P3
The title for my comic is going to be "Them". It is a simple title that makes a potential reader curious as to the subject matter whilstleaving the entire thing up to potential intellectual debate.
The comic is based around the sudden discovery, by world leaders, of an intelligent being on Mars. It is closely inspired by the film Forbidden Planet, as the protagonists, a team of five. Are relentlessly picked off by the not so friendly Martians whilst trapped on the red planet. The comic will be quite serious with limited humourous scenes or lines.
'Them' is set in 2019 where space travel is effective, however not yet ready for swift travel to Mars. This incurrs the issue of having to use untested technology that can shorten the time it takes to reach Mars quite considerably. This allows for further plot development as the ship is crashed on the alien planet leaving them struggling to get home.
The target audience will be roughly for 13 to 16 year olds as whilst it is serious it has not much gore or bad language. This combined with the none too serious plot allows for a young audience to greatly enjoy it. It will possibly also be aimed at a male audience as typically fighting and space travel are stereotypical male interests, however that is only a loose assumption because anyone can read this.
There is only one real protagonist called Dwayne Wayne, who being annoyed at his parents choice of moniker goes by the psuedonym D.Wayne (pronounce Dee Wayne). He is inspired by the likes of Clint Eastwood as he is a maverick who works alone, and despite being an astronaut he holds many survival and fighting skills that prove extremely useful when he goes head to head with lethal aliens.
I will self publish because politically and morally I object to handing intellectual rights to a company that will exploit it for profit, therefore due to cost issues and lack of resources I shall produce this as a web comic that I hand draw and then upload, and if anybody wishes for a physical copy they can contact me and I will produce them specially through print on demand.
Legally I have no worries with copyright law as all material is owned and made by me, furthermore my work is unlike any pre-existing comic so I should be fine, the only potential issue would be the inspiration by the film Forbidden Planet, yet I believe my comic is different enough for it to not matter,
Ethically my comic should offend no one as it shows no one in a bad light and tends to just focus on normal unstereotypical characters.
There is to be no bad language and no real people involved in my comic so therefore I can not be accused of trying to hurt or diminish them in any way.
The comic is based around the sudden discovery, by world leaders, of an intelligent being on Mars. It is closely inspired by the film Forbidden Planet, as the protagonists, a team of five. Are relentlessly picked off by the not so friendly Martians whilst trapped on the red planet. The comic will be quite serious with limited humourous scenes or lines.
'Them' is set in 2019 where space travel is effective, however not yet ready for swift travel to Mars. This incurrs the issue of having to use untested technology that can shorten the time it takes to reach Mars quite considerably. This allows for further plot development as the ship is crashed on the alien planet leaving them struggling to get home.
The target audience will be roughly for 13 to 16 year olds as whilst it is serious it has not much gore or bad language. This combined with the none too serious plot allows for a young audience to greatly enjoy it. It will possibly also be aimed at a male audience as typically fighting and space travel are stereotypical male interests, however that is only a loose assumption because anyone can read this.
There is only one real protagonist called Dwayne Wayne, who being annoyed at his parents choice of moniker goes by the psuedonym D.Wayne (pronounce Dee Wayne). He is inspired by the likes of Clint Eastwood as he is a maverick who works alone, and despite being an astronaut he holds many survival and fighting skills that prove extremely useful when he goes head to head with lethal aliens.
I will self publish because politically and morally I object to handing intellectual rights to a company that will exploit it for profit, therefore due to cost issues and lack of resources I shall produce this as a web comic that I hand draw and then upload, and if anybody wishes for a physical copy they can contact me and I will produce them specially through print on demand.
Legally I have no worries with copyright law as all material is owned and made by me, furthermore my work is unlike any pre-existing comic so I should be fine, the only potential issue would be the inspiration by the film Forbidden Planet, yet I believe my comic is different enough for it to not matter,
Ethically my comic should offend no one as it shows no one in a bad light and tends to just focus on normal unstereotypical characters.
There is to be no bad language and no real people involved in my comic so therefore I can not be accused of trying to hurt or diminish them in any way.
P4 - Create a Script for the planned story.
Unfortunately converting this document to Word for scribd has caused some formatting issues, where character dialogue is not in line with the panel numbers.
Script for Unit 9 by Jacob on Scribd
P5 - panel layout.
M1-Produce a story board to show the flow of the story.
D1 - evaluate the feasability for further development of the main character in future stories across different media formats.
In my mind this comic was always predestined to be a standalone story, rather like the Mezolith Graphic Novel that I discussed earlier in this unit. Whilst this is a fine way to produce a graphic novel, and whilst there is the option to produce spin off novels, perhaps following in the story of D.Waynes mysterious back story. I feel like from the outset there is not a lot I will do to further 'Them' as a graphic novel. However that isn't the same for all media formats...
This comic has enormous potential in terms of being able to be transferred across multiple media formats, it has a simple story that can easily be expanded upon and lengthened out, as well as a small cast and lack of the need for high budget effects or sets, this is important because a new tv show needs to be quite cheap as most producers won't look to fork out a lot of money on a product that might not prove to be popular.
Video Game
I think that of all the ways that i could market my story after producing this Comic Book, that a Video Game is possible the worst way. The reasons for this are:
That being said there is no true reason why it could not be made into a video game I just believe that that wouldn't be the most successful way to market the next iteration of the comic.
I think that of all the ways that i could market my story after producing this Comic Book, that a Video Game is possible the worst way. The reasons for this are:
- The Comic Book is a straight adventure story. Whilst some video games follow a straight story with limited deviation most people enjoy the freedom that a video game gives them. Personally I think that my comics story would not lend enough potential to have that "Open World" characteristic that people would like.
- I also think that the drawing style would not suit a video game. The comic is mostly compromised of facial close ups or long shots of whole areas / rooms. This means that I think if you were to try and change the story into the traditional First Person view or Third Person camera tracking you would find that the comic as a reference would not be particularly useful.
- I don't think that the story itself would appeal to many video game designers. Whilst as a comic or Live action audio visual piece I think it could be very successful, I believe that as a video game the story would seem a bit boring. The main flesh of the comic is the interaction between the characters as opposed to the reason that they are made to interact. This would result in the most exciting parts of the game being the cutscenes which is not good for a video game at all.
That being said there is no true reason why it could not be made into a video game I just believe that that wouldn't be the most successful way to market the next iteration of the comic.
Television show. |
I think that a television show would be one of the most promising ways to develop my graphic novel. I feel that the end goal of the explorers is within a short while whilst amping with suspense. This is perfect for a set of episodes. Where there is constant tension which leaves you wanting to see the next episode.
I think that this would be better than if I adapted it to make a film. This is because tension is a key aspect of the story line. There is an unseen killer and further to that a minimum amount of time that they have to stay there, rendering them trapped. This doesn't work particularly well for a film as unless it is a horror film no one likes to have that much tension straight for that long. And this is not supposed to be a horror but in-fact an adventure story.
This would be mostly effective as a television show because it is clear that science fiction type television shows are becoming somewhat popular as of late for example the likes of Stranger Things, Doctor Who and Black Mirror. These are all good examples of science fiction tv shows with tense or horror elements to them.
The main problem that I can see with translating this graphic novel into a tv show is that the TV show would have to work primarily as a stand alone piece. I know this because the story does not leave a lot of exploration into further editions. Rather like 'Forbidden Planet' its inspiration, once the characters have either died or escaped the planet that is the end of the series. The only progression would be to follow the character D.Wayne however this might not be received well and could be taken as though it was only made to make money off of a preexisting concept.
The good thing also about making a television show is that often you don't need a preexisting fanbase before you start to air episodes. This is very useful as you can imagine as people will likely see it advertised and not need to know about the origins of the story before watching it. Again quite like the Walking Dead.
Another thing that makes me feel confident about transforming this graphic novel into a television show is that, again referring to The Walking Dead. That programme, with a rough budget of around 3.4 million dollars per episode, was also inspired by a comic. Therefore taking that as a reference and also the emerging popularity in western culture of "anime" cartoons which are derived from a form of comic called "mangas" we can tell that translating Hand Drawn comic style media into Television shows is something that can work very well.
I think that this would be better than if I adapted it to make a film. This is because tension is a key aspect of the story line. There is an unseen killer and further to that a minimum amount of time that they have to stay there, rendering them trapped. This doesn't work particularly well for a film as unless it is a horror film no one likes to have that much tension straight for that long. And this is not supposed to be a horror but in-fact an adventure story.
This would be mostly effective as a television show because it is clear that science fiction type television shows are becoming somewhat popular as of late for example the likes of Stranger Things, Doctor Who and Black Mirror. These are all good examples of science fiction tv shows with tense or horror elements to them.
The main problem that I can see with translating this graphic novel into a tv show is that the TV show would have to work primarily as a stand alone piece. I know this because the story does not leave a lot of exploration into further editions. Rather like 'Forbidden Planet' its inspiration, once the characters have either died or escaped the planet that is the end of the series. The only progression would be to follow the character D.Wayne however this might not be received well and could be taken as though it was only made to make money off of a preexisting concept.
The good thing also about making a television show is that often you don't need a preexisting fanbase before you start to air episodes. This is very useful as you can imagine as people will likely see it advertised and not need to know about the origins of the story before watching it. Again quite like the Walking Dead.
Another thing that makes me feel confident about transforming this graphic novel into a television show is that, again referring to The Walking Dead. That programme, with a rough budget of around 3.4 million dollars per episode, was also inspired by a comic. Therefore taking that as a reference and also the emerging popularity in western culture of "anime" cartoons which are derived from a form of comic called "mangas" we can tell that translating Hand Drawn comic style media into Television shows is something that can work very well.