After spending about a year taking it apart and putting it back together, I've launched my comic on Webtoons:
Part One is Available Now:
Here's a preview of the first page:
I'll be back tomorrow with another installment of Quake City!
What is Quake City?
Right now it's series of blog posts detailing an urban based superhero RPG adventure/campaign designed to take place during the aftermath of major tectonic disturbance or similar disaster.
[Post One]
Introduction
Thornhaven is a brooding, gothic, decaying Rust Belt metropolis. Criminal gangs fight an endless war for control of the city’s rackets unchecked by the corrupt and indifferent police force.
How it Starts:
It’s 1974, October 24th, 4:30 Friday afternoon, happy hour, rush hour. Bridges that should have been rebuilt half a century ago are overpacked with cars. It’s raining. Potholes fill with water and the storm drains roar almost loud enough to drown out the noise of the commute.
4:31: Giant swarms of birds spontaneously take flight and depart the city.
4:33:15 The tremors begin. The initial quake lasts for 22 seconds. At its peak, it registers a 6.6 on the Richter scale. The destruction is nearly unimaginable.
4:34 Tens of thousands are dead. Tens of thousands more lie trapped under the rubble. Two of the cities three major bridges have collapsed. Buildings have fallen over. Skyscrapers lean against one another. Entire city blocks have vanished. In their place stand new mountain born mountain ranges made of rubble and distorted, uplifted streets. A pall of dust hangs in the rain, reducing visibility to zero. The screaming starts. It will go on for a very long time.
4:41: Mass breakout from the Barnibus Asylum for the criminally insane.
4:46: Riots at Ajax Penitentiary begin.
4:50 Somewhere, something is burning.
Star Grove: An area filled with strange, alien vegetation, much of which is carnivorous. Star spawn tend the grove. They will give only the most cryptic of answers to any questions directed at them, but will not attack unless attacked. If sick or wounded characters enter the forest the spawn will stop what they are doing and immediately tend to them. If the character or its companions show any signs of hostility, they will disengage and wait for an opportune time to steal the injured party away, even those that have engaged in prior hostile action. After securing the sick/wounded they will transport them to their strange subterranean lair and tend to them there. Patients will be released once they are healed.
Robot Farm: Several thousand Hectares of cultivated land. A wide variety of robots tend the land. The robots come in all sorts. They have all been modified, as none of them were originally built for agriculture. The food generated from their enterprise is stored in a large warehouse. Every year the previous year’s harvest is destroyed. Battle Droids patrol the perimeter of the farm and will attack anyone attempting to enter. It is possible that human adventurers might gain entry and, perhaps, even access to the food stores. Humans, however are thin on the ground in the Weird Wood.
Recently, I bought a lot of Bill Willingham's Elementals on Ebay.
Anyone who knows me at all, is aware that I spend a lot of time reading, thinking about- and making comics.
Minor spoilers ahead:
I’ve tapped into the first 17 issues. 1-5 are pretty cool. I’m not crazy about the ending of the first storyline, but I might feel differently on a second read.
Issue 6 launched a new direction as the Elementals become regular superheroes, which they kind of suck at.
7 is about the Elementals fame and thoroughly skippable.
9-12 are some spy stuff and an adventure dealing with some of the sorcerous fall out from the end of the first story line.
13 is a one in done dealing with an ice daemon.
14 is a downtime issue, normally I hate downtime issues, but this one is pretty neat, because it addresses the fact that they’re all actually undead, and can't really do downtime, all of which still seems like pretty cool and original to me thirty-five years on.
15 is a one and done, kinda, with a fight between Vortex and a dude named the Annihilator, who was one of the supervillains from the first storyline.
16-17 Comprise a vampire story. the vampire is an overweight nosferatu kinda guy, with some Incel issues. it's pretty straightforward and nothing to get excited about, but enjoyable for what it is.
Willingham is completely at the mercy of his inkers. The early and later issues look best. In between he’s got some amateurs on the job.
There are a two lines of narration/dialogue that would cause a kerfuffle today.
Bill’s hatred of anti-semites shines through in many places. It comes up a lot.
Overall it's a 6/10
There’s also a Justice Machine/Annihilators miniseries in this pile. Justice Machine is an even deeper cut than the Elementals. I'll get to it eventually.
I find supers in a limited world like this, Savage Dragon, BPRD, and pre 1970’s Marvel more enjoyable. I guess I’d include Kirby’s 70’s stuff too, because that shit is set in the big two universes in name only.
Gaming connection: The Destroyers initially appears in two V&V adventures written and illustrated by Willingham. In typical fanboy fashion one of the letters in a later issue access Willingham of staling them from the module. Looking at the creators name is hard, I guess.
I wrote a novel that takes place in my Mars setting. I will start revisions within the week and I hope to have it up on Amazon by the end of August. Some of you might find this interesting: I wrote the first draft in 19 days after reading that Bradbury did Fahrenheit 451 in 18. he did more words and I assume all his revisions within that time, but still 19 days is pretty good.
23
Sagoth Caves: A series of limestone hills riddled with caves. The caves show evidence of former habitation, but nobody lives there now- or at least not permanently. Strange things happen in the caves, ghosts are seen and fell beasts come up, without warning, from the lower tunnels.
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