Possible Christian webcomic?

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Possible Christian webcomic?

Postby Aleolus » Sun Oct 21, 2007 10:06 pm

OK, here's an idea I had for a comic that I'm thinking of drawing up and doing. Web-based, of course, but I wanted to get the opinions of my fellow believers before I got started on it. It will be Christian as a base, though out of necessity there will be some differences. I'm wanting to keep the differences as small as possible, though.

The backstory for the comic is that the main character had been living a hard life, pretty much since his childhood. With the exception of his parents, anyone who he ever got close to wound up having something terrible happen to them shortly thereafter (often resulting in their death), and as such he wound up being quite a loner (though not entirely by choice).
The day he told his parents he had been accepted into a good college, they both got killed in a car wreck, and he almost lost it. Now, he had been a good, believing Christian up to this point, but that was almost the last straw. So he walked deep into the nearby woods, and basically said "OK, God. Either quit taking everyone who gets close to me, or give me some way to protect them." All of the sudden, there was a bright flash of light! And standing before him (once he could see again), was an Angellic figure. He did the usual question thing, and found out it was a genuine angel, and in fact, his guardian angel. The angel told him that several fallen angels were causing trouble, bringing mischief and evil about the world, moreso than usual, and God was going to use this as a test of his faith in him. He would grant him great powers to battle evil, with only the restriction that he was to never use them on an innocent. He (the character) agreed, and the angel quite litterally merged with him. Afterwards, he began seeing strange creatures everywhere, and saw them messing with stuff and all. After a while, he realized that no, he wasn't going crazy, he was seeing demonic creatures, and eventually he figured out how to access his powers for battling them. Now, he's attending college, and doing what he can to protect the people around him and most anywhere else from their activities.
Now, (as per usual for an anime or some such) to access his powers, he has a little transformational sequence. First, he pulls out a small, sharp knife (which can only be detected when he wants it to be), and slits open his palm, saying "I call unto the Lord, grant me the strength to fight!" Then, as he's speaking, he clasps his cut hand around a cross he carries around his neck. Big transformation, when he gets an angellic form, and he battles and kicks tail.
Before this all happened, and still now, he's been a big fan of RPG video games and of anime, so he's taking slight advantage of this to do stuff he's always wanted to do. His first fight he finished up by creating Tessaiga and doing the Wind Scar. However, he is always courtious when he does something like this, and looks straight at the audience afterwards, saying "With apologies to" such and such, "the creator of" whatever. In the above case, "With apologies to Rumiko Takahashi, creator and author of InuYasha." (and yes, I know that is breaking the fourth wall, but I don't want this to be too serious!)
"Please stand down, I don't want meaningless bloodshed!" chaos-Xenosaga

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"Who are you?"
"If I knew that, I wouldn't be suffering." - Hakuro, Utawarerumono

"Dirty thoughts are bad!" Mahoro, Mahoromatic

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Postby mechana2015 » Mon Oct 22, 2007 12:39 am

I'm not sure about the schtick with the copyright infringement for starters, even acknowledged. Could also damage any seriousness in a series, and would definately prevent it from being ever printed or sold by any company.

I'm also wondering how such a superpowered charachter would have any sort of conflict... seems a little bit difficult to have a real conflict without some sort of difficulty. Also the orphaning plotline is pretty overwraught (most anime heros are orphans). I can see this being pretty interesting if some of the kinks were worked out, Peretti style, maybe.

In general though I worry about just copying the plots of other anime with a Christian label on them. I don't want to discourage you, but to promote you to think of pushing it a little further.
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Postby Aleolus » Tue Oct 23, 2007 12:19 pm

Well, I'm sort of basing the main character off of me, and just doing what I would do in that situation, which is utilize the skills and abilities of my favorite anime and video game characters. And I wasn't planning on having it be totally serious. I was thinking something along the lines of the Tenchi series, which has its serious moments, but also has quite a bit of silliness and fun. Plus, I don't plan on this being anything mainstream, just something that I'll get started and work through to get out some frustrations and so forth that I have.

For combat, the opponents will be scaled as appropriate for the character he's emulating. When he pulls out InuYasha will be when he's up against regenerating opponents and foes who outnumber him about six million to one or so, whereas when up against a single strong sword-user, he'd go Tenchi, just as examples. And there will be some opponents who will completely overpower all of those, and he'll be required to use a Holy version of Lina Inverse's Dragon Slave, which I have already figured all out and everything. I also have one guy in mind who not even that will work on, who he'll wind up going against several times, each time not being able to do anything until after quite a while, when he finally manages to grow enough in strength to be able to defeat him.
"Please stand down, I don't want meaningless bloodshed!" chaos-Xenosaga

Image

"Who are you?"
"If I knew that, I wouldn't be suffering." - Hakuro, Utawarerumono

"Dirty thoughts are bad!" Mahoro, Mahoromatic

Help my dragons to grow, please!
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Postby Mave » Thu Oct 25, 2007 10:48 pm

Disclaimer: These are just my friendly opinions so pls accept them in goodwill. I know you intended your story to be light-hearted. My first thoughts are as follows:

1) The bright light angellic form in the woods scene greatly reminds me of Joseph Smith's encounter and how Mormonism came to existence.
2) Assuming I know how to confirm that this bright thing is indeed an angel, I would proceed to ask, "Why is it that everyone who gets close to me dies? I know you're my guardian angel but couldn't you watch out for my loved ones/friends too? Is there some type of curse on me?"
3) I'm not sure about slitting the palm part. Some ppl may take issue with it since slitting wrists is real to some individuals (in a suicidal fashion).
4) 'Superpowers-granted-by-God' plots have been done before. I've always wondered why and how the main character never abuses these powers (in a realistic sense).

That's not to say you couldn't move forward with this story. If you kept building unto it by adding on some twists (I dunno...give the guardian angel a cranky or pessimistic personality or deliberately hype up the transformation only to find that he looks just the same outside "What?? That's it?" or he is only granted a staff, not a sword - only to have him argue with the angel for a cool-looking sword). If the angel mallets him in a comical fashion, I would accept that as a comical type of story but that's just me. :hits_self :hits_self :hits_self
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Postby Aleolus » Thu Nov 01, 2007 4:05 pm

I like the idea of the angel having a bad attitude, though I'd be more likely to model him somewhat after Rumisel from Misfile, being something of a drunk.

As for the palm slitting, I was thinking something along the lines of representing the blood spilled by Christ on the cross, in a symbolic way. If that would come across as blasphemous, then I can change it.

Plus, he manifests whatever weapon he wants, depending on the opponent he faces, and most of the changes to him are cosmetic (eye color and hair). The only thing that actually has use to them is big white wings. However, whenever he manifests the power of a particular character from an anime or video game, he also has their limitations, until he gives up their particular powers.

For instance, if he brought forth the powers of InuYasha, he'd have the personality issues and flaws of him as well.
"Please stand down, I don't want meaningless bloodshed!" chaos-Xenosaga

Image

"Who are you?"
"If I knew that, I wouldn't be suffering." - Hakuro, Utawarerumono

"Dirty thoughts are bad!" Mahoro, Mahoromatic

Help my dragons to grow, please!
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