Online for your perusal...

Well the comic preview has been submitted and on display at my end of year exhibition at college.
The opening went well with a decent turn out of people (out of the corner of my eye I kept checking to see if they were browsing through the comic).

As a companion to the exhibition I posted the website online. It's not only the comic but also an early indication of where I would like Interactive Comics to lead into. Regardless of my dreams for a mash-up between Comics an Animation, I though it best to share the site with everyone.

You'll find it at: http://art.tafe.vu.edu.au/sbreese/judas/

From here on I'll be posting some of the production art (as promised) but also hunting for funding.
The next part of the script is also being edited and re-edited and should be ready for illustrating in January. Wish me luck, and if anyone knows a patron who wants to support a new form of art I'm right here waiting...

Cheers!

On Page Five the Earth is in pretty bad shape...

Any post-apocalyptic story needs to be after a disaster. Mine is set after a global environmental upheaval that occurs at the changing of the Mayan calendar. The Mayans had a lot of things worked out and some alternate historians surmise that the Mayan civilisation was coming to the collapse of a highly advanced society. A point where knowledge was being lost instead of increased.

Whichever theory you subscribe to, it is undeniable that their building, architecture, writing, astrology and astronomy were quite advanced. The Mayans measured time in not only days, months, and years; but also in Worlds. If the theory is correct then the world ends in 2012.

Then the New World begins. A new world that in my story heralds a shift in the permutative forces that make up our reality, allowing for esoteric energies to become as recognisable as scientific laws. By 2071 these energies are beginning to coalesce and focus. Opening this little science-fiction saga into other future pathways.

Three is the magic number...

The simulant gestation tank in the first panel was based on the organic shapes of orchids and tulips. I've had that set in my head for more than a few years now. So when I saw Geoff Darrow's magnificently detailed pod designs for The Matrix I was both blown away and gutted. Even though there is a visual similarity I figured "bugger it, that's how they always looked in my head -that's what I'll publish".
I'm just glad that my brain was on a similar wavelength to Darrow. I consider him to be right up there near Syd Mead when it comes to concept art.

This page also introduces three major characters. Xemos Heck, the stranded Martian tourist. Fae, the ambassador for the Faelien species, and Suce, the enticeing and devilishly brilliant business woman. And 'the Makers' from the first panel? I'm not telling yet.

Enough talk - bring me the comic!

The next posts will show the completed interior pages and credits page for the preview.
It's not quite the same as hearing the dialog play with the page's soundtrack, but that day is coming. So far the preview can be read as a Flash based pageflip of a pdf slideshow.

Of the two I prefer the slidshow, each page lasts onscreen for ten seconds and is accompanied by a looped soundtrack. Still, I haven't given up on the magic of Flash or Java riddled XHML.

That's enough talk for now, you saw the cover at the last post. Now here's the first page...

First page artwork sans text

For those of you who've browsed my links you'll have seen the 'Playing with Text' earlier post.
But for those who came in late, and crave artwork here's a taste of the first page (free of lettering and titles).

It's a shot of Judas sporting the bloodstains and bruises of the recently beaten. He is in the process of scanning for his friends (Xemos Heck in particular), however he knows that he was the only one to escape.

Denial is a powerful thing after all...