I do apologize to everyone at the 2010 Supanova Melbourne convention two weeks ago for the delay, but it’s finally released. Free now to wreak it’s havoc upon society.

In case any of you are wondering what inspired this… my mate Chris Booth has long been a fan of B-Grade horror movies. So it should be no surprise when he mentioned that I should do a comic involving zombies walking into a 7-11, that it was immediately obvious to me that it should be set in the universe of Clerks. His idea was essentially that Zombies could be much less of a plague and more of a hindrance upon society. It’s never been done. At least not that I can tell.

In every zombie movie as far as we’ve both seen, Zombies are always portrayed as an outbreak, an uncontrollable mass that destroys society in a matter of hours. What if it wasn’t so rapid? What if they roamed around aimlessly? Never talking. Never dying. Just moaning. Hordes of the dead just standing around. On street corners. Under bridges. In parks. Seldom ever attacking people, and even then most people can easily avoid them. They’d become part of everyday life. Normal.

Sure some people might simply ‘kill’ them. But if this happened in real life perhaps some people wouldn’t want them to be exterminated. After all how could you KNOW for sure they didn’t remember being alive? They feel hungry. They can remember the word for ‘brains’. How could you know that they wouldn’t feel pain? In short I think this would be an awesome movie if it were done in a style similar to District 9. So if there’s any interested directors, feel free to write me!

ShinyVerse.com [008] Clerks & Zombies.

Just pasting the logo I just designed. This ones for a pretty nifty file copying program my father wrote called ‘Ninja Copier’. You can grab a copy of this awesome program up at NinjaCopier.com.

Just pasting in the current badge designs for this years Supanova convention 2010. Some you maybe have already seen at last years convention, others are brand new and ready to go.

Yup. That’s right folks. The troubles of the last few years have caused the team to spread right across the face of the earth in order to get decent paid employment in order that we can afford the internet. Though after spending some time here in Japan I’m once again disgusted with the flagrant price gouging and under-servicing we are forced to endure in Australia as a result of the non-competitive, modern business model whereby one company only introduces improvements to it’s customers in the event that their competition has already gone and done it. Which they will almost never do.

But I didn’t start writing in order to rant.

Let me tell you about this Japanese guy i’ve seen around here in Tokyo on rollerblades wearing cosplay and dancing in the streets. But wait there’s more. That’s not the full extent of his depravity. Oh no. It’s about the cosplay. You see, he’s not just in regular Otaku cosplay. Rather he’s cosplaying as a maid. No not as a butler. I do know the difference between a butler suit and a maid dress. No this guy is standing there on the street side in broad daylight and lamplight (he’s there at night too), with rollerblades and maid cosplay on, hairly legs protruding beneath the short skirt and all doing the twist, the watousie, the bird, you name it he’s dancing it. What’s worse though is that he didn’t even have the decency to wear a Kamen No Maid Guy mask. Bleeeagh…Oh the humanity of it….

Now let’s move onto something less disturbing.

Ah who am I kidding, I’ve got nuthin’. Other than some cool cosplay ideas…

See you all next time Risky-Sama can manage to finish a strip.

Normally my comics are pretty strait and narrow, nice a sharp edges, each panel completely independant or the other, with only the words intruding on the black space. The idea is that instead I’m going to experiment with torn paper edges, something I’ve never done before. I’m going to try, at least in part, to echo the raw textures in Left 4 Dead 2, and give the comic a more desperate, earthy appeal.

I’m not at all understating this when I say it’s quite a challenge. Due to the lack of words in the comic I have to rely almost entirely upon my artwork to convey the message, which could be quite a tricky mark to hit. In addition to this I feel like trying to draw the characters for this more realistic, more like the style of a western comic by Marvel or DC. I don’t usually have this kind of focus on a project, or zeal for trying new stuff, or impatience to start on the next project immediately after I just finished the last. I’m having force myself to get some sleep. I am only human after all.

ShinyVerse.com [007] A Harvest Moon.

Just a quick concept sketch to explore what alien armor might look like on the alien homeworld ‘Charis’. I’ve borrowed rather heavily here from more eastern sources of armor, especially the Samurai of ancient Japan.

Seems I’m in a bit of an artistic impasse. I’ve got a zombie comic to draw for this years Supanova convention and I have no idea what kind of zombie style I want to go with for it. As you can see above this is a basic study where I drew each of the basic three artistic ‘styles’ on the same page.

The first, top-right, is basically the super simplified ‘Nickelodeon’ style. The sort of fun zombie you’d see on ‘Space Invader Zim’ or ‘Sponge Bob Square Pants’. The second, top-left, is a bit more realistic. The sort of zombie you’d find in your more mature cartoons or comics like maybe ‘Ren and Stimpy’ or ‘Family Guy’. The third, bottom-center, is your super realistic type. The sort of zombie you’d find in a more adult genre, like the ‘Dawn of the Dead’ movie or ‘Walking Dead’ graphic novel.

Looking at the now I’m not completely sure which I will eventually choose. My first instinct is to go super-real because it’s more fun to draw, but most of my friends say I should go with the super simple one. We will just have to see…

Just a quick concept sketch to explore what Eiler Traliavin from the alien homeworld ‘Charis’ might look like. This sketch is only in the very early (alpha) stages, pending major changes both in style and in response to a completed script. I’ve heavily borrowed here from the Starbuck character from the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica series.