Comic Book Project - The beginning phase

[MAXX]

Subscribtions... for one a blessing for others hell. For me it is hell, i cannot afford it, but i don't want every figure anyways. But i wanted is to help save the line and started something.
To get money for a subscription i offered the users in a german Masters Forum, that anybody who will donate a bit of money, will get a free Comic made of the old 80s german audioplays (and some extras only for those who donated). Many User liked that idea and i have now 114 people who want that book and so much money left over that i suggested to print that thing.
Only thing is now, which episode to do, we have 38 to choose from? Well, i started a poll for that and all the guys and gals that donated money will have the chance to throw in 5 titles. It ends this month, next month they will choose from the 5 most wanted episodes the ultimate one and then i will turn that audio play into a comic book.
Sounds strange? No, and it totally works, i already have done that, privately sadly, but it works and it is a lot of fun.

But enough talk, here are some images i did the past few weeks, to keep the candle burning and to find some more people to enter my little project.


Some might recall them from facebook, now you know what they are about.

These are the countdown images, there will be more, but these are posted so far:
The calender says "X days left until the preliminary poll"









The preliminary Poll just started, and ends this month or when all people have voted.


Here it says "Preliminary poll X days left"

[MAXX]

And these are some Concepts of Locations and some ideas of scenes of the Audio plays:

A Character who is friends with Skeletor, but not an official character of Mattel. Name "Egam" (Mage, backwards)


The Ghost of Grayskull, which later will be the sorceress. The infos the writer got in the days were almost none. The ghost was described as red smoke with a skull and two crossed spears.



The Deathgate. Location: Desert of Time. Function: Leads you to the past



I named it "Manny goes to war". This depicts a scene in which Man-E-Faces grabs a Rocketlauncher and goes against a gigantic dragon in that episode. He is pulling a box of ammo for reloading. Around him guards are alerted and go into battle.



This isn't He-Man, it is Faker, the evil Robot imposter made by Skeletor. This scene is right before Tri-Klops tells him that he could rescue Teela from a Pantherdragon to have it easier to get into the castle. The real He-Man is trapped in the winds of time by Skeletor.



Funny little image, but i won't spoil it. Mer-Man won over He-man and Man-at-Arms is next.

[MAXX]

In this episode, Skeletor has secured some information to get immortal. Some of his friends are with him in this underground room shaped like an egg. Rattlor is missing, he isn't mentioned in this two part episode so i forgot him...
I used the help of a 3D programm to build the device as is described as metal hedgehog. There is some strange writing on the wall and a device to start whatever it is.



This i call "night swimming" because Skeletor has a fun little Plan to gain control, he used gigantic mirrors in space to redirect the sunlight to the polecaps and melt the ice, all gets flooded and He-Man has to dive to get to the device that controls the mirrors in space. This Ball is used as a weight to get faster into the abyss.



The demon Modulok, this scene shows that Modulok can only be controlled by that ring. Well, in later episodes he will obey the commands even without the ring, sadly. I imagine him to change all the time, and get really freaky when he goes into battle.



This scene shows a moment when the royal yacht is caught in ice, made by Mer-Man and his friends and weapons to kidnapp the roal family and He-Man awaits the arrival of Man-at-Arms in the Talon Fighter, but with the fog he can't find them, so He-Man uses his sword as lamp and it also makes the fog go away. Pretty handy.



Avion, the city of Stratos. More Details only for those who paid and if that episode is chosen.



The home of Buzz Off and his race. It is a first concept, not every Detail of course can be seen here. But to show the form and how gigantic that home of his could be i made this. The next image shows a bit better the size of that thing.



This image is showing a scene of the episode and where it could be on my concept. How all the Evils got there hanging on He-Man?
They tried to shove him down but the alle fell, and He-Man is holding Evil Lyn, on her is Tri-Klops, on him is Trap Jaw and on him is Beast man. Skeletor was told in the beginning by Zodac, he could be a winner. Here is his chance to become a winner or a victor.



And this is, what the style of the comic might be in penciled form. I will pencil the pages and sell them at the end:


In a few month i might post a sample page.

A little logo.



That's it for now. If you have questions about the project or if you want a book yourself let me know. The first batch will be in german, but when it is all finished i ask around and see how many international Masters Fans would like to have one in english, if there are enough people i would print an english version of it and send it to you. But mind you the story was made for kids in the 80s, there are no connection to the Bios or DC Books of the current time.

This is a none profit project. Everybody pays for his/her share of printing, packaging and shipping.

[Zargon]

Looks awesome!

[wolfsfang]

Looks awesome!

what he said x2

[JafariStew]

Nice variety of illustrations! I particularly like that story about Zodac telling Skeletor he can win (but with consequences).

[Bearshow]

Fantastic work, MAXX!

Really like the style!

[Sllohcin]

Awesome work MAXX! Your art has always been a pleasure but I really like where it's at nowadays.

[Neo]

Can't wait to see more. :-)

[MAXX]

Thanks a lot guys.

@ Jafari Stew
Yes, that is really great.

@ Bearshow
Thank you, glad you like them.

@ Sllohcin
Thank you very much, coming from you means a lot to me.

@ Neo
Thanks, but you won't get to see very much. Only those who donated will get the whole experience in getting updates and stuff. From time to time i will post a mini update to let people know how things go. That is part of the deal. To keep it special.
If you are interested you can donate a bit of money, secure yourself 2 copies and lots of updates in the next year. But they would be in german...


But some more stuff will come to lure in some more people

This one is new, Grayskull. Made just today in a haste, it is just a thought of what to do with the castle, how big can i make it, where is is located, what is located around it and so on. There are some flaws in the audioplays, in the first 6 episodes the good guys live there... so the castle would need to be gigantic, in one episode there is an attack of a gigantic dragon (see up there "Manny goes to war"), and over 500 hundred palace guards get injured. And with all the vehicles and personell there it would be really big.
But i will change that for the comic to get a better continuity in there and erase the errors.
Anyways, this is just a thought, the design is taken from the new castle Baena helped design (great work by the way), but some things are out of scale to me, the windows in the towers are more like doors and the little balcony, hope the door opens to the inside.
In my drawing, i am not that happy with it. But i don't want to make it that huge like the 200X one. In one episode He-Man helps Teela getting down from the battlements with stilt stalkers, and i don't want to let her jump hundreds of feet.
Long story short, this is what i have at the moment but it will definately changed. It really has to be bigger.



And this is from a few weeks back. Many of the episodes build up on one another, and some are actual two part Stories and more. So i thought what to do there if people vote for an episode that is the last part of a two part story? And my conclusion was a recap page. This is, what it could be:


The text might be german, but it recaps the actual events of the episode. And it would be fun, to have like episode 10 as a comic, and see images from a not (yet) made Comic from episode 9.

Hope you enjoyed the new ones, good night.

[oICEMANo]

I really like your style you're using on the characters MAXX, your art has come a long way!

[MAXX]

Thanks, glad you like it.


And here is the newest concept art. This time episode 28, Skeletors Roulette. The actual Roulette is a bit silly, but this image has a different scene to show. It is the second crashlanding of Extendar and Snout Spout. The first happened just moments ago with a bigger ship, He-Man wanted to help, they missinterpreted his action to open the hatch with his sword and the ran for the extra shuttle, but they don't seem to be lucky piloting that thing as well and they land right before King Hiss who will lie to those guests and tell them that He-Man isn't a nice guy.
Enjoy:

[Queen Grayskull]

Thanks, glad you like it.


And here is the newest concept art. This time episode 28, Skeletors Roulette. The actual Roulette is a bit silly, but this image has a different scene to show. It is the second crashlanding of Extendar and Snout Spout. The first happened just moments ago with a bigger ship, He-Man wanted to help, they missinterpreted his action to open the hatch with his sword and the ran for the extra shuttle, but they don't seem to be lucky piloting that thing as well and they land right before King Hiss who will lie to those guests and tell them that He-Man isn't a nice guy.
Enjoy:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/38907607/H%...shlanding2.jpg

Wow, that's awesome, MAXX!
I like your art since I know it from the forums of planeteternia.de, where I'm known as "Veena". Because this username was already in use when I registered here on He-Man.org forums, I chose "Sharella" - because Veena was the very first sorceress from the (200X/MYP) cartoon, and Sharella, the green goddess, was the very first sorceress from the (Alcala) mini-comics in the "pre-Filmation era" - long before the first appearance of Teela'na/Zoar. So, Veena is the so-called Queen Grayskull from the cartoon and Sharella is Queen Grayskull from the mini-comics - I'm sure you know that "queengrayskull"/"QueenGrayskull"/Queen Grayskull/queen_grayskull from DeviantArt/Facebook/Twitter/eBay is me.

By the way, my DeviantArt/Facebook/Twitter/eBay nickname "Queen Grayskull" was chosen as a hint at my homepage grayskull.net where I'm the webmaster - that's because I mainly decided for this appellation.
Keep up your marvellous work, and thank you so much for sharing your great artworks with us!

[MAXX]

Thanks, and i know who you are.


A new little image, Talon Fighter, used for a time jump.
In this episode Skeletor uses the spider (with 6 legs...) Spidor to kidnapp Adams parents and a bunch of guards and sends them into the future. How that works with the spider... no clue, but He-man and his friends use the Talon Fighter to jump through time to save the king an queen and their loyal subjects.
This effect is inspired by back to the future, the reason for that is simple, i watched the movie way earlier than i heard the audio play, and this is, how i imagined the look of that particular scene.
Hope you enjoy:

[MAXX]

Monsterpaaaarty

Enjoy:

(it says that five days are remaining until the preiliminary poll is over)

[Queen Grayskull]

Five days left - time flies!
Exciting thing - and awesome picture as usual!!!

[MAXX]

Thanks, Sharella.


Well, the time for the open poll is over, and so are the days of sketches for the public. But i will show you the last few of them.

This scene was quickly put together, main focus is on the bear, with that device on his head, wich is controlled by Tri Klops. They will have to get past him to get into the cave to save Teela from Skeletors clutches.


This was an idea for a story that is about a "laughing bridge", it has to do with it's reflection. I drew this to show the interssted of what i had in mind and that a bridge like that would not work, the "mouth" looks like a scream or yell, but not laughing.


In this story Grayskull is been invaded by robot insects and an arm is knocking out the guards and opens the main gate.
Because this story has a bit of an error, the whole gang of friends and people of the royal palace "live" in Grayskull (up until episode 5), so i would change that and use a filmation inspired palace.


This is again the laughing bridge, this time the design wich was featured on the original tape cover. Because many didn't understand what i was showing up there with the other design i explained a lot and descriped this scene (that would work for me as a cover), a giant bird has to fly below the bridge, and if it isn't big enough, it just wouldn't work. And i can't stand stuff like that.
So the bridge in the final story would be huge.


The title of this episode is "Eternal Flame", i wondered if the guy who wrote the stories listened to the Bangles back then... Anyways, Eternia is invaded by giant insects and the good guys ask the pidgeon lady if she knows something. Well, she alsways talks in riddles, but shows a view on the wall (filmation inspired, as is the throne) from up in the air and through infrared view they see red lines going into the center. There lies the home of the Evil Horde, Fright Zone.


The last of all the sketches. Mekaneck the heritage of horror (loosely translated). In this episode the focus is on Mekaneck who is a bit of a show off, always tells everybody who doesn't want to hear it, that he is the best. He is going out with Stridor to get his heritage from this guy Kramdor, he saved him one time. And while talking to the horse and looking for the chest wich was buried, he hears a voice, calling his name. Can you identify the figure?
Mekaneck is so clueless in this story... so i added the sign, wich will of course not be in the comic, i just had a funny moment.



And if that wasn't enough, i offered some of my already finished artworks to the people for a calender printing, and some asked for a Calender only with images of the Audio Play Covers. That is a lot of work to get it finished before the new year begins... but, i might make if, if you guys print it yourself. So i my offer is this, like the Grayskull Experience, i need a specific number of people to make them, i will make sketches of the covers i offer over the next week.
The price for every person will be 25 Euro.
Sounds a lot? Well, think about it, you get 13 high res images to print yourself. This is a nice deal.

The more people are coming together and are willing to pay it will get cheaper.
75 people are needed, 16 are already on board.
If i get 100 people it will get down to 20 Euro
If i get 150 people it will get down to 15 Euro for each person.

The Money does have a good side effect, i can use it for my bills and work on the comic full time, hence the comic will be finished much faster.
And if the Comic is finished faster, maybe i can arrange it to print it in english. Every user pays only his printing and shipping stuff.

This is what i have so far (yes, the front image is a homage to one of the most iconic posters i know).



If you are interessted, let me know, i will collect names first, and if we reach the specific number, i'll send out the mails with paypal or bank connections.

[JafariStew]

I love the Talon Fighter & Mekaneck images! The 1st because it's dynamic, the 2nd because it's eerie!

[MAXX]

@ JafariSTew
Thanks.


And the poll has startet, 30 days left (only for members) and NOT in this Thread.

[Queen Grayskull]

Great pictures; thank you for sharing here as well as on planeteternia.de!

[MAXX]

Thanks Sharella




And did anyone know... Fisto is faster than his own shadow

[MAXX]

Hehe, guess no one knew and no one cares.

Anyways, Hordak still counting the days. 20 days are left.

[JafariStew]

Loving that Hordak with the vampire vibe & nightmare background!

[Niki]

I really like your art, my favorite is the Snake Mountain Halloween picture!

How is the poll going? I really can´t wait to see your "Hörspiel" comics. I loved them back when i was a child and remember some of them and some i totally forgot.

[MAXX]

Thanks Jafari

@ Niki
Thank you. This years Halloween image was already used ... in that stupid Orko comic.
If you want to know more about the Comic, sign up, and get two printed books when it is finished. Along the way of my work you would get all the updates that regular users will never see. Officially, it will not be posted online.
Check this thread (since you speak german, it shouldn't be a problem), the first post is the important one.
The poll is going fine, 50 people haven't send their vote yet, but i guess not everybody will... but they don't bother telling me so the poll won't be finished early.
http://www.planeteternia.de/cgi-bin/...D=67044;Page=1

Half of the time for the poll is over.
"Itsy bitsy spider"