The Story So Far

Hello, then! I'm the Dave who writes Nemesis Fleet. Insofar as "Script" can be a job description, it will be listed as mine inside each issue of the comic. The first issue, though, is testament to the fact that it isn't as simple as me writing a script and Abby drawing it.

Today, we sat down around the stack of paper that makes up the first issue, and went through it pointing and laughing. Nothing has changed, we haven't suddenly decided it's rubbish, it's just something we do as often as we can, to make sure we're looking at the comic objectively. It would be the easiest thing in the world to come up with a story, bash out a script, slap down some drawings and call it our unalterable Word, but we don't like doing it that way.

The story for issue one didn't begin with a script as much as it did a head full of ideas. I'm technically going to be "writing" this comic, but really what I'm doing is organising the story into something other people will be able to read. The whole thing has existed in a sort of bubbling, exciteable form in Abby's mind for a fair while. I just divide it into issues and panels and set down what specific words the characters should say. I make sure all the little bits of the story go in the right direction and end up in the right place. I don't write it, I herd it.

Today I helped Abby lock the barn doors. No, forget that metaphor now, it's gone too far. What I'm trying to say is that we made sure it's where we want it, and it isn't likely to escape. We went over every page, picking apart each panel and making sure we had told all the story we needed to tell, had omitted nothing that needed to go in, and generally had written something that reads well and doesn't just dump exposition on the reader. The problem is that we are quite picky, and prone to thinking up entirely new and much more interesting plot ideas each time we look at it, meaning Abby has faced total re-draws more than once before.

But here's the good news. For the first time ever, we found we barely wanted to change anything. A page here, a panel there, a few camera angles and the emphasis of some scenes, but nothing major. Nothing that means rewriting and redrawing the whole thing yet again.

That's got to be a good sign, surely.

Panel Progress

An update to the panel I posted earlier, what are your thoughts so far guys? There's a character to add next, standing on top of the rocks.

Dave and I have been working out some more written stuff today, tidying up a few loose ends in the initial story. We've planned a 6 issue mini series but I have more hiding in my head like every other good dork making their own comic. Fingers crossed on it all going well!

Here's another bit of background I've been working on:

The Cast: Part 4

Lazul.



Lazul is training to become a priest of Anubis, like his father (the High Priest) and all of his brothers. He would love his family to appreciate him at last and accept him, but he's very much the runt and his lack of confidence means his skills in magic are quite poor. He's also just, well, a bit too nice for the whole death worshipping cult thing.

If I'm ever feeling annoyed when I'm trying to draw, doodling Lazul always makes me feel better.



As an extra, here is a panel I'm currently working on. I will be posting it's progress until it's complete!

The Cast: Part 3

Harpok.



Our lovely youngest character! He boasts about having more ASBOs than grades and can usually be found hanging around local bus stops, playgrounds and car parks with his gang of hoodies. They're usually smashing things, it doesn't matter what. When they're feeling original, they're setting fire to things. Oddly I'm really fond of the little git, and so are a lot of other people I've shown the comic to so far.



As a little extra, here are his long suffering parents!

The Cast: Part 2

Tass.




Shay's teenage sister is a standard wannabe goth.She's incredibly defensive about the way she dresses and what she believes in (butomg , cute cartoon animals holding blood soaked chainsaws and saying THE CHEESE DID IT are so random and ironic!!1), and hates it when her brother makes fun of her.

I like drawing Tass a great deal, her different costumes are so much fun. She is so desperate to be different like her friends were back in school, but the goth thing doesn't really suit her at all. So I'm trying to give her a feel of 'trying too hard'.

Tomorrow, chavs and a guy in a dress!

The Cast: Part 1

So first things first, let's meet the characters!

Shay.


Our main character, the 26 year old wannabe space adventurer Shay. He's a bit of a grumpy sod when we first meet him, though he has good reason. An average bloke who just wants an average life with a pub close by. There will be many, many sketches uploaded of him, I'm quite paranoid about drawing him correctly so he's usually the first thing I draw when I sit down with my sketchbook.

Welcome to Khemet!

I'm Abby, and I'm working on a comic called Nemesis Fleet. Recently there's been some interest in the development that goes into the series, and so here we are. For the curious, this is what the comic is about.


There's a bloke who has a bottle and a sarcophagus. Those are the only two things he cares about right now, the bottle because it's empty of beer and the sarcophagus because it's full of his teenage sister. Her last wish was to see the great city of Cynopolis - the Vegas of space - and now Shay won't see her embalmed and entombed anywhere else.

That's because Cynopolis is the place to die. It's the great City of the Dead, governed by the zealotous Temple of Anubis, who place death above anything else - hence the teenage Tass' fascination with the place. But when Shay gets her there, along with the car-burning, bus-hopping chav boy Harpok (who he can't seem to get rid of), it's on the day of a huge and important ceremony to raise the spirit of a dead king, to be performed by the High Priest's youngest, most frightened and most generally useless son, Lazul. This ceremony will be the make-or-get-banished of the young priest's career.

And Shay, drunk and not unreasonably upset, does have to go and ruin it.



On the run in a stolen ambassador-class space ship, Shay, Harpok, Lazul and what remains of Shay's sister are chased across the galaxy by some of its most powerful people: the ferocious High Priest of Anubis whose position and family honour are at stake, the frustrated government ambassador whose ship is doing everything it can to let her catch up with it and arrest the thieves on board, and even the mountainous Commander of Galactic Queen Sekhmet's forces, who almost seems like a nice guy when he isn't trying to kill them.

And all this against the backdrop of war between the evil Queen Sekhmet, whose godlike psychoses grip the whole galaxy, and the equally evil terrorist forces bent on tearing her kingdom apart, the mysterious and deadly Nemesis Fleet.


That's the comic. If you like the sound of that, you should keep coming back to this blog because not only will I (and the comic's script writer, Dave Bulmer) keep you updated on our progress in putting it together, but I'll also be posting my sketches and draft work. That means you get to see exclusive pictures of Space Egypt, which is something everyone wants, surely.