Reclaimer - A Halo 3 Comic

Welcome to Reclaimer, the first Halo-related comic that I am aware of that is built exclusively from screenshots captured from within the Halo 3 engine.  The first strip is a merely a proof-of-concept introduction for the series, a way for me to practice with manipulating screenshots in a comic book layout and a way for me to introduce readers to the style.

Please bear with me as I write this comic.  This is the first time I’ve ever tried to create a comic, so it will take me a little while to get used to the layout and to become familiar enough with the graphic editing tools (i.e. Photoshop and GIMP) I will be using to put this strip together.  My goal is to try to produce one new strip a week, primarily because I lead a very busy life and it takes a lot of time to set the scenes in Halo 3, watch the resulting films and snap the necessary screenshots, pull them into Photoshop to create the comic-style look to each one, then crop and resize everything until they fit onto the page properly.  But I will do my best to produce the comic on a regular schedule, which I expect will become easier as I do this more and become familiar with the necessary skills.

Please feel free to offer suggestions and ideas throughout.  Anything that can serve to make the comic better will, in the longrun, make Reclaimer more enjoyable for both you and me.

Today’s comic is the first ‘official’ strip of the series, even though the first comic itself sets up just a little of the background and context for events yet to come.  This is also the first strip I built with Photoshop, and let me just say that I will never go back to GIMP for this project.  GIMP makes an acceptable substitute for some project for when Photoshop isn’t available, but Photoshop is, by far, more user-friendly for this sort of work.  For instance, creating dialogue balloons in GIMP is an absolute nightmare.  In fact, doing just about anything in GIMP is more difficult than doing it in Photoshop due to the fact that most adjustments require 2-3 times as many steps to accomplish.

As you can see from the proof-of-concept strip, I had a difficult time positioning things with GIMP.  I didn’t worry overmuch about the final product, however, since I knew that the official story wouldn’t start until the next strip I produced.  The final product of that one, done in the aforementioned Photoshop, is much cleaner and professional looking.  It’s nice to be able to just nudge things into place where required.

So, with Chapter One, Part One, we’re introduced to two of our main characters.  Writing in this medium is much different than writing in story medium, so again please bear with me as I adapt.  I like most of the dialogue in this one, though a frame or two feel a bit stilted to me.  I’ll work on that – I promise.  In the meantime, we have a delicious hint of a conspiracy, plus the puzzle of the relationship between these characters.

As I mentioned in the previous news post, I intend to put together a new comic every week, at least to begin with.  This may become more frequent, however, as I get my storyline laid out and get comfortable enough with this process to replicate it several times a week.  I may also put a callout at some point for ‘actors’ to help me stage some scenes, so stay tuned here for that.

I hope you enjoy this comic.  I know I’m already having fun putting it together, and I look forward as much as you do to seeing where it goes.

So it seems I had some extra time on my hands this evening.  An excellent opportunity to produce another strip.  The conflict/dialogue between the Reclaimer and Ferial continues, with a few more details to pique the interest. 

The third frame was an experiment – I was trying to convey the sense of very fast motion resulting in the Reclaimer being knocked to his back.  I tried stacking five cropped images on top of each other and adjusting the opacity to allow each to show through a little.  The effect isn’t nearly as good as what I’d hoped for, so I’ll have to play around with some other ideas if I hope to try this again in the future.  I may just have to become acquainted with Photoshop’s magic wand.  If anyone knows of a good way to produce this effect, do please let me know.

Two additional things I’d like to point out in relation to today’s strip:

1) Those of you with sharp eyes may have noticed that I’m using a new font starting today.  It’s called Creative Block and can be downloaded from Blambot for free.  I went on a hunt for a good comic-style font yesterday.  I’d used Comic Sans Serif in the first two pages but wasn’t completely satisfied with the look.  I also don’t really have the spare cash right now to purchase one or two of the more professional comic book fonts, but there are really quite a few nice-looking free ones out there.  Creative Block is very suitable for this type of comic.  It’s not too cartoony, but it’s not too ‘real life,’ either.  I also used a font called Blam Blam available from Blambot, as well, for the impact frame, but I’m not completely happy with that font, either.  The font I really wanted to use will cost me $20 to buy, and may well be something I purchase later on.  For now, though, I’ll experiment with some free fonts and play with balloons to find a look I like.

2) Dark Tower fans will recognize some verbiage from Ferial at the end of today’s strip.  It’s an homage to that epic series and quiet shout-out to my fellow Gunslingers.  You can be certain it won’t be the last DT reference you’ll see in Reclaimer.

Today’s page of Reclaimer is actually a day later than I wanted it to be.  I had hoped to post a new page yesterday, but alas, real life decided to interfere once again, and I wasn’t able to build this page until last night.  It’s probably all for the best, though, as my revised writing schedule is to plan to produce three new pages each weekend (more if time permits) and get them posted up in advance.  As such, I hope to be able to start publishing on a Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule and settle into a rhythm there.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this comic since I started it a week ago.  A lot of this thought has gone into the overall storyline, figuring out specific plot points, setting chronology, planning reveals, and fleshing out details.  The rest of the thought has gone into conceptualizing specific layouts for specific future pages.  But I’m also trying not to get too far ahead of myself.  Some of those pages are a little ways off yet.  It’s good to have a goal to strive for but that becomes an impediment when it interferes with planning and writing the immediate story.  Progress has been made, though, and I’m a lot more comfortable with the immediate story and the subsequent pages that will be used to tell it.  And hopefully, I’m getting a little better, both with this type of storytelling and with the visuality (to coin a term) of the comic medium, with each page I do.

That said, I really would appreciate any and all feedback on Reclaimer.  If you like it, tell me why.  If you don’t, tell me why there, as well.  All comments and suggestions can only serve to make this comic better, and honest – you really can’t hurt my feelings.  I have seen one negative comment already, and this individual thought that Reclaimer was pretty lame – and it may well be.  I do know, though, that a number of people have privately expressed their enjoyment of it.  I think the only specific comment I’ve received thus far (and if I’ve missed one or two, apologies) is that the Poster Edges effect is a really nice way to simulate hand-drawn artwork.  For the guy who thought it was lame, tell me why.

That one negative comment, though, has caused me to re-evaluate every line of dialogue in this last page.  I re-wrote most of them a couple of times until I felt like I wasn’t merely relying on cliché.  There’s far too much cliché in writing these days, and one way to keep your writing fresh and interesting is to avoid using cliché.  Hopefully I’ve accomplished some of that.  I do feel like some of the tension itself between the Reclaimer and Ferial is too cookie-cutter still, and I hope to correct that as I reveal some of the specifics fueling the violence between these two characters.

So, thanks to those of you who have come back to keep reading, and I hope you’ll continue doing so.  Enjoy, and hopefully I’ll have a fresh episode ready on Monday.

I’m planning to bring Chapter One to a close by the end of the week.  There are just a few more story-development details to set in place and then the Reclaimer will be ready to move into accomplishing his objectives.  Of course, things will be complicated by more surprises, but what fun would a straight-forward set of missions be, anyway?

In “Facility” we get just a little more backstory on the Reclaimer and some hints about things that will be revealed in greater detail later.  The truce between the Reclaimer and Ferial is now more stable, at least for the time being, and some real dialogue can develop between the two. 

Today also marks the beginning of a new posting schedule.  I’ve determined that doing three pages a week is not beyond my means, so I’m effectively establishing a Monday/Wednesday/Friday schedule, which I will try to stick to.  If I miss a day, feel free to yell at me and get me back on schedule.  :)

In the meantime, sit back and enjoy.  Things are going to heat up very soon.

It should probably be noted – though this might go without saying – that the storyline you are reading in Reclaimer should be considered to take place in an alternate Haloverse.  As such it has little relationship to the Halo story that takes place in the games as issued by Bungie canon.  There are certainly some similarities in such things as the Spartan program and the existence of the Covenant, but these may well be where the similarities end.  Consider Reclaimer, if you will, to simply be a different level of the Tower, to borrow from the SK mythology.  No one has, as yet, tried to hold me to canonical Halo lore in this series, but this my way of heading any potential complaints off at the pass.  I have no intention of trying to adhere to that well-built universe, since I’d much rather devise a similar one of my own that will be a much bleaker, more pessimistic view of the human condition.  Be forewarned!

Ok, so I lied – Chapter One is not, in fact, going to wrap up this week.  Turns out, there is actually a bit more story to tell here than I had at first anticipated.  It may even take the better part of next week to tell it, maybe longer.

Today’s episode is also cut down to size to just four frames.  There’s actually a fair bit of information mashed into this one, and I prefer to keep the bite-size bits, well, bite-size.  It keeps things manageable and tantalizing.

I appreciate all the compliments and encouragement.  It’s that kind of things that drives energy into a project like this and keeps it fun.  For that, I say – thank you.  I hope you continue to enjoy reading this series as much as I enjoy writing and building it.

Yes, we are finally drawing close to the end of Chapter One.  Friday will see the last part, and then we will be shifting gears a bit heading into Chapter Two.  I’m pretty excited about being able to move away from the setup a little bit and getting more into the meat-and-bones of the impending challenges and conflicts that the Reclaimer will have to face.  It will also be time to start meeting Viper and learn a little of what they are about.

Stay tuned!

I just added a contact form to this site on the off-chance that someone is just dying to get in touch with me.  You can go to the Contact page shown in the sidebar to me an email, if you so desire.