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Writer seeks artist to help resume webcomic

Last post 03-17-2008, 11:28 AM by Devinoch. 0 replies.
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  •  3/17/2008 11:28:04 AM 804376

    Writer seeks artist to help resume webcomic

    So I created and wrote a webcomic for some time called "Dr. Devious Vs. Lincoln High" -- the premise was fun, the characters were great, the storylines entertained a good number of people, and it ran regularly for around a year and a half, give or take, before the artist basically just stopped working on it and I got stuck holding the bag as the wheels came off.

    Here's the good news - it's mine, I own it, I created it and I'm looking to restart it. I own the domain and can probably get the hosting stuff figured out again. I can write scripts to match with an artist's particular style, and certainly enjoy playing with convention. I'm also entirely open to collaboration, meaning I certainly don't want to hog the limelight and say "the vision is mine, and you will draw what I say, monkey!" I believe there's a good level of match between writer and artist that has to exist. I can also write to match your ability to keep up -- if you can handle 5 days a week, awesome, I can certainly keep you busy. If you top out at three a week, well, that works for me, too. Any less than that, however, and I'm going to take a pass. I think the strip is eventually commercially viable and would like to get back to work on it.

    Because you can't currently go to the site (it's down, since there hasn't been anyone working on it for about a year now), here's the story in a nutshell. In 1969, supervillian Dr. Devious is captured by dashingly handsome super secret agent Jack Bail, who is in Her Majesty's Super Secret Service. He is put into prison and thirty-five years later, he is considered no longer a major threat to the world, and is let out on parole. As terms of the parole, however, he is forced to get a job, teaching high school science. To make sure he doesn't get into too much trouble, Jack Bail, now semi-retired, is put to work teaching PhysEd and Remedial Geography at the school. Other persons of interest at the school include Devious's henchmen Mr. Kee (a ninja, teaching Political Science) and Ze Frauline (teaching Spanish), as well as Bail's gadget provider Q2 (teaching Shop and Home Ec.).

    I had loads of fun writing the strip, which positioned itself as a combination of pop culture parody (James Bond, The Prisoner, The Bourne Identity, XXX, any action film you can think of) with a strong dose of school nostalgia, seen from a teacher's point of view. The strip had a good number of fans, I'm sure all of which have basically forgotten of its existence during the long absence. That said, I'm friends with a lot of strong people in the webcomics community (Real Life Comics, Megatokyo, 3 Panel Soul / Mac Hall, etc.) and I'm sure that if I were relaunching, I could get a tremendous amount of lift from it. There were 150+ existing strips, so anyone who wants to be in this for the long haul will get a bit of an infodump when you sign on.

    The trade off is that with the site offline for the time being, you can't really see the old art style of the strip, which is good, because I'd like to see a new visual approach to it. Here are the only things you need to know to audition for the strip - Devious is always dressed in a white lab coat (see the one in the opening of Robot Chicken if you need a good reference), is mostly bald, has a beard/goatee, and has an eyepatch on his right eye. As an actor reference, I liked to think of John Malkovich playing him. Jack Bail should look as much like Sean Connery (now) as possible without being Sean Connery - he's still well-ripped and in shape, has a beard, short hair, wears a t-shirt that says "Coach" on it and generally a pair of gym shorts. Mr. Kee is a ninja, and generally I loved the idea of him wearing the ninja outfit everywhere, although any closeups of his eyes should reveal he's clearly in his late 60s. Q2 is tiny, like half of Devious's height, and should look vaguely like a leprauchan in a labcoat, with extremely thick glasses. He built one robot as an assistant, but they seem to keep self-replicating, so there can be anywhere between 1-20 at any given moment in time. They should be cute, yet zany. Ze Frauline was a very large Germanic/Russian type woman. (If you've seen "Robin Hood: Men In Tights," you can imagine Maid Marian's assistant, Broomhilde, in appearance mixed with Frau Frabusinnia from the Austin Powers movie in demeanor.) I also typically write several panels per strip, as we were going for a "page" style format, more akin to Megatokyo or Mac Hall than, say, PVP or Penny-Arcade. If you get the job and want to move towards a more traditional long-panel format, we can discuss that then, and I can work to adjust the writing accordingly.

    Other than that, I'm just going to let you go at it. I'm including two scripts and feel free to do either/both and send them to me via email as well as a bit about yourself, what you're looking for, what you want to do, what you will do in a strip and what you won't. Things I can tell you will help -- a broad knowledge of pop culture (I've been known to use things like the Bond franchise, the Indiana Jones franchise, Star Wars, Star Trek, The Prisoner, The Matrix, etc.), an expressive art style, a willingness to draw yourself into the strip from time to time (the writer/artist character appear from time to time, as I like breaking the fourth wall, a la Doonesbury/Bloom County, on occasion) but above all, dependability. I'm probably going to want to have around a month's worth of comics in the can before relaunching anything, because I want someone who's going to be able to commit to this like I am. The last time I felt like a fantastic project was derailed by an artist who just stopped doing it. I want someone with talent and dedication who's waiting for their big break -- this may very well be it.

    Script one:
    Panel 1
    Heading box: AN AVERAGE DAY AT LINCOLN HIGH
    Heading box: Period 1 - Foreign language
    Shot of Ze Frauline waving a book around the air at the front of a classroom, yelling at the students, like it's recitation and they've forgotten it.
    Ze: ¿Dónde usted ha dejado el mayor grater del queso de la energía?

    Panel 2
    Heading box: Period 2 - Physical education
    Bail is yelling at a student who's getting clobbered by a ball in dodgeball. The person throwing it is a woman who looks like she has to be over a hundred years old, if not centuries older. Maybe even go the zombie look.
    Bail: Boy, my grandmother's better at this than you are, and she's been dead for at least a decade! Look at her!


    Panel 3
    Heading box: Period 3 - Home Ec
    Q2 is running around a table, holding a massive ax, chasing a chicken with three heads, trying to cut them off. The little robots are running with him, making it sort of a Keystone Cops type of thing.
    Q2: The hardest part about cooking with mutants is the unexpected variables!


    Panel 4
    Heading box: Period 4 - Political science
    Mr. Kee is holding up a book with a dagger in it.
    Mr. Kee: This is how all political debates should be solved.

    Panel 5
    Heading box: Period 5 - Chemistry
    Devious is lowering a student into a smoldering pot of acid.
    Devious: Now, if you can tell me what will neutralize this acid, I'll pour it in and save your life.
    Student: AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

    Script two:
    Panel 1
    Devious walks into the lab, where Q2 is working, hammering on a giant robot boot. We can't see the whole room or more than just the boot.
    Devious: Q2, let me tell you the story of Icarus...

    Panel 2
    Devious narrates, as we see Icarus, a greek boy, and an older man, Daedalus, who are fashioning wax wings.
    Devious (narration): Daedalus and his son Icarus were attempting to escape Crete, and so they finished wax wings to fly away.

    Panel 3
    Devious continues to narrate, as we see Icarus soaring high.
    Devious: (narration): Daedalus warned his son not to fly too high, but Icarus wouldn't listen, wanting to see the world.

    Panel 3
    We see Icarus's wings melting, as he begins to plummet.
    Devious (narration): Icarus felt to his death when the sun melted his wings.

    Panel 4
    Cut back to Q2, who's still hammering away at the giant robot boot.
    Q2: Why are you telling me all this?
    Devious: It's a story about reaching beyond your grasp.

    Panel 5
    Pull back and we can see the boot takes up most of the room, and there's no space for him to keep building upwards.
    Devious: Like where are you going to fit the rest of the robot?
    Q2: ... Ah, hell.



    So you've made it through my massive rant, and are thinking about actually signing up for this mess. More power to you. I'm not insane, I'm not a tyrant, but I am very much committed to getting my baby up and off the ground again. When I've found an artist whose style I like, who is dedicated to getting work done regularly and is willing to think about the big picture (I don't intend to quit my day job for this any time soon, but I also hang with people who are pulling in enough to have a small salary in terms of ads) and the long-term, I'm ready to get back to work on it.

    Also, if you've made it this far, and you're a dedicated artist, but simply don't like this particular idea, I have a couple of other ideas lingering around for webcomics than I'm more than willing to give a try, assuming I can find the right artist. If you want to work on a strip with me, but don't like Devious as a concept, email me anyway and I can send you the conceptual stuff for either of the other strips.

    You can reach me via email at devinoch@yahoo.com. I look forward to the submissions!

    ~c.

    Cliff "Devinoch" Hicks
    Dr. Devious Vs. Lincoln High - creator
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