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The Cloud Chasers - #1. 3D Gaming (Proof of Concept)
by 
(Editor-in-chief)
August 30, 2012, 00:54
 


Click here to go to comic home page!

I can't recall exactly, but I believe this particular comic was made as a sort of one-off before we decided to do a full on webcomic.

You will probably notice that the main character and his girlfriend (yes, she is his girlfriend, um... yeah, we're trying to figure out how to establish character relationships within the comics themselves) look a lot different than they do in the logo. We went through some changes before we decided on the "final" versions of the characters, so the versions in this comic are already a bit outdated.

Then again, as explained in the comic announcement, this is all basically a work-in-progress at the moment, so I'm not sure that anything can be called "final" quite yet. But isn't that what life is, just one big 'ol work-in-progress? Does anything ever really stop being a work-in-progress?

Anyway, I suppose you can look at this more as the demo, and the retail version will begin with the next comic? Makes sense to me.

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Posted: 08/30/12, 00:54  - Edit:  08/30/12, 02:00
 
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First!

--Oh man, is that Cubic Ninja?! I finally get to see it!

Pretty funny though, I dug it.

Posted by 
 on: 08/30/12, 00:54  - Edit:  08/30/12, 00:57
Hmm, the "like" button (you have to go to the actual comic page) appears to be bugging out on this one for some reason, although it works fine for Bunker Man and Ploot's comics. I'll have to figure out what is up.

Posted by 
 on: 08/30/12, 00:57
Would have been better if he was playing a 3DS. He could have a moment where he's not sure if he's seeing a stereoscopic 3D effect, or is about to be visited from a demon from Hell.

Interesting "demo" though.

Posted by 
 on: 08/30/12, 01:18
But the whole joke is that it references this... pop culture... thing... ARGHHHH. Not everything is better on a handheld Grant! And a tiny little ghost is not scary.

Anyway, it's tough to portray this in your first comic before you have established the overall vibe, but the idea we were shooting for was that it is unclear whether the ghost is real or not (maybe calling the comic "3D Gaming" pushes the reader's mind too much in one direction?) It will make more sense when you start to feel the overall aura of the comic. There are going to be all kinds of things going on that may or may not be possible in the real world...

Oh, and we're trying to not use real systems / games much anyway. Executive decision. Although we are referencing some things here and there, we're really trying to create our own world...

Posted by 
 on: 08/30/12, 01:30
@Zero

Did I miss something? This comic should just be taken at face value, yes?
I understand what it is spoofing(?), but did I miss the hook? Your comment to Grant suggests so.

Posted by 
 on: 08/30/12, 01:43
Nah you didn't miss anything per se, I'm just saying that as the comic progresses you will start to get the sense that the world that these people inhabit is not as straight-forward as ours. Sure, it may be most likely that he just got a wacked out 3D game. But then again, an actual creepy ghost girl coming out of the screen wouldn't be totally out of the question either. So you would be left wondering which it was.

I hope. That's what we are shooting for, anyway. Some if my inspirations in particular are: The Twilight Zone, Philip K. Dick, Twin Peaks, Scott Pilgrim, you know what I mean? You never quite get a 100% clear picture of what is and isn't possible in those worlds...

Then again lots of people in our world believe they have seen real ghosts too, apparently, so maybe our world isn't as straight-forward as I think it is...

But yeah, establishing this world may take time. We're still trying to figure out exactly how to do it...

Posted by 
 on: 08/30/12, 01:48  - Edit:  08/30/12, 01:49
I must say, "The Adventures of T-Bun vs. The Foot From Monty Python" was my favorite Gamecube game.

Posted by 
 on: 08/30/12, 01:49
Zero said:


Then again lots of people in our world believe they have seen real ghosts too, apparently, so maybe our world isn't as straight-forward as I think it is...

We should get a thread about that...

Posted by 
 on: 08/30/12, 01:49
BTW I'm curious, are you guys reading the comic on the forum page or the comic page? Putting the comic in the thread itself was supposed to be more "thumbnail-ish" and then you have to click to see the full comic, but I guess I made it kind of bigger than I remember making it, and now people may be tempted to just read the comics right here. But that would involve a lot of awkward squinting. I suppose the comics either need to be full-size here (but that could break the forum page) or way tinier so everyone is FORCED to click it to see anything.

Posted by 
 on: 08/30/12, 01:54  - Edit:  08/30/12, 01:55
@Zero

I came in here, and then clicked on the picture to "enlarge" it, and it took me to that other page.

Posted by 
 on: 08/30/12, 02:01
Yeah it may be a tad bit confusing because webcomics have their own space, but they also get automatic forum posts, so there are really two places you can "view" the stuff. Mind you, "views" counts either one, so most of these comics are probably getting double the view counts than they actually have. Whatever.

I kind of want the forum to just be a portal to the main comic page. For many reasons, but the main one is that comics can be up to 850 pixels wide but posting the full comic in a forum post would stretch the forum. And I don't want to automatically shrink stuff down just for format viewing, people are putting a lot of work into these so they deserve to be seen in their ideal format! Plus shrinking could make certain text hard to read.

Posted by 
 on: 08/30/12, 02:04
Ermahgerd, great art from Shirley! This feels like authentically like an indie comic that's been running for years already.

Posted by 
 on: 08/30/12, 03:01
Oh it gets better. I think she is very, very quickly improving her art style. But yeah, it was already good.

Posted by 
 on: 08/30/12, 03:03
Hey everyone!

Wow, first post on Negativeworld ever! Thanks for the feedback and comments! :) Andrew and I will try to keep the comics coming, and it's exciting to see where things will go. For now, yes, The Cloud Chasers is still pretty much a work in progress.

Posted by 
 on: 08/30/12, 03:54
@Bescherelle

Welcome Shirley!

I haven't commented yet but I too was very impressed by the professionalism of the comic art. Very nice. I didn't quite get the joke either though I knew what it was mocking. I guess there was nothing to establish if it was really there or not, like what the rules were for this world yet. In the movie The Ring, we at least see it as real life so we presume it's real. This joke probably would have worked better as one down the line as Zero kinda already mentioned.

Either way, keep them coming!! After say fifty or something, you could sell an anthology of them perhaps.

Posted by 
 on: 08/30/12, 04:10
@Bescherelle Hi, you seem to be new here. My name is Andrew. What is your name? Let's be friends!

@DrFinkelstein Well even if you assume it is just the game, the "joke" is that he is playing a nice innocent bunny collecting carrots game and the developers decided to utilize 3D to give the "game over" screen a very unexpected (in context with the type of game) surprise.

THAT'S FUNNY GUYS, RIGHT?

Posted by 
 on: 08/30/12, 04:23
Lookin' good and it was funny.
Sometimes describing the joke brings down the funny. Don't worry and just let it flow!

Also, PLEASE make the thumbnails smaller and add a "Click here to view" warning. Not enough people are visiting the proper comic pages.

Posted by 
 on: 08/30/12, 04:57
I really like the boxes for the panels! I like that they feel organic, and it goes along with the rest of the style. I think it'd be really cool to see you experiment with that (like, what if the panel with the TV wasn't really a panel, but just a picture of the TV? I'm also noticing that the parts that really pop are the big black areas in the TV and the woman's hair. Think about putting some more areas of black in there (maybe the color of someone's shirt) to draw more attention to certain area. Very promising! Welcome to our (negative) world.

Posted by 
 on: 08/30/12, 06:40
@Bescherelle
'suuuup. Welcome to the board!

I like the art quite a bit. It really captures the quiet desperation and existential angst of the characters!

Posted by 
 on: 08/30/12, 10:25
Hey, @Bescherelle! Was it you I Skyped with when Andrew came to the Montréal meetup? Anyhoo, welcome on the boards!

Posted by 
 on: 08/30/12, 10:57
 
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