Millenium comic book

[ENGINECOMICS]

Hi all,

I'd be very interested in seeing a Millennium comic book. I've been toying with the idea myself, especially after coming across the online MM community and having watched the DVD's dozens of times, reading the fan fiction, the Virtual Seasons, the Millenium Apocalypse fanfilm, realising just how much I miss this show and the characters. I'd be interested in contributing material to any fanzine anyone puts together.

For Dixon, I may be able to help in the comic book area, as I publish comic books myself (enginecomics.co.uk). If its a question of cost, you can look at the print on demand option offered by the likes of cafepress.com and lulu.com. That way you don't have the initial huge financial investment, while having your work in print in your hand. This also cuts out the problem of distribution. If you have your own shop on cafepress.com, for example, anyone around the world can buy it online and have it mailed to them. This type of service wil start to revolutionize the comics industry in the next few years once global postage costs come down and the technology improves, cutting out middlemen distributors to a great extent like Diamond.

If its a question of copyright infringement, it depends on how you market it. If its a fan comic or zine, as in you are not in it for financial gain and add disclaimers to the product, I personally can't see a major problem. It would be no different than hosting (or publishing) a website with photos, soundclips etc from the show itself. Its supporting the fan community. Providing its not actually distributed through the likes of Diamond (who take 50% cover price), I can't see it getting that much attention outside of the fan community anyway.

The other alternative would be to have it as a downloadable PDF. People can then print it off and read it themselves if they wish.

I'd certainly be interested anyway in seeing what was produced. If not, I'd like to contribute to a new MM comic that can be made downloadable, possibly as a companion to the fanzine mentioned above. I'm already contributing to a Millenniumistic magazine called End is Nigh (endisnigh.co.uk), that people might be interested in looking at. Each issue focuses on one possible cause of apocalypse, with articles, news and strips. Issue one was zombies, issue two was war, and issue three is death from above, from alien plague to celestial collisions. Owls may be interested in that one :)

Anyway, hope that helps.

Cheers

baz

www.enginecomics.co.uk

[ENGINECOMICS]

anyone have any ideas, feedback? would anyone mind if i posted some sketches of frank here to show what i mean?

Cheers

baz

www.enginecomics.co.uk

[Guest ein042]

anyone have any ideas, feedback? would anyone mind if i posted some sketches of frank here to show what i mean?

Cheers

baz

www.enginecomics.co.uk

Please do!

[ethsnafu]

Thanks for the link to the apocalyptic-comic-zine site. I have ordered one, as I am in dire need of something doom-laden to digest during my coffee break, and intrigued to say the least. I am eager to get something produced with regards to Millennium and whilst I would love to throw my mettle into a fully fledged comic book I wouldn't know how you go about securing the necessary artistic talent to produce it. The conceptualisation of the work wouldn't be a problem as there are oodles of excellent writers on the board but the artistic element may be our stumbling block as it would seem that you are the only chap around these parts with comic art abilities- I imagine drawing the whole thing single handed would be an arduous task unless of course you are able to bring along a few like minded talents into project. Your thoughts on this would be interesting as I know nothing of this arena.

A comic strip as a companion to a zine sounds excellent though and I know Max has expressed some interest but we need the rest of the intelligentsia to come along and join the ride. Some time ago a well respected denizen of the board sent me some ideas he had for an Old Man project and it was stunning (you know who you are) and if we could encourage him to join us as well we might stand a chance. I am aware that there are other projects either in production or struggling to get off the ground and am appreciative that another may not seem wise or necessary but I urge people to consider this as something unique and with the right synergy I am confident, nay adamant, we could produce something worthy of the Millennium mantle. The creme-de-la-creme of Millennial thinkers forming a think-tank to take the genre into uncharted creative waters - the mouth waters does it not?

Eth

[ENGINECOMICS]

I've often found that securing artists to a project is a lot harder than getting writers, purely because of the time/work ratio. An artist, on a good day, can do one page of comic art a day, working anything from 8-16 hours on it. A writer could do a dozen. For unpaid work as well, the numbers get smaller. Many artists charge upwards of £100 a page of art. For those artists willing to commit to an unpaid project they'll generally only agree to a few pages here and there, rather than a full 80 page graphic novel.

In my case, as I write and draw myself, plus edit other peoples work, I'd be happy to be the artist on the proposed comic book, which for the time being, I've a working title of The Time Is Near (TTIS). If we're going the downloadable route or print on demand route, then we can do it in colour, painting it. This would take me on a good day about two-three days to do, depending on the level of detail (a city scape, a crowd of people, etc takes longer than a straighforward portrait shot). If anyone is familiar with comic books here, I'd be aiming towards the Alex Ross level of photorealism (or if not familiar, go to alexrossart.com). When I've finished them, I'll post some sketches of Frank etc.

I have many ideas how the series could be brought up to date, how the Millennium group could be reformed or repaired, how Frank and Jordan can fit into it all. But for any comic strip to work, it will need some serious research and a few drafts to get it right. Again, I'm happy to help on that.

I also think it would be best to have it as a companion peice to the fanzine. We need to start laying a structure down and a few deadlines, and start looking at script synopsis. Shall we start the ball rolling? :)

cheers

baz