwine. The comics should be written with the idea that the reader is not reading the other comics. This will enhance the enjoyment of all the readers.

That's the idea as it stands right now. :D
let me know via PM at SmackJeeves (I'm JimmyDabomb there) or
via email at crazyjimmy@gmail.com if you're interested in taking part.

Games I Like

I just thought I'd share a few puzzle games I enjoy playing. They're very stimulating.

Slither Link: http://www.puzzle-loop.com/
Description: Create a continuous circuit around a grid by connecting points.

SquarO: http://www.squaro.fr/en/play.htm
Description: Fill in the appropriate dots.

That's it for now.

Oatmeal madness

I like to mix my oatmeal flavors, to see what works well together.

Today I've mixed Cinnamon&Spice, Apple&Cinnamon, and RaisinDate&Walnut flavors together. It's yummy in my tummy.

In writing news, I'm still working on my short story. I had to go back and revise a part that was less than ideal, and ended up with something I'm much happier with. I find that when I've got the proper mindset with a story that I think about it while doing very mundane things. I had an idea for the next twist while brushing my teeth a day later. Current count is 5600 words.

I'm lagging in my comic making, but a nice person sent me 3 comics to help out, so I'll get a week to try to build up a queue. I'm going to get a comic up today for last friday. It's drawn, just not cleaned up. The comics go more slowly now that I'm taking more time on them, and frankly, having a new MMO to play with my wife has reduced the amount of creative time I'm taking.

However, we just got Ghostbusters, so I should be able to finish a comic while that's playing. Maybe I'll get two done. That'd rock.

One final note: you can now see Quickshots at http://qs-labs.com

Ciao for now.
--Joe