If It'd Been A Snake, It'd Have Bit Me

Good grief! Sometimes I astound myself with my own myopia!

Last week, I relayed some of my thought process in doing some development work in Second Life. My thought process continued by suggesting that I could still be a part of that same community within SL by creating what would essentially be fan fiction in a fashion not too far removed from the works of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. That's why I was talking yesterday about creating stories based around what can be found within SL. And I ended my post by saying, "And you put a little more time into some actual character and plot development? With a little prep work, you could create your own comic book without being able to draw a single thing!"

But it didn't occur to me until several hours later that I already have a comic book story I've been trying to tell! This is, in fact, a great environment for me to develop Propaganda of the Deed as an actual comic book! It's got several Victorian cities already and plenty of costuming and prop-making already done. All I would need to do is design the characters in the world and set them up in poses that I could then screen-grab and drop into a comic book page layout! Holy cow! Why did I not make that connection earlier?!

The problem I have, though, is that I'm still only one guy; I can only run/operate one avatar within Second Life at a time. So what I'd like to do is request the assistance of anyone out there who might be interested in working with me on this "Propaganda of the Deed" comic. You would NOT need any special skills, other than perhaps a nominal interest in the comic and/or Second Life. You don't even have to be a current Second Life user!

Let me recap with a brief overview of my story idea, and what I'd need from folks.

In the 1880s, there was a notion going around that small groups of individuals could make their voices be heard with dramatic and poignant showings of violence. There were a pretty high number of assassination attempts of various political figures, and a number of notable locations were blown up. These types of events indirectly bring together Alice Liddell (of Alice in Wonderland), John Watson (of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries), John Henry (of American ballads), Joaquin Murrieta (the Mexican patriot) and Sun Wukong (from Journey to the West); and the five of them use their particular skills to battle these forces of anarchy and terrorism. This first story will be about bringing them together to fight a particularly obscure sect of Italian anarchists. (You can read a more of my notes at length here, here, here, and here.)

Now, what I need is a handful of people to help control avatars of these characters within Second Life. Accounts are free, and you'd obviously be able to do whatever you like in SL. I would just need some time on occassion to have you pose your avatar with some others. Changing your appearance in Second Life is incredibly simple, so you could create your avatar to look however you like and only "suit up" for some occassional screen capture sessions. Indeed, depending on how many people would be willing to help and who was available at what time, any one person could portray any number of different characters -- they might be John Henry for some scenes and Alice Liddell for others.

I would naturally provide all the costumes, props, etc. within Second Life. I've still got to flesh out the storyboards on my loose script, as well as do some more location scouting in SL. But I'd also be willing to listen to any ideas on character designs, story possibilities, etc. that you might bring to the table, too!

So if you're interested in helping, please contact me. If you're not comfortable leaving a response here, you can either e-mail me at kleefeld@ffplaza.com or send an instant message to me within Second Life at "Feldane Klees".

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