I'm going to take a quick break from jobhunting and gaming for a while, and talk about something that means a lot to me.

Slayers!

Y'know, the funny thing is, there aren't any anime shows that I'm really interested in right now. And haven't been since Fullmetal Alchemist. The problem is that more and more anime is getting licenced, which includes a lot of stuff that it just... well, crap. Bleach is good, but frankly I prefer it as a manga, where I can control the pacing a lot easier. So when I try to think of good anime, I think of Slayers.

About this time last year, I introduced a friend to Slayers. Unfortunatly the tapes (yeah, they're old copies, back when things were on VHS) were very worn out by this point, and snapped in the VHS player. I didn't worry. They were old tapes, and they'd served me well, each having been watched at least ten times. I knew that I could download them instead nowadays, which is what I've finally got around to doing right now.

Ah, Slayers. I'm a huge fan of fantasy, and Slayers is one of the few genuinely good fantasy parodies. It's a send-up of everything D&D related. It's utterly outrageous, genuinely witty, and just downright works.

It's influenced a lot of my work. In Feral Claw, a lot of the characters' costumes have a Slayers-esque influence, meaning that although they don't look like any of the characters, they'd easily fit in with the setting. Some characters like Calice would fit right in.

It's influenced my RPG games as well, letting me remember that (after years of playing angsty things set in White Wolf games) the games are there to have fun with. As it stands, most of my games are now humour-based.

When I read the novels (translated in 2004, a series of 15 of which only the first six were actually translated and released), the style influenced later works, like Space Warrior Hitachi, which later grew into a current audio play project.

And best of all, when I watch it, it makes me smile.

Hmm, seems so.

Okay guys, you all remember the comic I've been working on? Feral Claw, initially Clawscape but now with a fresh and non-cheesy title.

Well, what's been going down with it?

Quite a lot. I've been rewritting the original scripts, and posting them on my new gallery over here - [link]

Feedback is much appreciated

I'm currently rewritting chapter four, which is now going to be fleshed out over (hopefully) three chapters (well, issues really). I've fleshed a lot of them out - the first three chapters are now SEVEN chapters.

And if you're wondering what's due to happen with the group when you last seen them, stuck in Meridian as the wolves invade, I'll tell you now. But beware spoilers...

Brenath, Calice and Marsten have a massive fight scene with Necarius, and are aided by Dariun and Shadow. They don't stand a chance, and get royally beaten the hell up. The panther who was the general of Meridian's army (now named Kynerath, and more than a little like our hero Sammy J) dies heroically to allow as many survivors as possible to escape the city. Brenath mentions that he knows what 'The Three' described in the prophecy are. The wolves manage to suceed in their invasion and Meridian falls. The heroes continue to fight, but eventually are defeated. Although they survive, they are divided and seperated by many miles.

Hope that makes everyone happy to know

Or 'film' to us Brits.

[link]

Enjoy, and let me know what you think.

So I've been thinking a bit about the next adaption for the comic book, and here's a few of the important elements that need to be altered.

The 'Forest' arc is probably going to be about four issues long, and I want to tackle is as such, rather than taking chapters 2 and 3 into halves. Again, this is going to let me have more space to expand on some of the important elements in it.

- I want to remove the refferances to the shower scenes. I might include one as a one-page 'poster' image, for the fans, but not draw attention to it.
- When Samson arrives in the city (which still needs a name), I want to draw attention to 'how' he arrives - through a magical portal. I mean, this city's thousands of miles away, and I want to establish a level of omnipresence to Samson as well. Plus, it gives me a chance to show off his magical capacity.
- I want to play up Calice's 'betrayal'. The scene where he's condemned by Grentanio is going to be quite a big one, maybe the third issue's cliffhanger. This means that during the attack, people are going to be screaming blame at Calice.
- Play down some of the Byatti elements, because they're not that important yet.
- Play down Lazarus. I've realised that I'm really setting him up as the 'big bad', and while this works, letting it play out itself is more dramatically appropriate. It keeps the true 'big bad' mysterious, so that the audience really can't guess which it'll be.
- Give more depth to Grentanio and his people. Referring to them as 'his people' is rather poor, I need a name for them. These are relatively minor edits.
- Same basic pacing. Issues will progress in this manner...
* issue 3 - they arrive in forest, encounters
* issue 4 - the attack
* issue 5 - celebrations and warnings
* issue 6 - the vision, some extra padding
Exactly what 'extra padding' is going to consist of, I'm not quite sure. We'll see how the flow of the story goes. But I do intend to give most of issue 6 over to the vision sequence.

I'll get to work on it over the weekend. At one issue a weekend, all should go well, and I'll be able to get the conclusion to the 'Meridian' arc finished fairly soon as well.

Okays, I'm working on the adaption for Issue 2 of Feral Claw, previously titled Clawscape.

First, and I decided this last issue, the title needs to be changed. Clawscape has always been a placeholder title, and by changing it to something more apt, it opens up the market and makes it sound better.

Second, I'm tweaking Calice's history just a tad. He now was not even remotely involved in the King's death. He never spoke publically against the royal family. As of now, the King was assassinated by an unknown person, and people immediately blamed Calice due to his less-than-spotless history. This frees up the more convoluted aspect of his character, distances him from the conflict in a more realistic sense, and best of all, leaves open a 'who was the real assassin' subplot that I can tie up at my leisure.

Third, the first 'episode' was split over two comic issues. Now, this was the shortest of the 'episodes', so the first issue ran a bit over. Because of this, I need a bit more padding for the second issue, and this gives me the chance to add two elements. They are -
- The fall of the Obsidian Tower. This will establish Samson's character a bit more.
- And an actual fight sequence between Calice and Victorius. In the initial script, Calice came out without much of a battle, and it seemed more like an execution. This wasn't quite what I was going for, so I'm now going to inject a bit more action into their exchange. While I don't want Victorius to be a high-class mage, he -will- be capable of doing some real damage, and a fight in the ruins of the Royal Gardens with two combatants throwing fireballs at each other does have that air of coolness.

There'll be the usual dialogue changes to reflect this. And, depending on the time, the exchange between the Blue and Red 'entities' may be cut to remove some of the bigger hints. Maybe. We'll see how the pacing allows.

So yeah, rawk on!