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Mar 2020

Uh...
The chibi pixel art and the bad humor? Yeah, that sounds about right.

On tapas it is apparently that it’s a mystery because there don’t seem to be that many when compared to the sheer wealth of fantasy titles?? But in all serious I guess I would sum up mine as... Call of Cthulhu but with inconsistent art, lots of character interactions and like 85% gay panic?

I'm proud to say that the thing that sets LOSTLAND apart from other similar stories is it's unique take on the post-apoc world. The setting is much less a gloom and doom, destroyed landscape, and more a world that's slowly coming back from the brink, but changing into something entirely different from the old. The end result is a world filled with very beautiful, strange, and almost fantastical landscapes and locations, with bizarre and scary creatures to match!

All and all, the world of LOSTLAND is something I've been really proud to recreate from the ground up, and I hope others enjoy it too!

And of course, a few shots from that world XD

nothing. except i have a bridge jumping fetishist.

I include a lot of documents along with the comic itself. There are cyber briefs, letters, unclassified documents, interviews, letters from the author (aka me) and articles that all assist with world building. I'm also trying to break the fourth wall and pretend as if I'm making the webcomic as part of the Future Agent's "marketing initiatives" and sometimes have conversations on Twitter with the director of the program. It's a little silly to be honest, but I really have a good time acting. I kind of want to make people go, "Wait, what?" and stop to see if they can find any other little easter eggs.


https://www.futureagents.net/

Hmmm... It's (more-or-less hard) sci-fi comics with cyberpunk elements, made by actual programmer.

I hope my knowledge helps me to make it's "theoretical" part and world building more solid, than the average sci-fi. I particularly aim to investigate possible vulnerabilities of not-yet-existing-but-believable tech to describe a believable ways to hack it or to use it in surprising ways.
Needless to say, how much do I like to depict people, who use high tech in low ways, for ridiculously stupid and/or malicious purposes. :joy: This kind of satire is really my thing.
Of course, my comics is strongly influenced by classic cyberpunk from 1950s-1970s years, several post-apocalyptic settings and "transgressive fiction". Yet, I didn't see a particular combination of characteristics, described in this post, in any other comics or book (if you did, please, tell me! It may be very interesting read for me :grin: ).

I think there's some parts of the story, especiaIIy one last story arcs, are pretty unique but of course I can't talk much about them without spoiling anything x'D

A, sadly, less important but unique factor in FIVE is this fella

That shadowy, feral, "inmortal" being is a character I'd love to do a separate mini comic or something about. They've been on Earth since almost the beginning of humanity and have been tied to one human and then other, and other and other. They're responsible for many of the differences between our Earth and FIVE's (for example there's monuments dedicated to them in several ruins and thanks to them Esperanto is spoken in most countries as an official second language).

Shia (the girl) and them go on trips to just spend some time away from civilization and survive just with what they can get from nature or, in other ocassions, go visit some ruins in places Sokar (the shadow) used to live c:

If there's something I'm confident to say my story is unique for it's the characters tbh x'D I could write a book about any of them.

My comics are similar to yours: Superhero stories. If I had to say one thing about my comics that stand out from the rest, it's as cartoonish as it is realistic at the same time.

This is a good question. I think for me it's my art style. I really wanted to have as much line economy as possible (my goal is to keep up a 2 update a week schedule, which is possible because it's page format) and ended up with a line-art style that occasionally uses only the color red, and in trying to find the most economical way to do a comic, it has been a great way for me to learn and practice screentone, too.

I also have another one that is significantly more weird and unique, about cats that are becoming human but aren't human enough to really understand it. Kind of on hiatus right now, because I have too much else going on, but it's a very dark cat fantasy, and most anthro stuff leans way cuter. Also it's got novel elements--you don't have to read em but the original story had like pop up stuff you would find as you read the comic and it had like letters and back and forth between characters. Took most of that out for Tapas so there's only a little of the written stuff left now, but it's like...a cat tragedy. I assume there are a bunch of cat tragedies on the internet, but I do think we're still pretty niche.

At the surface level, my main comic seems to be like any other space war vs aliens kind of story. But it's actually quite a hodgepodge of things. First, my drawing style leans more on the big-eyed, sparkly shoujo kind and I don't think there are many in that style. Secondly, I don't believe there are many that mix with the occult. It also does romances a bit differently.

Unfortunately, I can't say a whole lot about these things right now because they would be spoilers.

It's also my attempt to get my thoughts out there about how the universe may work. A hypothesis of sorts. Again, can't say much, we'll get there eventually in another 6 or 7 chapters.

I tried to keep it as close to the real world as possible and even though it's a "fantasy" due to "supernatural" powers. I don't think the characters would call them "supernatural" though since if something happens in real life, it's not longer "super"natural, just natural. But they certainly do not completely understand them due to the inability to interact with and process the information.

It also not only takes place in the future, but also visits Mesopotamia which I don't think many comics do. And... spoiler

Summary

ANCIENT ALIENS!

And, ugh, the stuff that will happen in chapter 7!! Again, can't say, but it's going to be fun. :smiling_imp:

8 days later

idk it's flippancy I guess

I would probably say that despite it being a dystopian fiction, the focus isn't on action or fight scenes. It is mostly about the main character's internal conflict, and their relationship with their environment.

A medieval fantasy story with realism flavors and thus I called it medieval science fantasy.
Armor works properly and has badass female warriors wearing full armor.
The magic that's not present as an excuse or as deus ex machina but rather as skills that can be learned.
Main characters that aren't much powerful than the average of healthy and trained people.
Mostly comedy and dark humor, with romance, drama, and action.
Have a shared universe with my other story (that isn't published yet.)
A lot of name puns, and easter eggs.
Have an occasional special interactive episode with the readers.
Elves and orcs are treated as closely related species with a shared common ancestor.
It has lore, interesting animals, and cool stuff.
6 years' worth of world-building.
And it's FREE TO READ.

If some of those are your things, please come and read it here, and I hope you're entertained:

I like to think that even though having a cute talking animal or robot sidekick is basically required for most webcomics (and I'm talking about early 2000's webcomics rules here, not this new-fangled long-scrolling format webcomic stuff) my comic stands apart from the others by having its quirky robot character be a... uh... a self-assembled restaurant soda machine hellbent on improving a particular employee's customer service skills through the threat of violence. :sweat:

Does, uh... does that count?

I wanted the unique creepiness of the Australian bush to leach into The Southern Magicks. There are so many stories about spooky small-town America. I think isolation is the main thing that creates the unique creepiness of rural Australia. It's a country almost the size of America with only 25.5 million people. I based the location off two places in rural New South Wales (one inland and one coastal). I made Dunn less isolated than I originally wanted to give me more places to take the story. Though the location isn't the main focus of the story it is still important and unique, especially for a modern/low fantasy story. I've never seen a story in this genre set in small-town Australia (I'd love to read some if they're out there).

I'm working on a horror short story series that focuses on creppier aspects of rural New South Wales. A series about the monsters I created while growing up surrounded the decaying remains of an abandoned mining town.

The Characters, the Fourth Wall shattering, the personalities, and the Story!! Plus, the layout is not too shabby

Hurrah for entertaining robot friends. If they don't bulldoze your city, and go woof woof.;/

( Mine are about the size of a bear dog. )

As an aside, the tricky part I'm experiencing is it's loosely based on a script I'm working on, but its already taking it in a slightly different direction. The first half may not have robots for a while.

1 month later

I think what sets my story apart from zombie stories is the setting and tone of it. While there's still zombie-packed action and human-on-human action, it focuses on two military people stuck in a cabin due to a blizzard. So there's a psychological aspect to it that comes with a twist at the end (of course). :wink:

I've been told the dialogue sounds like you're listening in on real people having a conversation for the most part?? Which I count as pretty high praise.

Also I don't have a single teenager in my cast. Everyone in the story is either late 20s or Early 30s and in one case old as the hills. Life doesn't end when high school does, you know?