Need Advice For A Furry Action Comic

[TheCynicalViet]

All of this is work in progress. Feel free to tell me what you think of the premise, of the art and the cover, and my writing style. I'm open to all kinds of advice cause I really want to make this comic work.

"In the middle of the Gobi Desert in Eastern China, a tournament is held where people off all class, species, and nationality gather to see whose warriors can defeat the other until there stands only one. And with it, the prestige and power and money that follows!

Our journey starts with a young orphan, Liuxing, born and raised at a temple in a rural village in China. Kind but hotheaded. Clever but completely naive. He chooses to enter the tournament to entertain himself and to bring back all the spoils for his friends and family back home. There he finds himself intertwined with people wanting a bounty on his head, learning about the secrets as to why he was orphaned, and being joined by an unlikely rag-tag group of friends."​

Cover is still a WIP but is the most current version.

 

[Kit H. Ruppell]

I have no complaints about the artwork, that's for sure.

 

[goldcatmask]

I'm no expert on making a comic but i like this idea and would love to read it!

 

[TheCynicalViet]

I have no complaints about the artwork, that's for sure.

Thank you! The actual pages are gonna be standard greyscale but I'm hoping that is cover isn't too oversaturated? I really do need my main character to POP out especially since there is a reason why he has to be black and white in this cover. I wanna make good contrast but I don't want to burn my readers eyes before they even read it, you know?

 

[TheCynicalViet]

I'm no expert on making a comic but i like this idea and would love to read it!

I'm glad you like the premise! I don't know how many people would be appealed to it but there's alot of Eastern ideas like Confucianism, Taoism, Zen, Buddhism, etc throughout the story. The entire tournament itself is a metaphor for the idea of repeating life and death until you reach nirvana. The start of a new round means a new life and the end of the match means death and the tournament is split into stages called "SAMSARA", "MOKSHA", and "NIRVANA". And our main character's story is literally a modified allegory of how Buddha got enlightened. I don't know how many people are willing to read something like that but I hope a good amount would appreciate they symbolism. Hell, that's not even scratching the bottom of the barrel in counting total amount of symbolism in my story.

 

[goldcatmask]

I'm glad you like the premise! I don't know how many people would be appealed to it but there's alot of Eastern ideas like Confucianism, Taoism, Zen, Buddhism, etc throughout the story. The entire tournament itself is a metaphor for the idea of repeating life and death until you reach nirvana. The start of a new round means a new life and the end of the match means death and the tournament is split into stages called "SAMSARA", "MOKSHA", and "NIRVANA". And our main character's story is literally a modified allegory of how Buddha got enlightened. I don't know how many people are willing to read something like that but I hope a good amount would appreciate they symbolism. Hell, that's not even scratching the bottom of the barrel in counting total amount of symbolism in my story.

I don't really understand the symbolism myself, but it sounds like a lot of thought is being put into this and i'm sure that level of care will show clearly though the work itself.

 

[TheCynicalViet]

I don't really understand the symbolism myself, but it sounds like a lot of thought is being put into this and i'm sure that level of care will show clearly though the work itself.

I hope so too. I did get advice to not overfill my story with symbolism or to make my symbolism the main focus. The story should be the main focus and the symbolism serves to help boost the story, right? I've also come to terms to not adding everything I want which is a bit sad cause I had some badass ideas but I'll have to hold off on those until the main storyline is done. I had a whole thing involving Japan and Korea but it's not relevant to the story until WAY later. Trying to keep everything contained and easy to follow, you know?

 

[goldcatmask]

I hope so too. I did get advice to not overfill my story with symbolism or to make my symbolism the main focus. The story should be the main focus and the symbolism serves to help boost the story, right? I've also come to terms to not adding everything I want which is a bit sad cause I had some badass ideas but I'll have to hold off on those until the main storyline is done. I had a whole thing involving Japan and Korea but it's not relevant to the story until WAY later. Trying to keep everything contained and easy to follow, you know?

Oh yeah, definitely. You're writing a piece of fiction so the story should take the stage. Symbolism is a nice addition to the story and will be especially appreciated by those who understand it but not everyone will and a story focused on symbolism would be less enjoyable to those who don't understand the symbolism. And yeah, sadly sometimes ideas have to be cut to prevent the story from becoming convoluted. But there's always the potential to use some of these cut ideas in the future, perhaps as a sequel or even as a separate project.

 

[Vinfang]

Golden rule to summarize all stories: This story is about (character's goal). Did he/she succeed or fail. Why?
I would say the hardest part for me is to trim out the bulk fillers and/or other unnecessary elements - Characters. Settings. Timelines. Backstories. etc that are not relevant to the main plot.

 

[TheCynicalViet]

Golden rule to summarize all stories: This story is about (character's goal). Did he/she succeed or fail. Why?
I would say the hardest part for me is to trim out the bulk fillers and/or other unnecessary elements - Characters. Settings. Timelines. Backstories. etc that are not relevant to the main plot.

Thanks for that advice! Let's see:

Character's goal: He wanted to win this tournament because he hoped it could help his community whether it was him spreading all the money himself or causing larger cities (or even the capital) to take notice of his rural village and possibly help the people that live alongside him.

Did he succeed: He did. But not without losing a lot of things in the process. This tournament lasts for one year (it so long because the tournament itself is a representation of the Samsara) and he would have to learn so much about himself, others, and the world in general. From being beaten bloody to being utterly mindfucked, he would most notably end up losing his childlike naivete, his propensity for anger, stubbornness, and come back changed.

Characters: The story has a main cast but the central focus will be on our main character, the one in my WIP cover. His backstory, motivations, development, and actions will be explored the most while the others will still be explored but to a much lesser extent only to help boost my main characters development.

Setting: Eastern China. I know that having the main cast going to too many places makes the story clunky but I know that keeping the setting static is gonna make the reader bored so I'll have them travel in order to do "objectives" that also end up moving the story or further push character arcs or themes and messages.

Timeline: It's just a linear timeline. Takes place within one year. I just to be really careful with pacing since I don't want important things to go too fast nor do I want to slog through boring scenes.

Backstories: My main character's will be the most explored. However, the other members of the main cast will also have their backstories shown but only to push both my main characters and their character development. Everything else serves as world building.

I don't know if that's all but feel free to tell what you think and if there's more things I need to address.

 

[TheCynicalViet]

Currently sketching out the layout of some pages and working on improving the scenes where characters interact. I find some the dialogue to be "cringy" at times and I'm make things sound more natural and more in line with what the character would say.

 

[pilgrimfromoblivion]

Just have him crack some epic one liners.

 

[TheCynicalViet]

Just have him crack some epic one liners.

You know, I'm almost inclined to do that but I don't think that's gonna work. If anything, I think it would work better if he just commented on his fight sorta like how Dante does in Devil May Cry.

 

[pilgrimfromoblivion]

You know, I'm almost inclined to do that but I don't think that's gonna work. If anything, I think it would work better if he just commented on his fight sorta like how Dante does in Devil May Cry.

the art looks epic as hell. i'd def read the comic.

 

[TheCynicalViet]

You say that Liuxing is orphaned, but how so? If he has a family in his village that he wishes to return the spoils of this tournament to, what kind of family are they? Are they his adopted parents? Are they distant uncles/aunts/grand parents? Are they a group of street urchins he considers family? Family can extend beyond who your biological relatives are and that could be an interesting angle to tug on.

That is a good question! His father died before his mother since he was killed while attending this tournament. Liuxing's mother died while giving birth to him. After that, his uncle adopted him. His uncle is actually a monk (he follows a sect of Buddhism that mixes teachings from Taoism and Zen) and he raises Luixing in a temple at their village with other orphans that were taken in. His village is rural (agrarian, it's mostly rice farming) and very, very small which means that everyone knows each other so as Luixing grew up, he sorta ended up treating the entirety of the village as his surrogate family (which it pretty much is). You know, other people naturally just helped him and he ended helping them in return out as he got older and that grew into a familial bond over the years.