Monthly Archives: February 2010

The Tutorial

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This is the old Tutorial for Chaos Theory style comics.

(UPDATE: Mr. Dylan Duarte wrote a very nice review on this tutorial. I’d like to thank him…)

Well,

By now I’m still no great expert in the world of comic making. In fact, the truth is that Halo Webcomics are really a first step into real comic-making. The only problem is finding a dedicated artist for free. So I turned to one of my favorite games—and I don’t think anyone is going to be able to guess what it is. I’ll just leave you with the suspense and mystery of trying to figure that out.

I’m going to take this tutorial in steps. I want to break down everything I do from start to finish, and with each step I will provide some analysis as to why it works for me, or what could be improved.

This is a Guide for Extended Length comics that are released in PDF format.

So here is a guide to each step I will cover:

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

Brainstorming

Scripting

Forging

Grouping

Acting/ Lining Up Shots for Theater Mode

Taking the Pictures

Photoshop/ Color As A Unique Medium

Merging Images with Dialogue/ Issues Therein

Revision

Publishing

Copyrights

Promotion

Working With a Fan Base

So here we go:

Part One: Brainstorming

Being an intense writer means you are always daydreaming when you are supposed to be doing something else. Luckily though, you don’t need to be an intense writer. I write short fiction on top of the comic here, but none of that is necessary. What do you really need? Dedication.

You also have to enjoy the process. It simply isn’t going to work if you don’t. I had made Episode Two before I even thought about releasing it to the public. I just enjoyed producing them.

Part of brainstorming is just sitting back and fantasizing about what would make the perfect story. Most people have done it in some form or another. When you picture yourself as a hero or villain, who are you? Think about it and form stories around yourself in this alternate form. Don’t be afraid to take notes. Jot things down. If you have more than three ideas at once, you are going to forget one of them.

Sit, relax, play a good RPG, read a book, watch a movie. Just don’t start plagiarizing lines directly off the movies because they sound cool. People have seen the movie. They are going to know.

Part Two: Scripting

There are classes for this kind of thing, so what I’m going to tell you are just some of my favorite tips.

1.) Don’t Steal Lines:

I said it before, I’ll say it again.

2.) Develop Style:

Make sure that your characters are unique. Don’t follow stereotypes! Why? Because they have already been used; that’s why they’re stereotypes. Even if you think James Bond is cool (he is, I know, I love the movies), don’t write a James Bond fan fiction. It is still James Bond even if he’s called Jeff: your character needs to have discerning traits.

One of my favorite things to do is to write morally ambiguous characters. He killed his mother? Great. Why? It’s ultra violent, but it proves that he isn’t the regular hero. Even better is producing characters that are the protagonists of the stories simply by virtue of them being “less bad” than their evil counterparts.

3.) Don’t Over Do It:

I used to be pretty guilty of this. Characters need to have two sides. Nothing is all bad or all good. Don’t be afraid to make your character more human. If he loses a fight, it’s okay: he isn’t God; that makes readers empathize with him or her.

Make sure that your dialogue doesn’t involve “bad-assness” all the time. It is important to even out the good moments by providing conversations that don’t sound like an escalating series of clichés. They should talk like real people. Here is the trick though: these are people, BUT they are your characters. If he’s an ex-marine or she’s a scientist, let them talk as people of that sort would. The marine can yell, and the scientist can have a huge vocabulary. It is important to make sure that the realism in the characters doesn’t offend or bore your readers.

What’s the most important thing? I’ll say it again and again. Give them what they want. If the Marine basically speaks in an elaborate string of curses, don’t let him talk at all. No one is there to read the tale of an undefeatable bad-ass with an ego the size of Montana. No one will grow attached to him, no one will care.

Another important part to this: You can only have such moments work in two places.

1.) The introduction of a character. E.g. Horizon enters and swings the back end of the car around to meet the Merc’s face, knocking him backwards. He stands.

Merc: Who are you?!?

Horizon: Me? I’m your worst nightmare.

End Chapter One.

2.) After the character has been developed through out the story. E.g. Gunner looks down at Rev’s corpse. Blackness. Sound: CH-CHK

Gunner: Jesus, man! What happened to your face Horiz-?

Sound: BLAM. Gunner falls down.

Axel: Please. Call me Axel.

End Chapter Five.

The point is, whether you enjoyed those particular moments in the series or not, they represent appropriate times to include intense moments. However, make sure not to have too many of those.

4.) Grammar: How much is too much?

Quick note here: Using standard grammar is really important. Your punctuation and capitalization must be correct, but writing with style means breaking some of the rules. Don’t conform to the conventions of standard written English. Use fragment sentences. End with a preposition. Do it. Who’s going to question you? An English teacher? Your fans will enjoy it.

5.) Write for the audience:

They want to read something fun, something suspenseful. If you don’t like what you wrote, get rid of it. You’ll be happier in the long run if you do. Make sure to read the script immediately before filming.

Part Three: Forging

This can make or break a comic. If it looks like you’re playing Team Slayer on Guardian, it’s probably because you were. Delete everything, then go back and place all the weapons or objects each character will need in one place on the map that will never be seen during filming.

You will notice that very little forging is necessary. The maps on Foundry that I have used were not made by me, but because they have been changed and re-saved by various people, I can never be sure who to credit. So I credit the public and Bungie—see Chapter 11 for copyright info.

Part Four: Grouping

When you’ve got your map and script ready, it’s time to start acting, or Puppeteering as it’s called. It means that you need to find people who can help you maneuver the characters in scenes requiring action, or more than four characters. (1 Xbox360 = 4 characters). It’s best to find friends or other comic makers who will sympathize with you and work hard to get it done. This isn’t to say you can’t fool around a bit, but you are here to make a comic—so, don’t forget to have some responsible people join you.

Next, set the characters to the right colors and armor combinations. Don’t forget the armor detail. In close-up shots, it can really stand out. People are going to wonder why your character has a blue ring around his arm and leg when he really should be all red. Check before you start. Make sure it is right: sometimes Halo3 will revert the player’s armor back to Mark VI before the game starts. Watch out for that.

Part Five: Acting/ Lining Up Shots for Theater Mode

This is what leads to all your visuals. Set yourself up for dramatic moments and great shots. A lone character in front of a wall of light is cool, but it can’t be every shot. Comic making is all about the balance of amazing and just merely good. You make the great shots stand out by having them alongside standard shots.

Make sure each character is doing what they should be doing. It’s really frustrating to go into theater mode and find out that someone was over by the cliff for no reason. Additionally, if you make a mistake and you find yourself re-organizing or shuffling your characters because something wasn’t to your liking, just restart the game. You’ll save time not having to fast-forward through 10 minutes of unusable film.

Part of working by yourself means controlling all the characters alone. It can be advantageous. People are eager to help, but if you are going on 4 hours, someone is going to have to leave. If you work alone, you can stop and restart however many times you like.

If you are alone, make sure to use the “Local Play Weapons Down Glitch.” By holding a series of buttons when you are in a local game, you can lower several of the weapons in the game to produce a less offensive stance on the part of your characters.

One problem is that, unless you have two decked out accounts with which to work, multiples of the unlockable armor types will not be available to one of the characters. In a scene with Gunner and Rev, I set one character to look like Rev and then one character (Gunner) to be just purely green. Then I only included Gunner’s feet. Then I restarted and set Gunner up on my main account to include a few shots of him moving without Rev in the picture. It usually goes unnoticed if you fill the page with dialogue and text. People aren’t looking for ways to question your every move. Make it believable.

Part Six: Taking the Pictures

Read a few comics right before you do this. Notice the shots they take, or take a course in film production as I did. It will cue you in to what works and what doesn’t as far as angles go. But you are the artist; don’t let anything hinder your creativity. Go for what you like because chances are you won’t be the only one.

Save each picture as a letter (I do it this way) or as a number to the tenths place: (123.5) (Jim Stitzel does it that way.) It won’t matter what you call them: on your Bungie page they will appear in the order you took them. Up to 30 of the pictures will be saved at a time, so be sure to download them if you are going to be taking more than that.

Make sure you have enough space on Halo3 to take as many shots as you want. If you like collecting your favorite screens, you may have a problem. Halo3 can only save 50 shots to you hard drive at once. Either delete some entirely, or put them on your computer to save before trashing them.

Make sure you are connected to Xbox Live when snapping your pictures. Halo 3 will automatically upload them to your Bungie.net profile. You won’t need to sign in.

To do this, follow these steps:

1.) Go to Bungie.net

2.) Enter a random search term. Wait for the page to load.

3.) Scroll down. You are going to see a box that says “people finder” on the right side of the page.

4.) Enter your gamertag.

5.) Go to your screenshots.

6.) Then find recent screen shots.

7.) To download the shots. Click View Hi-Res.

8.) Save them.

Part Seven: Photoshop; Color as a Unique Medium

A lot of people already know how to use some image editing software and have chosen their favorite program with which to create their comic. I’m not going to use program-specific jargon to describe what to do here.

One of the most important things in generating a unique and fresh comic is to have unique images. Work with filters. In Reclaimer, the filter used is similar to ink-sketching. It is a popular one that arrived on the Webcomic scene when Jim Stitzel decided to use it to make his comic appear hand-drawn.

In Chaos Theory, I use a different filter to soften each image. It reduces the graphic glitches such as clipping that are apparent in unfiltered shots.

Color is important. It sets the mood of the story. HolyJunkie (Dead.halo3webcomics.com) introduced a character that sucks the color out of his surroundings. Ominous, no? I use muted colors on all my shots to convey a very desperate atmosphere. I also use several photoshoped elements on my characters to display their personalities.

Part Eight: Merging Images with Dialogue—Issues Therein

Putting the script dialogue to the images can be tricky. This is where you are going to want to spend a bit of money.

Virgin Comics has a program called “Comic Book Creator” which basically allows you to very easily move, format, and space out your images in a variety of styles. The various dialogue bubbles are easy to use as well.

Sometimes though, certain sequences can be unclear. First a character is jumping, and then he is in a car. If you didn’t take one particular image or forgot to take an image that should have been placed in between to indicate motion of a character, what has just happened can be unclear. One solution is to have the character explain it casually. (E.g. “I was scared. I didn’t know what to do so I ran—ran hard, and jumped into the car before speeding off.)

I use narrators in my comic. Each character has a different “level of narration,” something you might not pick up on right away. It works like this:

Some characters only narrate in the present tense/ recent past tense. Characters such as Axel will only speak in the moment of the action, unlike characters such as Gunner or Horizon who are narrating in the present. They occasionally address the reader directly.

The levels of narration go as such:

1.) Axel

2.) Horizon

3.) Gunner

4.) Disk

5.) Catcher

If two or more are present, the character with the highest score will narrate the encounter with the other. If Horizon is present with Disk, Horizon will narrate. If it is Gunner with Catcher, Gunner will narrate.

Part Nine: Revision

Plan on reading and re-reading your final comic for errors. The problem that we Extended Length comic makers have that others do not is that we face tons and tons of dialogue when it comes time to edit. When I get to that stage, I have seen it all a hundred times, and I tend to miss things. It is a fault I still suffer from, but someone has offered to spell check for me recently, and I took him up on the offer. It certainly helps. Don’t think spelling doesn’t matter. It does, and a large vocabulary helps. It lets people know that yes I am intelligent, and yes, I take pride in my work. It is not appealing to see typos or grammatical errors when reading something. You begin to question the author’s maturity, something no writer can afford. Read out-loud. And do it slowly. You won’t miss anything that way. Keep Google open. If you think you spelled it wrong, you probably did. If you think you probably spelt it right, chances are there’s an “sc” or “ei” reversed.

Part Ten: Publishing

This is the best part. Once you have exported to PDF from your program of choice (again, I use Comic Book Creator) you need to find a place to host your material. Jim Stitzel recently released halo3webcomics.com (the site you are probably reading this on), a site that allows you to have a spot on Jim’s personal server. He has a great set up, and is more knowledgeable in the ways of fixing bugs and errors than anyone I know. I recommend him to Extended Length and Daily comic producers alike. Having the right kind of site is important. Make sure the site’s theme reflects your comic’s theme, and take yourself seriously. Make sure everyone knows you for who you are in real life. People with aliases are fine, but when being called DarkLord7 becomes your online personality, it gets weird.

My comic is dark, yes, but I post with a happy outward attitude that reflects me in real life. I’m not pretending to be fighting some great spiritual war inside my soul; I make comics, and I’m not Satan. Make sure you are ready to make that distinction.

Make your world the best it can be, and invite people to join you. If they like the atmosphere they feel when reading your stuff, they will come back for more. Give the people what they want.

Part Eleven: Copyrights

Microsoft takes no prisoners. Use the following disclaimer provided by Microsoft for people who use their games to make creative material:

[Title Here] was created under Microsoft’s “Game Content Usage Rules” using assets from HALO 3, © Microsoft Corporation.

The following is what I use, in conjunction with Microsoft’s “Game Content Usage Rules.” My material is in fact legally copyrighted and was renewed this year:

All material is copyrighted unless otherwise indicated. Please refer to the copyright page on each comic for reference. Infringement on this is legally binding and offenders will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

A note on Halo 3 Maps as Sets: in as much as the rights of forged maps in Halo 3 belong to their creators, they receive credit. However, due to the impossible nature of proving who created which map, I can only credit the general public. If you made a map, and have some legitimate form of proving it, I will give you credit. Until such a time, I give credit to Bungie for the Copyrights on Halo 3, and to the anonymous creators of the maps I use as sets in Chaos Theory. You know who you are. Thank You.

Part Twelve: Promotion

If you want to make it, your product has to be good. Promoting your work can bring attention to you. Using community sites such as HBO (Halo.Bungie.Org) and posting in their forums can be a great way of attracting attention. HBO manager Louis Wu often checks these forums and features the good stuff on the front page.

If you feel lucky, you can post on Bungie.net. The only problem with that site is that all the material that is submitted is reviewed before being published on the site. It has to be “worthy,” in the words of the Bungie Webmaster.

Part Thirteen: Working with a Fan Base

This is the last thing. I’m always working on this kind of thing because I’m no Internet star. All I can say is that the art of working with fans is to work with them and never forget them. They are the engine that drives you forward. They keep the fires lit and they promote you. Give them what they ask for. Ask them to be patient, but never tell them “no.” They will always know what they want better than you do. The real question here is: who are you doing this for? The answer should be “for both my audience and myself.”

I hope you found this useful, and I thank you for reading all the way to the end!

Adam Susskind, Writer and Producer, Chaos Theory

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The New Face

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A short story I wrote this morning. Might turn it into something bigger, or include it as an interlude in the book.

[Image Source]

The New Face:

The rain knocks about outside with a clamor not unlike gunfire. Eve huddles with the baby under the awning and occasionally I lean out to peer upwards at the dark sky, wondering if it’s true that chickens can drown in the rain just by gawking up at the clouds with their beaks open. I have trouble imagining wild roaming herds of those things. Gotta wonder what lab they came out of.

A long gray car pulls up to the curb and putters to a halt. The driver gets out, looking around. I smile at him, stupidly. He doesn’t seem to notice me. Eve asks if we’ll ever be able to go home. I shake my head like the whole world is going to end, but it won’t. This is my problem, and I’ve sucked the two of them into it. The baby whimpers as if it’s about to cry and I think about tossing it in the gutter, letting it float away, or drown. Eve is the perfect mother, the baby shuts up, contented by the incredibly faint odor of milk around her breasts.

I should have married her and taken the job with Thomas at the firm. I would have had a steady paycheck, and I wouldn’t be avoiding Nickolas like the plague. He was looking for me with almost as much zeal as the IRS, but then again, I didn’t owe him as much dough, not nearly as much.

The man from the car walks off, calling loudly across the street to someone who turns. The rain keeps coming. Water drips off the brim of his hat. His jacket is already soaked. When he gets to the man, he seems to stop and apologize, pats him once on the shoulder, and meanders off.

Eve asks when the car will get here. Eve asks where I will find work, she asks where she will find work. Eve asks all the questions that I have no answers to. Does she want to know if we’ll be found? I don’t think we will. She doesn’t ask why I got her pregnant. She doesn’t want to know why I said I wouldn’t marry her. I can answer those things, and it’s killing me that she won’t ask because I’ll never have the opportunity to tell her if she doesn’t. I want to explain that I think I’m a selfish neglectful person, and that she shouldn’t have stayed with me. I could also tell her that I was inexcusably drunk that night when she took me in her arms and told me she wanted a kid. Now it’s just, “the baby”. She calls it Paul. I call it, “the baby.”

Another long gray car glides past on the road slowly. The backseat window is down a crack. I see eyes on the other side. They move on.

I’m wearing a suit. She’s wearing a hooded dress. Always looked weird to me. The baby is wrapped in a blanket, one of those water proof cotton pieces of crap that they sell at fuel stations like the one behind us that still smells like gasoline, even though it hasn’t serviced archaic cars like that for over fifty years.

Eve asks if she can go back in to buy something to eat so she can feed the baby. I’ve got six bucks on me. She says she has money. I lean against the pole holding up the front of the awning and wave her away with my hand. She hands me the baby. I take it, a little surprised. She never wants me to hold the baby. I never ask too. I want to ask why she gives it to me, but I don’t. She saunters off into the convenience store to buy… whatever. If it were me, I’d be buying like it was my last meal. She buys a coke and a sandwich. The sandwich is green. I ask her why the sandwich is green.

She says it’s just one of those colored foods, and that it isn’t rotting or anything. Apparently I’m not keeping up with the times. My hat is the only thing she considers fashionable about me, but then, I suppose that’s because she bought it. I hold the sleeping baby while she eats and drinks in silence. We don’t talk. A black four-door car whizzes up behind the gray car at the curb in front of me. The engine purrs. Water hits the hood of the black car like hail. Someone sticks a hand out the driver’s side window in the back. I guess this is it.

Eve just finishes as I start walking over. I stop and turn and give her the kid. The fat man in the window is my cousin. He looks up at me.

He tells me I look like I’ve seen better days, and that he hopes never to see me again. We stare at each other for a while. He hesitates. He asks if it is in fact me. Yea, I say. He seems surprised and says that they really did a number on me. I tell him he can touch my face if he wants. I say it’s real enough for now. He asks how much it cost. The consummate businessman. I ask if I can get in the car. He nods and rolls up the windows. The door locks click open. I gesture to Eve, who looks on, and walks around the car, getting into the seat next to my cousin. He stares at my face. He asks me if I want a mirror. I say that I’ve already seen, and that I never need to see it again. Eve opens the passenger door with some difficulty as she balances the baby in one arm. I just watch. She has stopped expecting help from me. She sits, soaking wet. The driver’s eyes never leave the road. I wonder if he has a face on the other side of that head. Maybe he can have this face when I’m done with it. My fat cousin signals him somehow, maybe by looking into the rear view mirror, or by tapping him in the darkness of the car when I couldn’t see. The driver pulls away, and the car shoots forward, rising up to cruising height, just high enough that a fall would kill you, but not so high that you can’t see people’s faces.

The windshield wiper knocks rain off to both sides. I watch droplets on my window race each other towards the back of the car. The driver remains stiff, adjusting the yoke just slightly every few seconds. The baby sighs uneasily, exhausted from the tension. The fat man to my left who doesn’t like me and never wants to see me again looks over at me often, like he’s trying to see me under this fleshy mask. Impossible. I wish I knew who he was trying to see. There’s nothing to find under my new face because there isn’t much there to begin with.

The driver clears his throat and the car descends twenty or so feet down into a security checkpoint. Up ahead, officers and men in jackets with the letters IRS in huge font on the back like you should care who they are walk around checking people in cars. My pulse doesn’t go up even a little bit. I am not who they are looking for. Anymore.

When it is our turn, the driver inches the car forward, and lowers all the windows. He turns and stares at a policeman who shines a light in his face that illuminates the car only slightly, but casts long shadows everywhere. He gives a saliva sample. My cousin and Eve are given the same treatment. I’m surprised they don’t pull the baby out of the car for interrogation. They don’t even swab the kid. They come to my window. I stare into the florescent light, the woman in the IRS jacket just a blur on the other side of the car door. I suck on the cotton swab for a second, realizing how thirsty I am. She looks at me again. Our windows go up, the car pulls away. When we’re several hundred feet away, my cousin finally asks me why we got away with the saliva test. I tell him I’m a totally different person. I tell him he’s not my cousin anymore.

He wants to know what I did with all the money. I tell him I spent it on the procedure. He asks me why I would have done that. I don’t have an answer. He presses. He wants to know why I would have used borrowed money to buy surgery that would help me avoid the people I borrowed the money from. He’s getting angry. I don’t understand why, it’s none of his business. I tell him I did it because I was tempted by the thought of suspense, danger. He doesn’t believe me. I wouldn’t have either. Maybe I did it because I wanted to hurt the people whose money I was taking. I don’t know.

I watch the flashing blue and red lights in the distance as they grow smaller. They won’t stop looking. They’ll be after Eve and me for the rest of forever. I tell the driver to put the car down. He does. We rest, car humming, just outside the city limits, endless open world before us, behind us, iron and steel miles high. It’s the only world I’ve ever known. I’ve already taken Nickolas’ money and effectively burned it; he can’t get it back now. I don’t know what I’m doing by running away. I step out of the car and walk up to Eve’s window. She lowers it and I smile at her.

“They won’t just stop because we’ve left the city.”
She says we’ll never be found.
I say, “But they’ll still always be looking for us. I’m not getting back in the car, Eve.”

She smiles a broken smile, but the rain stops, and the dawn starts to crack through the smog. I tell her that they won’t leave the city if they think I’m still there. They won’t find me, but I can leave a paper trail. She nods like she understands, and maybe she does. I nod at my cousin and the car leaves once I’ve backed away. The water falls off as the car accelerates up and away. Ten minutes since that awning by the small store where Eve bought a green sandwich and a coke and I feel like I’ve come an impossible distance.

I turn back to look at the city. Knives in the sky, jutting out of the ground.

-Adam

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Coming In Last 2 Sample (Canceled Project)

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Written back in the day. I started this before I finished the first book, so I imagine I wasn’t any older than 13 or 14. I was browsing stuff I’d written when I found this. A sequel to my book that stops after eleven or so pages. This is the last of those pages.

Coming in Last 2 Sample:

It might have been days. It was impossible to tell how long he had been asleep. He awoke in a room lit only by the bright light outside, cascading through the venetian blinds, pulled down across the wide windows. He was on a mattress on a tile floor in a dirty room. Something by his head beeped and startled him. It noises increased in frequency. Heart monitor. He looked around. Not a hospital. Definitely not, unless this was a really shitty part of town.

He inhaled uneasily. He was strapped down with several large rubber bands, one by his shoulders, one on his waist, one on his knees. The handle on the door clicked and opened. A woman stood in the door way, lips pursed, short hair. She didn’t linger. She sat next to him and looked him in the eyes. This was an ugly person. He didn’t want to stare. Her eyes would darted around from time to time.

“Hello Phil.” She murmured.

He immediately felt for his wallet. It was there, but they could have checked it for his id.

“To whom do I owe the pleasure?”

Her voice was gentle and deep. He got the sensation that he was about to be taken for a ride. “We’ve been over this before. Why don’t you remember any of it?”

“Excuse me?”

“Phil, I’m… You know me already! I spoke to you yesterday. You don’t remember?”

“No, I don’t. Please tell me your name! What is your name?” Something was off. He didn’t remember any of what she was referencing. How long was he out and how much would she play on it?

“Phil, I’m growing less and less interested in fighting you over this every day. You fall asleep at the end of hours of talking and answering, you promise not to fall asleep, but you do, and when you awaken you don’t remember a thing. I don’t know what to tell you or if it’s worth it any more…” She trailed off.

Phil tested his restraints, “How long has this been going on?”

“Too long, Phil. Weeks, I don’t know.”

“Well, ok. Then- what is your name?”

“Don’t say it again. Shit. Never any change, when are you going to recover! You say those exact words every god damn day!” She spit when she spoke.

He shut his mouth. How much of what he wanted to know had she already told him? She looked him in the eye and a tear ran down her cheek.

“He warned me what was going to happen to you if you didn’t get better today. He’s tired of feeding you.”

Phil had a wild look in his eyes, “Well what the hell do I do? Tell me something to prove I’m better to him- who is him?”

“He is Reese you idiot. I’m sure you remember him.”

Phil shook his head.

He had been about to say something else when there was a loud knock at the door. Adrienne stood up to open it, but it was thrown open, and Reese stepped in with a drunken swagger. He threw her a look, understood the situation and walked over to the restrained figure on the bedding, who squirmed, and shook, and screamed, and thought he was going to die.

-Adam

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Other Projects?

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Musing about other projects.

So! I’ve been thinking about doing some public projects because I like feeling productive. I’ve been spending a great deal of time writing my story and playing the drums, but I can’t help but feel like I’d like to be doing something in addition to those two. I considered starting another Halo comic, but I think that the Halo comic is pretty much a dead art at this point, and it would feel like regressing in a lot of ways. I’m drafting a new machinima, but it’s one of those things that will probably never get done. I should probably consider drawing my own webcomic, but I can’t draw to save my life, so, you know **AHEM** artists, feel free to shoot me an email.

I think that I should posts some of the stories I’ve written over the years. Naturally I would have to polish them up. A lot. I’ll get to work on putting some of them up.

Feel free to share what you folks do as hobbies, I’m very curious!

Peace,

-Adam

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Continuing Work on the Book

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Story keeps getting better and better as I do edits and start the third version.

I’m definitely enjoying the process of editing and rewriting parts of the story. Originally planned as a comic, I began writing “Edge of Reason” as a short story, to ensure that the plot was quality. It quickly changed into a very long short story, which, admittedly, has been interfering with my ability to write anything else as of late. I’ve been adding character depth, changing some personalities entirely, and sometimes making huge alterations to the plot in order to avoid cliche, and, more importantly, sheer stupidity. I’m just hoping that it is as good as I hope it will be when it comes time to publish. Still, that’s a ways off.

I am considering changing the title to something more apropos. While “Edge of Reason” or “EoR” started as a very inspiring title, the story has developed beyond it, and it is no longer fitting. I’ve got an idea as to what I might change it to, but I had netter hurry this project along so that way someone doesn’t end up publishing a romance novel under the same title a month before I do. (This happened with my last book. :facepalm:)

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Edge of Reason Sample

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A sample of the piece I’m working on. I can’t call this the final version of this section, but it’s fairly well refined.

EDGE OF REASON by Adam Susskind

I.

“Shocking?” she asks.

“A bit,” I say. I’m trying to act like I saw this coming from a mile away. I’m on my bed, sitting up, resting my head in my hands. A cool draft hits my scalp. I shiver. This conversation has gone nowhere for three hours. She doesn’t seem to have any answers. There’s a pause, like something on the tip of her tongue, a feather, and then nothing. I ran out of things to say over an hour ago. I stammer for a moment, “I…”

“You don’t know what to say.”
“Right.”
“I get it. It’s fine, really.”

There’s a long silence and, looking more than a little dejected, she eventually walks away. A clumsy conversation. I hear the television tap on, a light click, from the other room. She’s soft spoken and warm, smells like-… Something nice. I’ve never been one for poetry. Heck if I know how I became the luckiest man in the whole damn city. I love that woman like air and food and synth.

I fog up the inside of my helmet with my heavy breathing. Horrible piece of equipment; too much dependence on it working. I pull it off, the gravity fighting me every inch of the way. It gets tossed in the trash. A timer goes off somewhere internally. Time to haul my ass into bed and remember to forget for a few hours. Sleep hits me like a freight train, and the rest of the night flies past so fast that I’m snapping my .22 into its holster before I even have a chance to think about dreaming.

There’s a small mirror over the dresser where, in the top drawer, in the back, I keep my gun. The person looking back at me needs a shave and a tranquilizer. I walk out into the other room, one of three in a tiny closet I call home. There’s a closed door leading into the third room where my wife is sleeping, likely on the couch. I grab my key, and leave. The massive iron door closes in my wake. For a moment, before I start walking, I look down the endless hallway that lies before me, door after door after door, curving off, just in the distance. This infinite labyrinth is storage. Miles below the ground, and then still miles more below the upper parts of the city, this is home.

I can hear my wife’s breathing, echoing in my mind. Soft intake, smooth exhale. I see my wife’s pretty face framed in the doorway yesterday as she tries to explain that she’s back for good. I’m skeptical. I’m worried, but mostly, I’m scared shitless. She smiles, and even under her generic shirt and pants, I can see she’s one of a kind. I can see she’s one of a kind. I can see she’s one of a kind.

I shake my head. Present tense, I concentrate on what’s ahead. I start walking, following the blue painted lines on the floor that lead for two miles. I’m a crap cop with a dirty job on the bottom level of City 23 who enjoys the protection of a gun because I’m afraid of just about everybody. But I’ve got good reason to be.

My name is Sam Stone, my wife Katherine was killed two weeks ago, and I just spent the afternoon with her.

II.

I’ve got a visit to make before clocking in at station.

Gregg Copper, living under the radar. The guy was raped up in the Eightieth Level Correctional Facility. He couldn’t stand the thought of staying behind bars, so he applied for the transfer to a work level, and escaped during his transfer. He’s here now. The man’s a bit of a suck up cause he knows I’m a cop, but he’s got friends who owe me information, and he knows where to find them. That’s half of why I don’t mind him making a groveling fool out of himself every time I show up. The other half? Doctors call it a superiority complex, my wife used to tell me I had a power fetish. Maybe I’m not as nice a guy as I wish I was.

I take a moment and look down the hallway, both ways, looking for people. I finger handle of my gun, feel a sneeze coming on, and knock on the door. How suave.

He’s quick to answer. The door flies open. Gregg is a small man. He doesn’t look overweight, but he’ll likely be dead by fifty from some heart defect or another. I almost forgot how his apartment consistently smells of urine; the open door is a cruel reminder.

“Hi Gregg. Mind if I bother you for a bit?” He’s got an empty look on. Kind of a dumb guy, not a real violent one though. I don’t know what he could have done to get himself locked up. He looks tired, bags under his eyes. His hair is all over the place, and he’s got a big bruise on his bare chest.

“Somebody rough your ass up?” I groan at the stench, “Put a shirt on. You need a shower.” I say. No response. I invite myself in. There’s a needle on the floor, and are several empty bottles of Synth littering the area. Gregg’s inebriated voice pipes up, but mumbles off before he finishes his thought. There’s a pile of dirty clothes littering the majestic landscape. Looks like he slept on his couch again. The door to his bedroom is closed, but I keep myself from being curious about it.

“My wife is back,” I say, “and I don’t know what is going on. You wouldn’t know anything about that, right?”
He clears this throat, “Ahem. No sir.”
“Well, I didn’t think you would. That’s fine. Smoke?” I offer him a cigarette. Old habits die hard.
“Didn’t you stop- like, uh, quit?”
“I don’t know. Can’t remember. Didn’t you quit drinking?”
“No.”

I light up. Down here, fire is as illegal as the cigarette, which is to say, enough to warrant a beating down at the precinct. Gregg’s mentality is that it’s better to burn out and leave a great corpse then die on his knees at one hundred and twenty while a pulse monitor goes static. He takes the cigarette. These reusable cig’s don’t taste like the real deal. Not by a long shot, but then I suppose I don’t complain about Synth tasting like crap. It’s all booze to me. Somehow I can’t help but hate Gregg for a moment. He’s everything I hate about myself, except without the nagging anger in the back of my mind.

“Can’t you lay off the goddamn Synth for a hour or two?” I try not to yell. Too late. He whimpers. Poverty tends to breed his kind. I shouldn’t hate him, but it’s easy to find him disgusting, and I like the feeling of power because I don’t get it anywhere else.

I say, “I had her cremated. I mean, I just don’t get it!”
“I know. I was there.”
“Thank you. At least I’m not going crazy, that’s nice to know.”
He smiles and stumbles just the slightest bit as he steps forward. I guess he’s expecting something after this life, something better, because he’s definitely intent and drinking all time away.
“Sorry Sam, I didn’t say you weren’t nuts.”

Peace,
-Adam

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