With the chaos of D2D now over I feel its time to finally show off one of my new pitches I've have slowly been working on over the past two months. As the site has prgressed, we have seen many awesome pitches come and go and some really unique ideas put into comics that I would have never thought of. But it got me thinking, it's great that we have all these crazy ideas of what comics should be, but never forget where they came from. The masked hero versus the evil villain! This is still one of my favorite styles of comic so i decided to create one.

Welcome to my newest pitch "Fall of Justice". It will have a great front as a hero vs villain epic, but it will also have great back story to all the characters and a real "behind the scenes" look at the characters while they deal with the events. We all know that comic heroes and villains are at their core, normal people who do extraordinary or fiendish things so I want to capture some of those lives and thoughts while the story unfolds.

So, unfortunately with the craziness that was D2D, i havent had much time to write a script, But other then that, the pitch is more or less complete with the normal tweaks and tunes to do here on it. So go check it out, tell me what you think. question, comment, or quote... just go rate it and leave some feed back. As long as its accepted well, I'll get on writing script as soon as i can. Enjoy!

Cheers, Dano

Theme

True happiness comes from within: Gaining self-actualization, a second chance at life and control over one's mind by facing fears, the past and seeing who you really are.

 

Game World

The area transitions in this melting dreamworld often seem illogical, but beautiful and eerie in their atmospheric mishmash of settings, emotions or events from Simon's real life. The player can open a door to a morgue tray and then be lead to a stainless steel suburban kitchen. They can complete a fairy tale mission and, in the same evening, enter another mission to descend into the underworld to battle agents of death. Other areas include 70s clean and fun kitsch, trailer park squalor, present day suburbia, ominous hospital hallways, terrifying hell dimensions, dark twisted woods, Victorian abodes, mythological wonders and both fairy tale innocence and horror. These dreamlike transitions may seem illogical in the waking life, but all of them have intentional meaning to Simon's life and psyche. This atmosphere will create a strong and sometimes ineffable emotional reaction in the audience that will immerse them deeper into the game.

1) Powerful Player Impact: A game that offers a lot more than the usual hero's journey action/adventure. Appeals to all sides of the player by also offering an involving, character driven experience that will connect to the audience on a deeper emotional and psychological level than most games.

 

2) Make a man a hero: The player's strategic and moral choices influence Simon's heroic nature, strengths and resolutions. Player picks Simon up and shows him how he can be a hero.

 

3) Strategy Choice: Player chooses the strategy to conquer Simon's fears and bring order to his mind. Choices include stealth, power, ingenuity and mission order. Each choice creates real repercussions, advantages and disadvantages for the player.

 

4) Branching Dialogue Choice: Select wise dialogue choices to gain trust, power and help from other characters.

 

5) Archenemy is the true shadow of Simon: Simon's strengths will be Travis' weaknesses; Simon's weaknesses will be Travis' strengths. This will make for an interesting battle. The player decides the strengths of Simon by their choices throughout the game.

 

6) Explorative and Symbolic Environments: All elements of the game break down to being a representation of the life and psyche of Simon Reve. Player has the added option of exploring and analyzing the world to add clarity to the vague real life details of their intricate character. A secret fourth ending opens up if the player gathers a hearty amount of these details via in game artifacts and clues provided through dialogue interaction.

 

7) Unusual Weapons: Seemingly innocuous items from real life can be killing machines, evasive cloaks or puzzle solving mechanisms, depending on their significance in Simon's psyche. Simon's trusty pen can be a knife or poisonous ink injector; or his baby blanket can be his cloak of invisibility. The availability of certain weapons depends on the player's strategy choices and their selection consistency in the game.

 

8) Widely Appealing: Game's many aspects appeal to all types of players, including adrenaline junkies, puzzle-solvers, explorers, socializers and achievers.

What a ride it has been. A huge congratulations to our winner RPufler! He has truly made a unique and interesting pitch that I myself look forward to reading in the future. It has been a long hard road and it's going to continue. I truly hope that Z2H will get right onto the next contest so I can have my shot once again. Cyberwaste has been through a lot and i fear that another hiatus may hurt it badly. It was a real job to bring it back into the spotlight and I hope no matter what happens, support stays strong for it, till it gets its day in the sun. Best of luck to you Pufler in your weeks to come as you start that journey. hopefully i will join you there soon. One last thing, a huge thanks to the community that has supported Cyberwaste through all this.

Cheers, Dano

This is a short list for those of you who (like me) learn best on your own. Here are a few indie comics you should read and why:


Understanding Comics (Harper Paperbacks) - In this hefty-sized, near-textbook graphic novel, Scott McCloud deeply intelligently and often entertainingly examines what makes comics... well, comics. He goes through their history and their potential, what makes them tick and what makes them stop moving, and why they are important. This is not only the most intelligent graphic novel ever published, but also a must-read for anyone even remotely interested in comics.


Jar of Fools (Drawn & Quarterly) - Jason Lutes understands comics. He possibly understands them more than we ever will. Jar of Fools is layered beyond all belief. With the simple cover story of a  down-on-his-luck magician trying to make his life work, this book delves deep into human emotion, the hardships of getting old, the reaction to a break-up, the impact of death, and how hard it can be to connect with the rest of humanity. And the best part: He does it best when there aren't words on the page.


Blankets (Top Shelf) - In this nearly-600 page graphic novel, Craig Thompson tells the story of his first love. Unlike most first love stories, however, Blankets is remembered so well that reading it is like falling in love. By mixing beautiful, intricate art with cartoony figures, Thompson creates a world in which we can all relate. It is seen as the most important graphic novel of our generation, and it is easy to see why.


Flight (Image/Villard) - With five volumes, it's easy to say that Flight is one of (if not the) most successful anthology made. But, that doesn't explain why Flight is on this list. Flight is here because it shows how many different viewpoints you can get out of one idea. Flight is a collection of indie creators that have to create stories about the word "Flight". There are stories of ever genre and every mentality.


A Contract with God (W. W. Norton) - The most important graphic novel ever written. Why? Because it's the first. In A Contract with God, Will Eisner proves that comics can be taken seriously. Although some may see it as dated (though I don't think any of Eisner's work is), it's important to understand the history of comics if you are to move forward within them.


It's only five books for now, but feel free to add to the list if you think of something important I haven't mentioned.

I want to take the time to sincerely congratulate RPufler for not only winning the first-ever Direct to Development campaign, but for being the first-ever person to win a Z2H contest without ending every sentence with "eh?" (A joke, my Canadian brethren.) You truly are the people's champion, and I hope that you wake with a smile every day because of it.

But, this blog is (of course) not a completely happy one. I am disappointed that I couldn't win, but more so, I'm disappointed by the fact that everyone couldn't win. Everyone who made it in the six finalists deserves to get their books made. Everyone who took the time to reach out to the community and give it their all should be rewarded, but unfortunately, those rewards must wait.

I encourage that the DtD campaign not be a dying flame for those of you who didn't win, but instead be a ray of hope. Even though you didn't come out on top, you were selected out of hundreds of pitches to stand above the rest. You are the elite right now; you should be on top of the world. Don't let this be the end; there is still more to come. I barely lost the first-ever Z2H contest (before there was even a beta site), and I took that as a rekindling of a dying flame of passion with Gravedigger. I made the project better because of it, and because of it I was able to rejoin a select few for the possibility of publication with the same title. (That being said, expect a new-and-improved Gravedigger to lose the next Z2H contest I can enter.)

And, before you call me an elitist, everyone who didn't make it as a finalist should see this as proof that your time could be next. All of us had been passed over throughout time on this site and now we're seen as some of the most important people on here. You could be next; stick around.

As it turns out, I have been working on a speech for the past twenty-four hours, but its a concession speech . . . which is pretty much useless at this point.

Honestly, I don't think I've ever won anything in my life. The closest I came was a sixth place medal in my first Speech Team invitational - and there were six of us. I also advanced far enough in last year's Small Press Idol to get a twelve-page story printed, but that's about it. I'm not much of a winner.

Thank you to everyone who voted. Thanks to Tenzil Kem (who first dubbed me Puff Daddy), genrewriter and everyone else who took the time to comment on my blogs - especially when they were competing against me. A big thanks to my colleagues specifically - Ryaz, panicman123 and Steven Menszer. And a huge thanks to dan013, who was also one of the first people to welcome me to the contest. I watched his comic and mine switch places at least six of the ten times it changed spots, and I went to bed figuring it would change one more time - and this whole speech would be unnecessary. Probably the biggest thanks goes to Zeroes 2 Heroes. I've never been in a community this professional or this personal before.

Writing The Vigil, I mean Blood Belly, I mean Wolf and Bat . . . errr . . . Bat and Wolf has been an amazing experience. I started writing it about five years ago. Somewhere along the line, I stopped to pursue other ideas. Then I returned to pitch the project to Zeroes 2 Heroes. I made a few minor changes then - made my vampire more portly and gave my werewolf less hair, ensuring my characters would never be mistaken for the cast of Twilight.

When I learned my pitch had been selected for D2D, I didn't think - I just wrote. Even updating my pitch three weeks in row, I learned very quickly I couldn't match the extensive content of Cyberwaste - so I just wrote. And what was most heartening and uplifting of all was seeing was my writing side-by-side with the scripts and plots of five years prior - and seeing how much I had improved. It is advice I can give to any troubled writer - if you're stucked, if you've got legs but your plot doesn't, do the only thing you can do and walk away. Come back three weeks, three months, three years later and try again. You'll be amazed what you find.

I know I was.

Thanks again everyone.

On Wednesday, (aka Ye Olde Blakeday), I posted the first scene of Chapter 3 of Blake Undying, which is basically the Blake version (read: more profane) of the typical "baby in the fire" scenario, that you have seen in every superhero story at one time or another. I always wondered why the hero never questioned why the mother got out if the baby didn't. To me, it seemed like a major oversight for a purveyor of justice in the shining Silver Age of comics.

In any case, my initial intent was to have the mother be black (insert latest politically correct term if this term offends you), in order to portray a more racially accurate diversity for New York City. Later when I hit upon the idea of the mother being addicted to drugs, which in turn caused the neglect, I waffled. Immediately I was concerned that it would evoke racist overtones, so I backed off from that plot point, to avoid diverting attention away from the story. In its first draft I left out the joke entirely, leaving the reason the mother was out at the time of the fire indeterminate.

Eventually I decided to restore the joke, and simply make the mother "white trash" instead. The issue of race was completely unnecessary to the joke, but because of my initial desire to reflect an accurate diversity I almost left the joke out entirely simply to avoid even the appearance of impropriety. (It would have been even worse if I'd gone with my very first draft, in which Blake actually accused her of causing the fire with her crack pipe)

So let's discuss this. Has anyone had a similar situation? Have you backed away from an idea believing it to be too sensitive, or out of fear that it may be misinterpreted?

Hi gang, Sebzilla here subbing in for Jessica who is down at Comic Con this week..

As some of you might have seen, we have our first winner of the Zeros 2 Heroes Direct to Development Campaign!

Bat and Wolf by RPulfer took the win in what was probably the most hotly contested... err.. contest (awkward Austin Powers moment anyone?) in Zeros 2 Heroes history!

The chart lead changed hands no less than 10 times in the last 72 hours, and we had fierce competition between an outstanding group of pitches, but ultimately Bat and Wolf prevailed, and will now be put into production!

Congrats to RPulfer, and also to all the other participants in round one!
 
Sebzilla

First of all, Thanks so much to Juice Boy, Mekikas, Crackwalker and Lord Maim for checking my pitch Lotus and dropping some uber-helpful comments!

(Once again, the notorious link drop of the pitch arrives here: http://www.zeros2heroes.com/pitch/741)

I posted a few hours ago about possibly wanting to change things in my pitch in order to realign with some of the scripts for later issues and I've gotten some great advice. But I'd like to really call out Lord Maim and Mekikas for letting me know how to better present a synopsis. To be honest, I'm not really sure about what I'm going to do here, but you two have given me tons to think about.

And also, Lord Maim, on the possible legal issue you pointed out, I'm going to let that one stick. I've never done legal research on whether or not immigration laws can prevent someone from graduating, but if I ever get in trouble for stating it, I'm going to take it as a sign that people are actually reading my stories =)

Seriously, though, you guys have all given me a lot to think about, especially if I want Lotus to have any legs.

Thanks

Lotus.

There seemed to be a bit of a melancholy chord going through the blogs today as the end of D2D nears.  To be honest, as I read the blogs I couldn't quite figure out why?  Unfortunately only one person can win - but like many have said already this is not the end for the rest (or even the winner).

For instance, look at the number of collectors for all these pitches.  This afternoon the lowest collected pitch was 62.  Right now the lowest collected pitch is 69 (the highest being 86).  6 - 9... that is crazy people - looking at the CCN Round I winners that is way above what any other pitch has ever been collected (if I'm wrong I apologize).  Whether you win or lose (yes I understand winning is the uber prize and could open many doors while if you lose it's ice cream for everyone), at the very least you had 69 community members collect, read your pitch, rate it, and maybe left it some feedback for you to work on with it.  They got to know your style,  and your work ethic, you got to hone your craft and you left an impression on them.  And most likely they will be following you when you come out with new pitches and new blogs (don't go quietly into the night RPulfer).

Ryaz, StevenMenszer, Dan013, PanicMan123, RPulfer  - you've all done phenomenal jobs.  Tomorrow evening, when the deadline approaches... grab a beer, play some tunes, pat yourself on the back, boot up the old XBOX that's been collecting dust since this contest started...

Yeah... so that's it.  I hope no one takes this the wrong way.  You've all done great.

So I guess this means... it's the beginning of the end and the beginning of the... um... beginning again?

Juiceboy.


 

DtD is almost done, people. That means everyone's rushing to the end to win and, let's admit it, maybe crowdhack their way to victory no matter what.

Don't be coy, fellas. We know you're doing it, maybe encouraging it. And yes, we know it has little impact. When new, Zed-less user named Thankurfellasloveuhun69 writes "psbath" as a comment for your vote, hey, WTF, right? A vote's a vote after all. Survival of the fittest!

But whatever. I'm not gonna beat that dead horse all over again, especially since it's been eaten and digested since, with a nice gravy sauce made with a precious blend of fine herbs, parmesan and Martini Rossi. Hmm, tender and tasty.

Which brings me, appropriately enough, to vampire fiction. Thanks to Jason's blog, I've spend my brief time in the subway getting to work pondering the right approach to a new, fresh, interesting vampire story, either in comics or a novel. Let's see...

• Vampires as members of society... Laurell K. Hamilton did it.
• Vampires as secret society... White Wolf Game Studios anyone?
• Vampires as metaphors... too Anne Rice for my taste.
• Vampires living amongst us as rebels and movers and shakers... That's the Lost Boys all over again.
• The old, lordish vampire is 200% Nosferatu.
• Vampires in the future... Yep, we've seen it before. Kevin took it even further in the future than ever!
• Vampires as a cult... If you've seen Blade, you know how it goes.
• And the vampire as the night horror, we've seen everywhere.

So it's really tough to find something new, or at least something that destroys stereotypes, to tackle that. But I don't think it's impossible. See, for instance, they have revitalized the Zombie Horror genre by making them "infected" instead, and giving them new powers and abilities. You've got enraged zombies now, thirsting for flesh and brains and blood, but running around like headless chickens attacking everything in sight.
That's one way to go about it. I think vampires can use that, too... And I think I've got one idea for it... >:D

Finally, Jason being back and the subsequent talks about the UT3 tells me it's about time to go to work on the UT2 Interviews. I'm done inking Rip Current by Carmen Wright, Deutschmaschine is almost completed (some lettering left), and my workload at home is pretty much done. Time to fire up Skype and develop my sound editing skills :D

Coming to a Blog Post near you.