What Would You Want to See?

I write graphic novels as a sort of a hobby, many of which are illustrated, and am planning to hit the convention circuit in the next few months to try and sell some of my projects. I'm about, however, to start in on one of my largest and most crazy projects yet to date. This is where, all you lovely and helpful members of the community, come in!

I'm sure this is the first of many posts I will make looking to you lot for help so I wanted first to give a brief background on this project before I pose my question. The story as it stands now begins in London at the dawn of the Victorian Age and revolves around a down on his luck fencing instructor. The history of this world, however, is very different from our own. Magic and myth are very real and prevelant in this world and have played an important role in the entire history of mankind. The creatures that we read about in the Greek Myths for example, such as the cyclops and beyond, are very much alive. Even the gods of many of these ancient religous exist and fight to control mankind and often go to war with each other. The gods of Egypt and Greece, for example, have fought many wars with mankind caught in the middle.

It's very important to note, however, that magic and myth have by no means become commonplace. All these creatures of myth are very rare and only a handful of mortals can claim to have ever seen a god, of any faith. Magic is still very much feared and shunned by many as a tool of less "civilized" cultures.

So with this brief outline in mind what would you, a potential reader, like to see in a project of this kind? What creatures and gods of myth? What cultures? What societies would you like the unlikely adventurer to visit? What historical persons or events would you love to see him encounter?

I've got plenty of ideas on my own but I couldn't resist seeing what bizzare or creative things this community would come up with. Also, please feel free to provide any questions or feedback you may have. Looking forward to hearing from you.

If your doing any egyptian stuff, have mummies!!! or a stargate. If he is a fencing instructor and magic is everyday normal stuff cant he use magic on his fencing swords so they go on fire or something? Did you read the book, Eragon? in that they used magic on their swords to dull the blades while they spared....

Storylines with actual plot instead of fight scenes from page 1. Better yet, stories that don't begin with 8 pages of argh-and-thump.

Stories where characters refer to each other by name in the first page so we know who they are.

Stories with characterization taking place by means other than angst.

Characters who actually have living parents and relatives. None of the (oh gods, so cliched) "tragic slaughter of family leads to life of lonerism".

Brainy women who don't happen to be supermodels OR Laura Croft in disguise (and who can deal with unusual situations more like Amelia Peabody than pretending to leap around in those heavy, stupid skirts.)

No Token Bimbos.

Lead character with social skills.

No Disney Magic. You know the stuff -- instant fireballs and all that.

Good Anatomy For Animals. Goddess, I have seen some of the lamest looking horses done by people who draw Overmuscled Barbarians (naming no names, but the offenders were recently seen doing Conan comics.) And don't get me started on cats. Or birds. I have a separate rant for those.

Good understanding of the difference in fencing styles during the Victorian era. Depending on where he learned, some fun stuff with lanterns or cloaks is always amusing.

Oh yeah. Good weaponry. (no, Atomix, fencing foils are too fragile and flimsy to attack anything with. Epees, are a possibility, but fencing sabers aren't. You could leave some nasty welts on humans, but that's about it. Yes, I did coach fencing back in the late 1970's...)

...and we won't get into my notes on cultures.


HOWEVER, this was the great age of exploration. Much of Australia was unknown, and the Far East was rife with interesting things like Tongs and the samaurai and the end of the Tokugawa shogunate and the rising of the Maylay pirates and tropical islands... the great ruins in South American hadn't been discovered (there's a nice source) and India under British rule was an intriguing place to explore.

Thousands of possibilites and lots of ancient tales and folklore. Consider browsing through a bit of Kipling (more than just Jungle Book, though that's a wonderful source) for some truly wonderful adventure ideas.

I would like to begin by agreeing with Byrd's comments. All too often books have the same boring elements to the point where they are predictable from cover to cover. Movies are getting even worse. People don't like watching movies with me anymore because I tend to give up the ending [Ex. 6th Sense, The Others]. I personally enjoy books that can envolve very majical/mythical beings with a hint of scientific explanation. An example would be "The Source" by Brian Lumley[It was actually the 3rd in a series]. The book involves many things one of which were vampires. I really loved how he went into the origin and the "why" behind the vampires. It was in a believable way. It made me think "If they did exist, that's exacly how it would be." I don't like the "Well, it's just majic and that's how it works." Boring. Tell me WHY and HOW it works in a somewhat believable fashion. I wanna know how you got the fireball to shoot from your fingertips (of course, that's overdone anymore). "Through intense concentration I can slow and condense molecules in the air into the form of a ball, then rapidly increase the vibration to allow for heat. When it combusts, I project it...bla bla." Not the best example but I'm sure you get the point! Many people I speak to about books hate too much detail. I love it, personally.

Well I think if you encompassed some of old chinese Buddhist mythologie and Japanese shinto, such as the Oni, and kuan yin offering ascension to those who achieve enlightenment, maybe vampires who try and fit in to human society without being found out.

Those are my suggestions.

This story line sounds very familiar to the Princess bride ,with peter faulk as the narrator. It has a great story line and characters,great fencing scenes to.


The six fingerd man,ANDRE THE GIANT,AND A WHOLE CAST OF INTERESTING CHARACTERS.


Sounds interesting though

Originally posted by timoothy
This story line sounds very familiar to the Princess bride ,with peter faulk as the narrator. It has a great story line and characters,great fencing scenes to.


The six fingerd man,ANDRE THE GIANT,AND A WHOLE CAST OF INTERESTING CHARACTERS.


Sounds interesting though

Er, huh?

Think you might need to elaborate as to how this has anything in common with The Princess Bride...

Maybe include some of humanitys better side as well; minoan civilization, ionian, summerian style cultures. create one culture that runs backwards; from technological to more primative.
I always wanted to see stories about a culture that exists only on water borne ships, like the chinese junks that people are born, live, and die on, except they are massive cargo liners carrying generations of people trading with land based cultures.

It seems that many of my personal gripes with graphic novels, and with a great deal of popular fiction as well, are also shared by Byrd. While I certainly hope I don't fall into any of those traps I do recognize that quite a few of them are bad habits that it can be easy to slip into. While there is some action most of it is more in the Indiana Jones-Adventure style and very little use of explosions and guns or the like. While fencing is a prominent part of the main characters background it isn't really a viable form of self defense. Fencing by this time was quickly becoming more of a sport and less of a means of combat on a battlefield. While duels certainly still occured a fencing teacher would focus more on the sport side of things. Although his training may come in handy at certain points in his adventures.

Toolmaker, I love your suggestion about the water based cultures living on massive liners and such. I had already envisioned some kind of massive change that had happened to the chinese as a result of a war, perhaps their society has been pushed out to sea hundreds of years ago by some foreign force. It's definatley something I'll look into including. Wonderful suggestion!

Byrd, I had wanted to include India in the story certainly, and will definatley take up your suggestion and dive a little deeper into Kipling, but Australia is something I had not considered. I'll have to admit I know next to nothing about aboriginal culture and mythology but I will certainly give it a look.

Right now the cultures I am planning on focusing on, there will be countless others that I reference or briefly dwell on, at some point are: Celtic/Irish, English, Scottish, Egyptian, Greek/Roman, Minoan, Indian, Central African, Chinese, as well as several others I haven't decided on yet.

Anyone else out there have a suggestion they'd like to throw out?

one thing that would definately fit in would be the norse pantheon of gods as well as some of norse lore, since they were heavily involved in that part of the world. things such as rune magic used on weapons would especialy fit.