My comic, Animated's Revenge is Coming, and I

Hi all,

I'm GhostLord. I've just accepted an invite to this blog and I'd like to show off my Transformers funny. It's called Animated's Revenge is Coming. The plot is that after Transformers Animated is cancelled the characters blame the movie transformers for their situation and decide to go to war with the movie transformers. Here's the link to the thread of my comic on tfw2005.com

http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/transformers-funnies/237003-animateds-revenge-coming-funny-ghostlord.html#post3680341 

I hope you all enjoy it.

Side Stories

Side stories are the glue that holds my strip together. sometimes my arc is SO epic that i have to run off in some other direction that at first makes no sense, until the moment when i tie it all together and BAM!!!! that seemingly meaningless side story just became a major plot-point.

i have had MANY times where i've had an idea/inspiration for a story arc... but the current arc is in play... so i throw it in, leave it with a loose end, and tie that suckah up when the moment is right. it works for me.

i've also discovered the joys of having random non-arc related content that stands apart from the running content. my Comedy Corner, and my Postcards segments really help me break from the action when either writer's block (something i suffered early on, but no longer) or time constraints become too much. it's like a sweet little morsel of goodness that takes the edge off.

a LOT of the best comics out there have little scene changes that do just this same thing. movies and comic books too. my recommendation for anyone with a budding/fledgeling comic is this: explore all options and when you hit a snag, create a side story! sometimes that side story leads you right into the solution for your problem!!!

Working on a side story right now, actually which involves some of the ROTF characters. it's already planned out as to how it ties into the story, but it's the break i need from the current story while i finish the semester. the first big battle is coming, and i will need LOTS of free time to stage it.

and that's it. that's my piece. Side Stories.

yeah.

-A.S.

Killing Off Your Characters

Hey there everyone! I'm here to talk about something us comic makers either love to do or loathe to do: killing our characters.

The way I see it is you're either a Beast Wars or an AEC. If you're a Beast Wars, then you accept that characters get killed in battle or for other reasons and you occassionally kill off a character (Terrorsaur and Depthcharge). If you're an AEC, then you will kill off characters, but for some reason or another you will probably bring them back in the same form or in a totally new body (Smokescreen/Hoist and Armada Starscream/Energon Starscream).

There is a third option, which I call Bleach. If you're a Bleach, then you NEVER kill the good characters, no matter HOW MANY TIMES THEY GET SLICED OR SHOT. This is a personal pet peeve of mine, because when you know the good guys have no chance of dying you realize the fights scenes are all worthless. And Bleach is full of those. >_>

So anyways, I personally find that killing off characters is necessary if you have a comic where there are any kind of serious good vs evil battles. Something like Puppylove's Comic Silliness obviously shouldn't have many (if any) character deaths.

As for my comic, I have already killed off a good chunk of my characters. As of right now the majority of them are alive again, and the only one still dead is Sharkticon, the star of the Sharkticomics.....and we'll see where that goes. :)

One of the problems I find that I'm having is that I'm too attached to my characters, and if I do kill them I always try to find a way to revive them. The time I killed the Animated Decepticons? They came back in less than 4 updates via the power of the Transmogrifier. The time I destroyed the dimension and all its inhabitants? The Matrix simply restored it. The time I killed Tuma and ShadowDragon? They were revived with the dimension. You can see my pattern here.

Another problem I'm having is that if I kill off a character at one point, what would I do later if I thought of a good joke that involved that character? I wouldn't be able to do it since that character is dead.

Another one is that I love my comic because it gives me another excuse to play with my toys. If I killed a figure, then I would have a reason NOT to play with that figure, and it would collect dust at the bottom of the storage bin where I sadly store my figures.

So while personally I have several problems involving me killing my characters, I realize that someday I need to kill one of them for good. Maybe a bad knock off or something. Or Acid Storm. :p

New Idea for a Photo-Comic

Like I said in my first entry to the FFC blog, I was originally working on a serious comic called "Fallen's Threat." It was about how life on my family farm was peaceful, for both the Autobots and Decepticons in my Transformers collection, until the day when ROTF Fallen arrived and vowed to get vengeance for me taking so long to get him and set him free. Everyone who read it on TFW2005 loved it. But then, I started having problems at home, I had schoolwork piling up, and I was growing ever disappointed with how my comic turned out and getting frustrated because of my lack of skills to create stellar FX using Photoshop CS3. So... I quit working on it. Needless to say, my readers were upset. I told them that I couldn't make any guarantees, but I might redo the entire comic.

However, I wanted to do something that's just as original as my idea for "Fallen's Threat," but something much more entertaining and something that I would be proud of working on. I thought up ideas as to what I could do with my new comic. I thought of doing something within the lines of Fred Gallagher's "Megatokyo," then something within the lines of Polencius's "Warring at Play," and so on and so forth.

But then one day, my older brother was flipping through the channels, and turned it onto Cartoon Network hoping to watch Looney Tunes and the original Scooby Doo cartoon. Instead, they were showing movies on CN, and they were playing "The Secret of Nimh." So we watched it, and as I was watching the part in which Nicodemus tells Mrs. Brisby about the rats of NIMH, I got a couple of ideas that I thought were worth a try... both on a new photo-comic featuring my toys (not just Transformers -- I also have Busou Shinki, and I recently started getting into Bionicles) and a story I was struggling to rewrite (but that's something I won't discuss here).

Basically, I thought of a general idea that some sort of an organization had experimented on making toys come to life, and were successful... perhaps far too successful, as toys not only come to life, but gain a high-degree of intelligence in that they are capable of doing things that humans can. I thought this would best explain why the toys featured in TFW comics like Sharkticon's "Sharkticomics" are alive and how they're able to do the things that they do, like... writing letters, participate in contests, using a computer, etc.

That's just one idea that I have for my comic. The other one involves the toys in my house; not just Transformers, I also have 10 Shinkis (2 new ones are coming, and then there'll be a custom one that I'm going to be working on) and I recently started collecting Bionicles (got 2 so far). There's the Transformers, of which the Autobots and Decepticons are on the verge of breaking out into a full-scale war. Then there's the Shinkis, trying to eke out a peaceful life on their own under a custom Shinki known simply as TC (my nickname), and the Bionicles, who have claimed their own territory and are not very forthcoming to anyone entering their turf. Altogether, these toys are dependent on their owner, but when their owner can't always be there for them then they are under constant threat from the owner's parents and their rambunctious kitten, Coony. It soon befalls on TC (the custom Shinki) to convince all of the toys to become less dependent on their owner and make preparations for a new home, a task that's very large and daunting to undertake, even more so with all the toys being broken down into factions that don't get along.

This is a comic project that I hope to get started working on next year, in January. By then, I should have hopefully mastered several FX using GIMP (I have been practicing on some FX using the tutorials found in TFW2005's Funnies Tutorial thread), and I'm fully confident that this comic -- in which I've yet to come up with a title -- will leave my readers wanting more.

Any thoughts or questions? Everyone is more than welcome to share their thoughts about this idea of mine. After all, what are blogs for?

comedy is different things for different people

you know i try hard to make stuff come out as funny when i make my comics, or when conversing with people in  general. but this is not to say i am a funny person. to be quite honest in the years that i slowly learned how to use a computer, other than using it the way a normal teenage male would, i found that the internet has become my vast resource for jokes.

let's face it, we weren't (but not always) the ones who came up with our punchlines.

we take a few things here and there, take notes and play around with things in our heads. it's inspiration that keeps you thinking about how you want to do your writing.

finding difficulty coming up with your own shtick, it's not uncommon to look at things from someplace else and incorporating them as your models. then you go ask yourself; how can i put my twist to this, or how can i make this even better?

you don't have to lock yourself in your room all the time and hook up to the internet as your guide as you write this epic script of gastronomical, tear-jerking, heartbeat-skipping humor. sometimes conversations with friends help, sometimes the newspaper helps, sometimes battling a 300-foot tall lizard in your giant mechanized robo-warrior with four other teenagers with attitude helps you fight evil and fly off into the horizon victorious and confident that you saved the world from impending doom yet again.


and so my dear children, the lesson is this: when darkness is a rubber-skinned amalgamation of a turkey and a blowdryer with evil minions, you can resolve this in two words-- It's Morphin' Time!

wait... that's three words. four if you split it's to it is

wait... that's-- that's not what i wanted you to learn from all this.

okay... um...

comedy is all about 10% idea and 90% audience, at least for me.

it's important that you consider who you're directing your punchline to, you need to reach out to them on an equal plane so they don't have an i can't relate with you moment.

you have a funny idea but you need to ask yourself...

is it funny for you or is it just me?


you can't gouge how much you and your audience share the same wavelength all the time so at times it's guesswork. but thank GOD i do comics for transformers-oriented audiences. sometimes franchise related in-jokes work best with these types.

jAaM!!!!!11!!1

;)



but if you want to play it safe, it's a good bet to use common jokes and humor and tweaking your characters to carry them out. slapstick is nigh-universal. stand-up is also one. story-oriented comedy needs to be strong from the get-go in order for the audience to pick up interest, and needs to be interesting all throughout in order to let new readers in without having them backtrack a bit for them to get it, and fourth wall humor is the easiest.




to each his/her own.


now excuse me while i let myself dry out from all this babbling.

FFC Freetalk

Hello, everyone. Welcome to The Federation of Funnies Creators blog on Blogger. Hard to believe we simply started out as a social group on Transformer World 2005 the Boards, in which all of us members are creators of photo-comics involving the use of Transformers figures (plus other figures, such as Bionicles and Busou Shinkis). We are trying to establish ourselves as an official faction on Transformer World 2005 (more commonly referred to as TFW2005 or TFW), of which we hope to do so by gaining recognition via our blog as well as our own forum (linked at the top of our blog). We can thank our fellow Federation of Funnies Creators (FFC) member, Noisemaker, for creating both the blog and the forum.

As for who I am, I go by the username Trans-Crazy. For a brief time, I worked on a serious photo-comic titled "Fallen's Threat," of which I had posted on TFW2005. However, due to real life getting in the way and a lack of skills necessary to create spectacular special FX via Photoshop (or GIMP, both software in which the majority of us Funnies creators use), I gave up working on "Fallen's Threat." I am, however, currently planning to work on a couple new photo-comic series, the one I am most likely going to work on first is a more comedic series in the vein of Fred Gallagher's "Megatokyo" webcomic (of which had inspired me to try my hand at comics before I was introduced to photo-comics on TFW). The other series, of which I would work on as soon as I have moved off of my family's farm, will be a serious comic that would more or less be similar to Polencius's "Warring at Play" (one of my favorite comics on TFW).

I'm sure by now you wish to know a little more about who I am, so here's the laydown:

I'm a 23 year-old woman, currently attending a community college in a web design program. Well, the overall program is called Internet Professional, and it deals with more than just web design -- it also includes web coding/programming and user experience. At this point in time, I'm debating whether to go into web design or go into user experience. Either way, it is my hope to graduate with an associate's within the next couple of years and then transfer over to a university to get my bachelor's. I'm also an aspiring novelist, currently struggling to rewrite a story that I wrote back in high school. I deal mostly with science fiction with a pidge of fantasy, and my works so far have been aimed at a teenage audience, and are all novel-length series. I'm also currently writing a Transformers fanfic, titled "The TC and Wildfrost Story," which can be read at TFW2005 (I'll provide the link to it later).

Judging by my username, I am very crazy over all things Transformers. I currently stand at a collection of around 140 Transformers, and it continues to grow, albeit slowly. I'm also interested in collecting Busou Shinkis, having just started collecting them this year and currently have 10 of them. I'm planning on my own custom Busou Shinki, of which I hope to use as my "avatar" in future photo-comic projects. Also, I'm a Disney aficionado and a history buff, and I like to read in my spare time.

I've most likely have overloaded you with way too much information, so I will stop here for now and post another blog entry going more into detail as to how I got into photo-comics and join the FFC in general.

My First MP and Energon Sharkticon

Last night thanks to a fellow TFW member I got my first Masterpiece figure: Masterpiece Skywarp. And I just have to say, this guy is almost my new favorite figure!

Almost.

My favorite figure is still, even though there are possibly better molds with better articulation and whatnot, Energon Sharkticon.

So what is it about Energon Sharkticon that makes me like it so much that I've purchased 4 of them to date? I've been thinking about this for a while now, ever since I first REALIZED I now have FOUR of this figure. These are some of the 'best' explanations I've been able to think of.

First of all, let's go back to when the figure first came out. I had just gotten back into Transformers after leaving because of Beast Machines and missing RID (although somehow I have a RID Ro-Tor figure). Watching Armada on Cartoon Network had resparked my interest in Transformers. However, something I can now see that hadn't changed was that I was buying the toy because of the show. Probably why I never really bought any Armada figures that weren't in the show, the only exception off the top of my head being Predacon because my Beast Wars Transmetal Megatron had broken and I wanted a replacement.

Then Energon came and for a while this pattern still wasn't changing. I was only buying characters from the show. But then one day I found Sharkticon, and forever would my buying habits be changed. A little dramatic, no?

The second I saw this figure I wanted it. It was the first figure I had ever wanted simply because I liked it. I'm not sure if I knew whether or not Sharkticon was in the show. Either way I bought Sharkticon and it immediately became my favorite figure from the line, and from my entire collection. After seeing the greatness that is Sharkticon I even bought some other non-show characters: Slugslinger, Rapid Run.....okay that was it. And technically Rapid Run was the first figure I bought from Energon and I only bought him because I hadn't watched enough of the show yet to know he wasn't in it. It really wasn't until Cybertron I bought figures both from the show and from outside it. But still Energon Sharkticon was the first figure I bought just by the look of the figure.

Second explanation is.....just look at him! He's EASILY one of the BEST figures from Energon!

Third explanation is one I can't really explain. After I bought Energon Sharkticon, as time progressed and more and more figures were released, he was the one figure I found myself always going back to. I would constantly find him on my desk with my recent purchases, most often in front of most of them.

Other figures would soon challenge that spot. I just recently realized I have more and more of the same figures on my desk. Not surprisingly though, those figures have played vaguely important roles in my comic: Universe Acid Storm, Titanium The Fallen, Cybertron Unicron, Animated Wreck-Gar, and ROTF Gears.

Still, I don't think Sharkticon will be leaving my desk for a LONG time. Especially when I have four of them. I mean, come on, chances are I'll have at least ONE of them on my desk at any given time.

Special Qualities

So what goes into developing a story for The Toys Will Play? truthfully, i have always been a fan of the "Personal Struggle". each character has a story to tell, and some in particular just seem to have untold stories that need to come out.

My character Autobot Jazz, for example, got very little screen time as a movie character, and received an extremely unceremonious end at the hands of the movies greatest villian...

because he was so underdeveloped in the film there is a question that begs to be asked: what is it about a bot that gives him the ball-bearings to take on the mighty and powerful Megatron in single combat, knowing that he could very well end up torn in half?
my thoughts led me to this conclusion: Autobot Jazz has GOBS of potential, yet something always seems to interfere with his moment of greatness. this endless cycle of being built up, only to be cut down is something that can only go on for so long before he decides to take his destiny into his own hands.

Acid Storm.... another interesting character, and one i hope to develop further in my comic before this story arc ends. aside from anything on his biocard, he is a relatively unknown character. he is built just like Starscream, Skywarp, and Thudercracker, and yet where does he fit into that group dynamic? i explored this angle in "The Seeker Tryouts" mini story. in my world, Acid Storm has all the makings of a real seeker, but Starscream and the others are so blinded by the "Glory" of being a seeker, that they choose to strenghen their ranks based on elegant performance in an audition, rather than basing their choices on ambition and capability. because of that, Acid Storm has taken on the characteristics of an outsider, and is now aligned with a force so powerful it threatens to change the very fabric of the TTWP universe. a powerful ally has become a fearsome enemy.

And finally Ultra Magnus..... i always wondered why hasbro bothered to repaint optimus prime so often into Ultra Magnus without giving him some defining characteristic which set him apart. just changing the color isn't enough in my opinion. oddly, this thought had escaped me until i had started the "Wonderful Life" mini saga. Originally my idea for the Anonymous Anonymous group was to give Autobot Jazz a chance to shine..... but then it occured to me that Ultra Magnus is probably the MOST under appreciated repaint of all time. i chose to have Ultra Magnus usurp the role of "Voice of the People" from Autobot Jazz for two reasons, the first being Magnus's obviously superior credentials, and the second being to take Autobot Jazz down a notch yet again. it was this pivotal moment that gave me the idea for the current story arc, and will forever change UM's status among the characters of TTWP. the last update (episode 22) serves to provide insight into the tortured mind of this character and show that his tough exterior is barely able to contain the fragile emotional balance within, caused by decades of being "second best".


that's all for now... i've never shared the creative process before, but as you can see all the ideas are intertwined with one another, evolving organically from one another until they become a single idea with its roots buried deep within the personal struggles of the story's characters.

and that's my 2 cents.

-A.S.

My Mind!!! Charles no!!!!!!

As i sit here preparing to go to class, i checked in on this happy little blog and lo and behold!!! i've started a trend!! others have posted now and how exciting that is!

so a bit of my process for those who might care to know, as promised (or threatened depending on how you took my last post?) :

I draw. i draw and i write. whenever pencil hits paper, i begin to conceive a story which ultimately unfolds in photocomic glory....

perhaps on the website i'll post some of my storyboards...

yes that's what you'd call it. storyboarding. little panels drawn on paper with dialogue and poses and ...

nah. they're rough sketches at best, with mere scribbles for dialogue which i often hope i can decipher later. but it's a start. it's how i keep the ideas from buzzing around in my head and crashing into each other. i put in defining characteristics for the figures i intend to use (and i'm getting real good at remembering those details now!) so i know who is who, and sometimes have to draw little arrows and stuff to remind me what the hell i was doing...

but then i start the actual work of posing...

and that's where the storyboards come in handy! i already know what the shot should look like and so i can work quickly. i set up, frame the shot, and then proceed to take... like 5 or six shots per panel.... sometimes shifting the angle, or moving folks around, but for the most part setting up just like in the storyboard. i do shots with lots of different lighting choices, and then when i have all my panels done, i import into photoshop.
i open them all, and review the duplicates of each panel.... i scrutinize, looking for blurriness, bad lighting, stray cat-tails.... i try to get the best possible shot. then i keep only the ones i want open.

now i dont' know about anyone else, but i never know what i'm going to do with effects until i get there... i let the tone of the panel dictate the effects... sure some background stuff is necessary for mood or for atmosphere but i like to be surprised by the stuff that happens in my comic too!

since i use photoshop exclusively i ABUSE the ability to create multiple layers... can make for some epic effects...

once it's all done, i squash it down into a jpeg, slap a border around each panel (for that crispy clean look) and throw it up on photobucket (username autobotspike_2008 for anyone who wants to see all the random crap i have on there). connect the image links and i'm done!

well anyway i'm sharing this because i'm kinda interested to see if anyone posting here wants to share their process.... i haven't even gotten into how i develop a story yet, so i might go there next, but for now i've at least shared my technical process.... anyone else got a different technique?

-A.S.

By Reading This Blog Post You Agree To Be Fed To My Sharkticons.

So. This is the Federation of Funnies Creators Blog. Sweet.

For those of you who may have no idea who I am, I am Sharktibolt, creator of the Sharkticomics over on TFW2005. And as Eisen said, I love toys. Namely Transformers. Specifically Energon Sharkticon, as I own four of that one figure. But more about that later.

I am 18-years-old and in college, so as you may guess I've got a lot of stuff going on in my life. Homework, classes.....um.....well that's actually it. I'm not what you'd call a social person. I'm the kind of guy whose mom forced him to go to school dances, and the whole time he's there he just stands against the wall glaring menacingly at anyone who attempts to help me have a good time.

So because I have no social life, I find I have a lot of time on my hands. But one of the things I do that helps me eat away at that large amount of spare time is collect Transformers. It helps that I'm willing to step into ANY place that MIGHT have one I'm looking for. You name it, I've probably been there: Wal-Mart, Target, Toysrus, flea markets, TJMaxx, Kmart, Marshalls, Family Dollar, online sites, comic book shops, and more!

My collection is currently at about 420, give or take a few. All of them are different too, with the exception of four of them, which are my favorite figures of all time: Energon Sharkticon! Why the obsession with Sharkticon? No idea. I just know that if I have a fifth one by Christmas I will not be surprised.

So maybe some other time I'll mention something about the Sharkticomics. Which you should totally go and read, by the way.

-Sharktibolt

howdy.

oh, hello there.

 not a lot to do here yet so we rarely get visitors. you may have stumbled here through some wayward links on some other sites or blogs. or perhaps you were engaging in a trivial search for something entirely unrelated, like say 4chan. if this is the case i apologize to you, reader if you were expecting dirty pictures, but if you still care to know what we're all about then read on, dear chap.

...oh, you're still here? capital!

well to briefly introduce you to what this blog is about, let me start by saying we love toys. we love them so much that we want to play with them.

but.

we're all pretty much in our early or late teens, heck some of us may even be thirty. so we can't exactly go to parks and play with our  dolls  action figures, out in the open? well in some cases we can, but for the most part we might get weird stares.

so that's where comics come in. photography is all the rage with all the young people these days, and a lot of people take to writing as a good mental exercise, be it posting IN ALL CAPZ ON TEH FORUMZ, writing angst ridden poetry on livejournal due to something or other, or to simply let out your creative juices (and mayhaps other fluids) writing fiction or slash. you'll also be hard pressed to find someone who has never read a comic on some form or another these days.

(photography) + (comics) = Photocomics.

 now, combine that with our toys and this leaves us with an equation that looks like:

(photography) + (comics) + (toys) = Photocomics about Toys.

simple, isn't it? well that's what we're all about. we are a collection of fellows--and ladyfolk who engage in the riveting activity of creating and promoting Toy Photocomic-ry. since we originate from a site that deals with Transformers, that is more often than not the bulk of our work. but do not be misled, dear reader, for often you will see non-Transformer toys taking the spotlight from our mechanized companions

yes! we are forging a federation with the sole intent of promoting our work and encouraging others to do the same if they feel like it!

you'll laugh! you'll cry! you'll feel the urge to wear funny hats!

i can't promise you anything but all i can say is you are in for something... different!


if you are brave (or bored) enough to take up this invitation i am departing to your person, then click the link below, and never look back!
http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/transformers-funnies/

tally ho!

~Eisen

The trouble with Web Comics

well unless posting here at this time is going to cause problems in the development of this blog, i guess i'll start by saying this: It is HARD sometimes to be a comic author. actually... i guess that's not true. it is EASY to love the sense of satisfaction that comes with developing and nurturing an idea. it's a thrill to see your latest work up on the web for all to see, and when folks respond? the best.

the part that's hard is finding the time to do it!

i go to school part time, work full time, and have a house that never seems to get quite clean.

i also have my own business that i operate by contract, and a loving girlfriend who i devote a good portion of my attention to.

also i have cats. you cat people know what that means :)

so when do i find the time? heheh. honestly it happens when i least expect it. i get the notion to jump on the project and i barrel through it in what little free time i have and then voila! there's an update... once a month, heheh. i wish i could post more often. i love the rapid updates that some of these folks have... but i just can't find the time.

it makes me sad because i know my readers want to see where the story takes them and i hate leaving them hanging....

but i'll never quit!!! i love it too much, and it gives me the best excuse of all to play with my toys!!!


heheh.. hope that's not too much for a blog post.. i've never done this before, but i really hope i can use this blog as a way to channel some of what ails me... and give others an insight into this creator's creative process. if it please the court, i'd love for my next post to be some details about how i conceive, develop, and implement my concepts....

-A.S.