adamwarren
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FAILED-PROJECT FRIDAY: More layouts from a freshly failed comic project!
🕑 Added 2023-12-22 14:00:07 +0000 UTC[Our previous sneak preview of this now-defunct project can be seen here.]
So!
Back on November 27, I posted a sneak preview of a one-shot I had recently finished work on. To repeat from my earlier post, I got an offer from Udon Productions to write a Street Fighter one-shot featuring the popular, kinda-sorta-new-to-me character "Juri." As I am rarely if ever offered the opportunity by any company to even pitch on writing a comic, I jumped at the chance to dip my toe into the "writing-only" end of comics production again.
Anyhoo, I worked up a story idea, crafted it into a two-page pitch synopsis, and sent that along to Udon to (eventually) get approval from the license holders at Capcom. Ah, but in the meantime, I got fired up about the prospect of working solely as a writer for a li'l bit, as opposed to the seemingly endless and so far fruitless effort to develop a viable "digital workflow" process for projects I would draw myself.
So, in what I thought was a properly calculated risk, I optimistically proceeded to lay out all the one-shot's pages and then worked up all the dialogue and panel descriptions into a finished script. I went even further to redraw my loose page layouts into a series of tight, partially colored thumbnails, as seen here years ago in earlier posts on projects Empowered and Sistah Spooky's High School Hell and the abortive Empowered and the Mask City Meltdown:
As noted in the Nov. 27 post, this one-shot was initially put on hold after Capcom objected to the story's use of Juri's nemesis M. Bison.
So, with the help of Udon editor Matt Moylan, a series of different alternatives were worked up that would've eliminated the M. Bison appearances seen in this initial set of roughs:
...and lo, thus did a revised version of the pitch wing its way off Capcom for, we hoped, eventual approval.
(BTW, note that a new-and-improved clone of Juri would've been her foe in this story.)
Ah, but last week the bad news arrived: Looks like Capcom currently doesn't want any appearances in the Udon Street Fighter comics by Juri either, so this one-shot is now completely defunct.
(Note that I cropped the "quad thumbnail" featuring pp.13-16 down to pp. 13-14 for this post, so I could balance out the pagecount and enable one more entry in this Failed-Project Friday series next month.)
All is not lost, though, as I'm still getting paid for the script, and Udon might try resubmitting the one-shot to Capcom in a year or two, presumably when the latter folks have figured out what the hell they want to do with Juri in the comics.
BTW, I get the impression that nothing like this has ever happened with the SF comics before, for whatever that's worth. I feel so special, folks!
I had a lot of fun working out the fight choreography for the scenes of NeoJuri beating up on Juri, in case you couldn't tell. (Worry not, our bruised and disheveled heroine will rally in the final stretch, as you'll see sometime in January when I post pp. 15-22.)
To repeat from the end of the Nov. 27 post: Regardless of this one-shot's fate, though, I'm still glad that I worked up this story, as I found the work mostly enjoyable (or at least tolerable) and fulfilling, in contrast to the maddening frustration of so far futilely struggling to establish some kind of (possibly mythical) "viable workflow" for comics drawn by me.
So, as noted before, this one-off freelance gig started me thinking about doing more "writing-only" comics work in the immediate future, as I have roughly a bajillion different story ideas that aren't ever going to seen if I remain dependent on my own drawing availability (or lack thereof).
In the aftermath of the Juri near-debacle, a long-standing fantasy comic pitch (one never addressed in detail here, BTW) is stumbling towards Possibly Actually Happening with an artist whose work I admire greatly, while I'm working up a rather less likely, mainstream-adjacent proposal with another artist whose work I also admire greatly. Also, as seen here the weekend before last, I'm mulling over switching The Chaste and the Chained to a "writing-only" project as well; thanks much for your artist suggestions, dear Patrons, which I've not yet had the chance to explore in detail due to other pressing matters occupying my attention (including this unfortunate Juri situation).
NEXT TIME ON THIS HERE PATREON: No idea, TBH, but something should be coming up in the next M/W/F slot. Let's find out together, shall we?
Comments
KranberriJam
Hopefully something comes of it in the future, it looks too good not to be finished!
Karlos
Sorry to hear it didn't work out. Woulda been awesome.
ben aka nekomilk
oh, well. That sucks. Hopefully you can find a way to work something out for writing only.
