Reclaimer - A Halo 3 Comic

I’m trying something a little different with today’s page – colored balloons.  It’s the fulfillment of a request to try to make it a little bit more clear about who’s speaking within Zeta Squad.  Since the secondary armor colors are the only things distinguishing the Commander from his squad, I’ve opted to make the balloons match those colors.  Of course, when I get into pages where multiple “green boys” are speaking, I’ll have to do something else to distinguish between them.  For now, though, I think this works.  Does this help you as the reader make a little more sense out of what’s going on?

Many apologies.  No comic again today.  December is the month from hell for me just about every year, and this year is worse than usual.  Swamped at work, getting ready to start back to graduate school, new editorship for a sci-fi/horror magazine, plus the usual holiday madness.  I was actually half-way through the creation of today’s comic last night, but it just wasn’t working me for me.  I felt like that part of the story was weak, and I really wasn’t happy with it.  So rather than force through a shoddy bit of storytelling and kick myself for it afterward, I opted to scrap the whole thing and call it for the night.  Believe me, when your muse is not happy, it’s best not to ignore her and piss her off.  I’d kind of like to keep her around a while longer.

I’m not sure how my evening will work out tonight, but I’m hoping to get another page out tomorrow, with better writing than my attempt last night.  Man, I really need to get myself ahead of schedule again. 

Just to make it official, Reclaimer is on hiatus for the remainder of the holiday season.  I’ll be back in the first week of January with more storyline and new plot twists.  In the meantime, I’ll be enjoying time with family and friends – and working on getting myself ahead of schedule with the comic.

So, enjoy your holidays, and we’ll you all again after the first first of the year.

Ok, everyone remember where we left off?  We’re back on the regular schedule starting tomorrow.  And we’re getting closer now to finally getting back to the Reclaimer and picking up his storyline again.  Probably another handful of episodes following Viper Squad’s systematic dismantling before Chapter Two draws to a close.  Cool, huh?

Hey, gang, I’m sure you’ve noticed the lack of updates the last couple of weeks (and you’re all just being really polite by not saying anything, right?).  I haven’t actually forgotten about it or given up on the project.  On the other hand, I have been dealing with some health issues lately that have sapped my energy and creative juices.  I’m really hoping to be back into the swing of things again soon and get Reclaimer back on a regular posting schedule.

I also have to figure out how to wrestle my 360 away from my wife since she’s been playing a lot of Blue Dragon lately.

Alrighty, then – back in the saddle.  It was a rough couple of weeks there, but I think now I’m able to get Reclaimer back into a regular production schedule – and I know I have at least four readers who have missed me.  (*grin*)

We’re starting in with Chapter Three today, getting back to the Reclaimer himself and his mission of stopping Viper before they can unleash whatever plan they have on the universe.  Of course, his tactics are going to have to be… creative since Ferial has made it clear that he’s outmatched.  And his first attempt at whittling down Viper’s numbers demonstrates just how outmatched he is.

My thanks to TTL mvuakali, TTL Wyvern, UtopiaUnknown, and Bearded Phantom for helping me set up the shots for this week’s strips.  I’ve gotten to the point where I need more bodies and armor types in my comic than I can easily accomplish by myself, so their time and effort to help me stage everything is much appreciated.

Well, darn it – I had every intention of working on Reclaimer last night when I got home from work and getting today’s comic up on schedule, but it seems that Mother Nature had other ideas.  We went from temperatures in the mid-40s yesterday to a low of 6 overnight – and when you have that kind of drastic temperature change, you generally end up with some rather unpleasant weather results.  Ultimately, the high winds brought down power for about 35,000 customers in our area for several hours last night, and as you might imagine, it’s rather difficult to work on a computer without electricity.  So, barring anymore of Mother Nature’s savagery, I intend to get the next comic out tomorrow and again on Friday.

Note to self: must work ahead more.

I’ve got to say, I’m sometimes jealous of the artistic skill of guys like ZZoMBiE13, who can produce such beautiful drawing in such short order, making it look so darn easy.  Part of the reason why I use screenshots from Halo 3 is because I really thought it would be use to use that medium for a comic, but part of it, too, is simply that I can’t draw to the quality level I really want.  So, I fall back on something that I can do, which is play photographer around staged scenes.  The result is sort of a pseudo-hybrid between machinima (which I also can’t do because I don’t have the necessary equipment for video capture) and hand-drawn comics.  The process is still fun, but it doesn’t always keep back the envy towards those guys (and gals) who can really draw.  Ultimately, though, my forté is storytelling, and the story I have to tell right now is that of the Reclaimer, a lone warrior facing insurmountable odds.  And I’m just as curious as my readers to know how it all ends.

Um, yeah, that was a test shot.  Had to be.  The Reclaimer was just testing them, seeing how on their toes they were.  Right?  Either way, he’s in some deep doo-doo now.  Viper knows he’s here, and that pushes the game to a whole new level.

Believe it or not, it’s actually a lot harder to write sound effects into a comic than you might think.  Hearing sounds is one thing.  Writing sounds is a whole different story.  You can have ten people hear a sound, and when asked to reproduce the sound, they will all do it differently.  The trick in a comic is to pick sounds that make sense, that, when read, serve as acceptable textual representatives of the actual sound itself.  This involves a certain amount of guesswork, particularly when you’re not completely sure what something would sound like in real life.  You’d probably laugh to watch me work on some of these sounds, sitting here at my desk making noises that you usually only hear out of a group of 8-year-olds at play.  But that’s how the work gets done, at least in my creative process, and hopefully the sound effects in this comic are at least somewhat close to what you’d expect to hear.

So, yeah, my posting schedule for this week has gotten all screwed up again.  The primary reason for this is that I’ve been tag-teamed by the flu and bronchitis since last Friday.  Needless to say, I’ve felt positively miserable the last few days.  Desperation forced me to the Urgent Care clinic on Sunday to get a high-powered antibiotic and decongestant, so I’m feeling some better now, but it’s been a rough week.  I’m finally back to work today, but even so I still have a pretty ragged cough and feel like someone steam-rollered me.

The other reason my schedule is off is because what little work I’ve been able to do around being sick has been devoted to getting a couple of web design projects off the ground for paying clients.  The one is a complete, ground-up redesign that I’ve been working on the last couple of weeks and that will hopefully launch within the next few days.  So, as much as I enjoy working on the Reclaimer comic, paying customers must come first.  I do, after all, have a mortgage to continue paying.

If all goes well, I’ll have Reclaimer back in full swing starting on Friday, hopefully without anymore interruptions for awhile.