So we are knee-deep in the final biome – the Temple. In style it’s the most exotic and weird so far, featuring otherworldly objects and mind-bending architecture. It’s also the destination your predecessor and incessant disembodied voice-in-head Clayton reached before meeting his fate. So here you will finally uncover the mystery of what happened and reach the final ending.

 

Talking about the story – these last weeks I’ve been working on the third issue of the in-game comic. I’m a long time graphic novel aficionado, having inherited a crapload of comics from my dad – all your basic Asterix, Tintins, and Lucky Lukes, but also some weird ass Franco-Belgian comics like Valerian and Ankardo (Canardo?). That led to me having a shelf full of Gaiman, Bilal, Moore, Talbott and Miller. My guilty pleasures are Bone by Jeff Smith and ElfQuest by the Pinis. Anyway, when the chance came up to write a comic of my own (our own!), I jumped at it like a fish in heat.

Here’s a sample of it’s progression.

 

 

First we talk about the story with AMP, my co-writer. If I were to define our characteristics, he brings the talent and I bring the passion. Then I jot down the bigger plot points and what happens on which page of my issue. After this it’s a matter of doing a rough storyboard to get a feel of the actual content of the page.

 

Next step is creating the actual storyboards with Jussi, our extremely awesomest texture and comic artist. Obviously the content goes through major visual changes in this step, as I don’t have a visual bone in my creative body.

 

During the storyboarding process I am iterating through the textual content and the placement of text boxes with the co-writer. This way the final art will have a proper place for the texts and ofc course the actual writing gets better with each iteration. Finding the proper voice for Clayton takes some effort! Or to say it in Clayton’s voice: “I ain’t got a dog in this hunt rookie, but ya better stop your yammering and start listenin’!”

 

Next comes the most exciting part – seeing the final art taking form. Almost always it’s much better than I could have imagined.

 

 

Naturally we are going to print the comic in physical form – it’s already so awesome seeing it take form and holding the physical version in my hand will fulfill an other dream.

 

To cap this off, in the grand scheme of things, the Escape Update in Steam and the simultaneous AppLab/SideQuest release in a couple weeks will feature (in addition to all the other goodies) 2 new issues of the story. I came up with a genre for the comic – and maybe the whole game: eldritch punk. It’ll shock and surprise you and maybe even make you laugh with the cosmic ridiculousness.

-Kharan (Jaakko Asikainen)

Random development quote: “KVGDD“!