Rakshasa Strapped For Cash

Introduction

Formidable Force - Frozen Vixen with the Paranormal Urban Guardians: "Rakshasa Strapped For Cash".

So, on the evening of Tuesday March 7, 2017 I did an alert - a Rakshasa Bank Robbery - and I thought it would make nice action-packed filler material for the first act of my upcoming Defender special issue Frozen Vixen comic. I thought I could do about six to eight pages with the material I had, but then while working on it I soon realized I would easily have more than double that so I decided to issue it in advance as a stand-alone mini-comic of about twelve to fourteen pages. Because, why not? :P

I did most of the work the following weekend. Astonishingly, I did fourteen pages in two very intensive days (although the last five pages weren't fully completed) and I was now working under the assumption the comic would have sixteen pages total, which made me very happy as real comic books have multiples of four pages, just because of the way they are printed on double-sided, folded sheets of paper. But as I arrived near the end I knew I'd have seventeen pages so I either had to: 1) somehow cut one page and still make it work and that wasn't gonna happen; 2) wait a few more years and hope that by then my ongoing therapy would have taken care of that pesky OCD, but I'm too impatient for that and it's a long shot anyway! or 3) just add three more pages and create a nice little four page intro that would be just a tad longer than the one page already planned. Since twenty pages sounded nice and rounded I went with Option 3. It also made me decide that my upcoming full length issues would be twenty pages long instead of the initially projected twenty-eight or thirty-two pages length. Although that may still be subject to change so it's in no way set in stone.

Since doing a comic with that alert was rather improvised and not all that planned, I think I lucked out with the Pick-Up Group (PUG) with whom I was teamed up. I would definitely like to thank them for a fun run that provided me with enough quality material to make this comic. To reference the fact that it was a PUG, I decided to call them the "Paranormal Urban Guardians." I hope they won't object to that moniker. =)

Of course, I do realize that aside from the short intro there is basically no story here other than the straightforward alert narrative, which will be über-familiar to anyone that's played the game for more than a month. So I at least tried to make pop culture references throughout and sprinkle in a good dose of bad puns and absurd dialogue to make it lighter and more entertaining.

This attempt was indeed more about form, comic book aesthetics, and an exercise in patience and perseverance to see whether I could actually pull it off. It's quite encouraging to see that I managed to do it and that I produced it pretty fast too (I could have done it in about a week had real life not interfered). I personally think it looks pretty good, but that's just my opinion. I welcome any of your opinions, comments, suggestions, criticisms (hopefully constructive!), words of encouragement, etc., so feel free to leave them in the Comments section below.

I like to think of this little presentation as a proof of concept, and I hope it will generate interest and elicit participation in my planned fanfic comic book series, which I hope might eventually turn into a full-blown Formidable Force graphic novel!

For those interested in joining the Formidable Force super team in the comics, the only required costume piece is the Classic Foxbat Belt, it's the one with the big "F" in front, which is currently available for a limited time(!) through the FoxbatCon Event.

So without further ado, I'd like to present my first offering in the Champions Online: Mutated Intrinsic Xenophysiology fictional sub-universe, an ordinary morning in the life of Formidable Force's Frozen Vixen:

Comic Book

Comments