4. Proposal: ‘Firm Turd- The Burning’.

For my Final Major Project I plan to make a traditional sized and printed comic book that’s a sort of ‘spin off’ from ‘The Rise and Fall of Keth the Manosaur’. It will tell the story of another character that was briefly introduced at the end of the book. The character is a detective called, ‘Firm Turd’ and his story is set in 1950’s New York. The format is that he is recounting his story to the reader, and after a brief introduction he narrates over a more ‘real time’ representation of his tale.

     Firm Turd used to be a handsome young detective at the top of his game, he even worked for the state after the law got word of his skills and he became a wealthy and well-respected pillar of society. ‘Turd had a beautiful wife whom he loved dearly, and a pal that would take a bullet for him, or so he thought. After cracking a particularly hard case one morning at work, during which ‘Turd finds himself cornering a demented and psychologically disturbed killer in a bath of used tampons, he goes home from work early to be with his wife. When ‘Turd gets home, he is devastated to find his wife and pal having it off behind his back. ‘Turd takes off in his Cadillac with only their little dog Milo for company, leaving her the house. ‘Turd, hurt and alone then gets abandoned by the police force, no longer taken seriously after the humiliation of what his wife had been doing unbeknownst to him. He ended up back on his own payroll, living in a small flat with his dog, turning to alcohol for comfort. After another bad day on the job, returning a lost cat to an old lady for a pittance, followed by a night of particularly heavy drinking, ‘Turd heads back from the bar and after a failed attempt at getting changed for bed, decides to grab a snack. Upon inspection of the fridge ‘Turd finds his favourite snack, chipolatas. Despite them being ready to eat chipolatas, ‘Turd decides to fry them up (which is also a bad choice as far as reheating goes). Firm Turd ends up drunkenly spilling the hot oil all over his hands, face, cock, and dog and subsequently goes up in flames. ‘Turd wakes up in hospital after the horrific accident, to discover that his handsome face was ruined and that his fingers had been replaced with chipolatas. To make matters worse, that wasn’t the only thing replaced with a chipolata. At the very end of this prequel to the Firm Turd detective series, Firm Turd snaps and slips in to denial about his demise. He takes a new, positive approach, deciding that things are perhaps not all that bad, and decides that it’s his duty to continue ‘protecting the city’ and of course, a chain reaction of comedy capers shall ensue in the series to follow. I will demonstrate this with a full-page advertisement for the next episode in the series. It would go something like: ‘Next time, in the Firm Turd series: Firm Turd goes back to work’. I think it would be effective in the format of a detective/spy/James Bond spoof, depicting some stereotypical images of him and his accomplice burnt Milo on a dangerous and epic mission, and Firm Turd with a beautiful lady, despite his mental state and obvious deformation.

     I have planned it out frame by frame in text, and need to put it on to a mock up book (hopefully without storyboarding separately first) to decide on the layout and also to see how long it is. I did also do some research in to applications that could help me, however the most popular one of it’s kind: ‘Comic Book Creator’ didn’t look very suitable. I also thought it might limit me in my creativity, as opposed to helping me. Despite all these ideas I’ve been getting excited about over the past week, it’s important to remind myself that the story isn’t the most important part, it’ the quality of the work and I need to invest time in thinking about my mediums and also, my time management.
     For my last project in my comic: ‘Keth the Manosaur’, I used dip pen to do my drawings. I think that this is without a doubt what I would use this time too. I think that it kept my images from becoming too sterile and fussy. Before I’d decided on the story for this project, I had thought that I’d like to work with very bright and bold colours, however as this story is firstly set in the 50’s, and secondly as ‘Firm Turd is recounting the past it might not be very fitting. Perhaps it would be more suited if it were in black and white, although I much prefer to work in colour. I had also considered using Photoshop this time around as my ad page at the end of my last comic was done digitally, and I thought it actually looked really good. Going back to the fact it’s set in the past that may also not be very suited to the content either. Although I ran in to problems using the Copic ciao paint markers last time and it proved an expensive affair, I would not rule out using them again. They come in such a vast number of colours and tones it wouldn’t have to look anything like the last book I made, I could instead make it very dark or even use more pastel tones. Another medium that I was considering using before was coloured pencils, which I think could be effective this time, and more suited to the story. I had also considered having a mixture of mediums, perhaps to separate one time from another: for example past from present. Again, deciding on my colouring method was something I spent a lot of time debating last time too, and something that I believe was only resolved by physically experimenting with it. I will definitely include some allowance for time invested in experimenting with suited mediums in my time plan… Which brings me nicely to my final point, my time plan! I plan to use the template Pete sent us of our timetables and add my own time plan in regards to my project in another colour.

Tht and more from me next time,
Quim out!