I'll look at it, but I must forwarn you I am strongly biased against sprite comics.
Ahah, constructive criticsm! That's refreshing. People usually just don't say anything.
I, personally, feel that the concept is original. I know that I didn't borrow/steal the ideas from anywhere. I think I originally got the idea from the "nethers" (run down, uninhabited sections of the city) in Equilibrium. But the only link to that is that I thought, "it would be cool to write about people living in a desolated area."
Collapse is even less related to that, because that went more for Anarchy.
The story is one of my favorite things I've come up with. It's actually based off of a book I am working on writing (no, I'm not a published author or anything... but maybe someday ). I started writing the book years ago. It actually takes place twenty years after Collapse. Then when I found an art method I decided to do a prequel... in comic form!
I've gotten 142 pages handwritten, but only 3 chapters typed. You can look at it
here if you want.
When I realized I could do a comic with the method I use, I couldn't think of a good concept until I thought it would be fun to do a prequel to Anarchy. The only reason I didn't do Anarchy itself is that it requires very run down and damaged buildings, something which I would not be able to obtain pictures of and would take far too long to model out.
Furthermore, it sort of had to be teens with guns, because I am a teen, my friends and the people I know are teens, and these are the people I'm using for pictures. I don't know enough (nor am comfortable with asking) adults for all the parts. ANd lastly, I can write about teens better because I am a teen myself, and have a greater understand of teens than adults.
I agree with you on most of the points you've made. Some of those things I'd thought of and been unable to address. For example, I spent days writing the prologue, because I wasn't sure exactly how to go about it, and make it believable that the country sunk to such a low level. The first thing that seemed important was killing as many high people as possible so a replacement wouldn't be immediately obvious. It took me a while to think of a situation where many of them would likely be together, and I finally decided on the State of the Union address (while looking for a picture of some other political thing, which I can't remember). After that, I realized that even despite the loss of all these people, we could probably manage to rebuild. Hence the idea of the plague. One thing that I thought of but did not actually mention is that the plague only kills a small portion of the population. Enough to destroy the efforts at rebuilding and warrant a quarantine, but not to leave dead strewn throughout the streets. I originally had the fifth page state that only a small percentage (less than 10%) of the population dies, but people complained that this made the plague sound small and unimportant, so I changed to read "millions", which sounds like a lot. If you think about it however, millions out of the entire population of the US is not a significant amount.
Another point I did not properly address is that there are still enough people left to run some things effectively. Enough to clean up/dispose of the dead, and take care of the wounded. Enough to keep businesses such as stores and cell phone companies (
) running, at least for a time. The destruction is worst around the capital. California, at this point, is not actually in terrible condition.
I had not considered the effects of the quarantine on the importation of gas. I don't know how much gas is in the country at any given time, or how long we could last on that amount. I've also been planning to address this soon, in the next few pages actually.
The story takes place in California, as it says, around (probably just below) the lower Los Angeles area. There have been many riots in L.A. even when everyday life is fairly normal, so you can imagine how bad they would be in a confused state of national emergency.
Additionally, and I know I also never said anything about this, the riots take place more around commercial centers, where people can break into stores and steal valuables. House-to-house burglary is not terrible because people are focusing on stores and businesses.
The characters were not supposed to have seen a need, or ability, or desire, to go out and aquire guns. The way the situations progresses, at first they don't realize the violence will be so widespread, then they get stuck at a point where weapons are still being sold according to law (and they don't have permits for firearms). Later, the stores start selling to anyone, but it's not safe enough to head down to a shop to buy guns. Then, when the majority of the area evacuates to escape the oncoming military (which, I also forgot to mention, is coming to restore order and stop the riots just as much as to restore CA to the union), they see an opportunity to get weapons without a lot of trouble or questions asked. When they realize the store(s) have also left, they are lucky in that Sid has an aquaintance that reveals he has a stash of weaponry.
The girl is walking down the street because she's the type of person who doesn't let things scare her (bold/tough) and also because again, a lot of people have evacuated.
I hope this gives you a little more respect for the story. I understand that I did not address many of these things (which was partly because I couldn't think of how to do so, and partly because I didn't want to make the prologue too long). I know there are things I still haven't really explained.
However, all of your points have inspired me to go back to my original idea of adding a 'Background/Story' page that goes into more detail and reveals the things I've said here that are not explained in the prologue. I'll try to type that up and post it in the next few days.
If you have time and feel like it, please take a look at Anarchy (which I linked to way up there at the beginning of the post), and tell me what you think of it. It's a dramatically different situation, with focus on life after the downfall instead of during it (though certain things remain the same, i.e. the main character is a teenager with guns [which out of coincidence are the same ones
]). Ignore the prologue, because it's outdated and not as accurate as Collapse.
Thank you very much for your helpful and constructive feedback!
)
