Mister Crimson
Genre:
Science Fiction, Action/Adventure
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7999
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Mister Crimson is the story of a pulp-era superhero that has been abducted through time. Taken from the 1930s, and sent 200 years into the future he is forced to take up fisticuffs against a rebellion that hopes to overthrow the city's leaders. Mister Crimson is used to scraping his knuckles on shifty criminal types-- but here, he is forced to take on mutants and cyborgs who have powers that match his own. But Crimson was selected for this task specifically. His futuristic handlers know that in a word, he is unbreakable.
Fighting criminals has always been Crimson's bag-- but soon he realizes this future is not what it seems. The city leaders are corrupt, and those mutants and cyborgs that have been branded as malcontents, are actually fighting the just cause. Does Crimson join them? Or does he continue to fight for the men who have the ability to send home?
Crimson left the past at the worst possible moment. His arch-nemesis, Ace of Spades, had finally deduced his secret identity, and kidnapped Crimson's wife and son. Crimson had found Ace, and their final encounter had just begun when Crimson was snatched into his future.
Mister Crimson faces his biggest dilemma. Does he quell the rebellion, and earn his ticket back in time to save his family? Or does he do what he has always done-- fight the good fight to protect the innocent? Even for a man that has no limits to his strength and invulnerability, this adventure could break him.
When are they going to add to this comic it looks like it could be very interesting?
Thanks so much, Everyone, for your comments/support/votes during the contest, much appreciated!!!
Mr. Crimson is absolutely cool. His design is original and captivating. I have already stated that time travel...especially to the future...is never for me. I realize this is just personal preference. With that said, this is only eight frames and the foundational character elements are solid and the art is fantastic. I would gladly indulge a time travel plot to observe and learn more about this fascinating character. If Mr. Crimson does not win and you continue the series somewhere, please leave us directions to Mr. Crimson's web address as many of us are hooked.
Amazing!
Thanks! We'll try to avoid the burgers and go for the tri-tip!
Greetings, my friends! I predict that a Zuda barbecue is going to take place on October the 26th on Tampa, Florida! Sadly, the hamburguers will have a dubious origin so half the attendees will get food poisoning! Farewell!
Cris, is there a Zuda barbecue in our future?!
Criswell is correct, but Victor is wrong.
I have made a serious accusation against DUAL, go to its comments and read it! It is important!
Greetings, my friends! I predict that this comic will lose, but Mr. Tripodi will eventually win on 2009, with an entry called "Ed, the Dentist Horse". I also foresee a specially cold October the 26th in Tampa, Florida. Farewell!
the synopsis is rad and i'm a little disappointed by the story of the 8 frames. the art, however, is quite enjoyable. probably not my thing this time around, but good luck!
Not for me.
this is really a remarkable piece of work. it looks like you probably won't win, and that's a shame. this is another one of those pieces that just may be to classy for this joint, like (IMHO) The Crooked Man, or Untrue Tales).
I would pay to read this in a printed graphic novel, and i would pay big. This is EXTREMELY well done. I really want more. i haven't gotten excited by any of the competitors in a few months it seems, but this really speaks to me.
damn, damn, damn fine work.
To my eyes, this is the toughest competition yet. Mister Crimson is flat out AWESOME. Really a lot of fun. You guys should be proud. This is a favorite and a 5 star. But how do I choose?? How do I choose??
Thanks so much, Everybody, for your comments!
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@Matthew: The competition isn't over yet! We're trying to be dramatic here...!
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@RiverHelix: BIG thanks for your thoughtful critique & 4-stars! :)
BAD ASS!
Diego, you said Mister Crimson would rise. IT HASN'T!!! YOU LIED!!! Sob...
Page 1 - Nice art. Interesting characters. "Ace" is established as a pyschopath who will murder someone just to draw attention. Crimson is shown to be a detective in the Holmes mode. It looks like he might have a floating ability?? At this point I wondered if he might be supernatural, like a ghost or spectre.
One quibble - the death is NOT a random John Doe, "Ace" chose his victim for a specific reason.
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Page 2 - Melodrama much? "So says Mr. Crimson" is kinda over the top, but what the hey, it's your character. But...
Crimson was expecting Ace to kidnap his family? For years? Well, why didn't he protect them a bit better then!!!!
Anyway, on page 1 he chats casually about a recent murder with the murderer, then segues here to his missing family.
I dunno, but I think that might be topic number one for most people. Hmm, Crimson may be more than a bit psycho himself...
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Page 3 - After his dramatic threat, Crimson patiently stands, grimly silent, as his foe delivers his monologue. Now don't get me wrong, I like Ace, and what he says is probably important character info, but wouldn't most worried fathers have started the finger breaking by now?
"I'll stop just as soon as my beautiful family is safe."
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Page 4 - A detective as smart as Crimson had no doubt already discerned that his pills had disappeared along with his family, and is just lulling Ace into a false sense of security. Though why, I do not know.
Quibble 2 - I think what Crimson no longer has is a REASON to hold back. An EXCUSE is what you give when you do something wrong, and Crimson has been doing good, at least by his lights, in not killing Ace up to now.
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Well, anyway, 4 pages is enough critique. I like the idea here, but things I might overlook in a free-standing comic just start to be more problematic in a competition. When I'm trying to decide if X is better than Y, anything that jars is not going to help. And much as I wanted to like this, I kept getting jarred.
I do enjoy a nice bit of genre blending. Good job!
Dear Zuda Competitors/Creators,
I recently started a Zuda fan blog, and I would love to interview all of this month’s creators. If you would be willing to answer 5-10 questions, to be posted on the Zudafan blog, please contact me at: zudafan@gmail.com . I’ll try not to repeat any of Rob Berry’s questions. :)
Feel free to check out the blog: zudafan.blogspot.com
Thanks!
... Right up my street. All you need do is drop in some fantastic anachronism and I'll be enjoying this as much as Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. What? ...
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Want to know more? http://www.mpd57.blogspot.com and that'll be Mr. mpd57 to you.
Great art
Great artwork, and nice power... but the 3:24 AM thing at the end seems a bit contrived. "No longer of any consequence"? C'mon. They'd tell him what happened to them. If they get through it they'd say and if there removing him means they don't then they would have shown up later or earlier in his timeline. C'mon.
And if there are "reasons" for all that, then I sorta think those might be contrived, too...
this is pretty damn good.
@Diego- no love for me?!? My thoughtful critique & 4-stars?
@Gabe: That's very relative, it all depends on what's in the script, really. I guess the average would be one page per day. Page 6 and 7, for example, were drawn in the same night.
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@hairballOne, Vekesh, ScottM, Brother D: Thanks for the support!!!
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@Matthew: Love, Lust and a Giant Killer Turtle must have more votes.
How does this work out---Mr. Crimson has
1) More views
2) More favourites
3) And a better rating than Love, Lust and a Giant Killer Turtle yet it's two places below it!
Go Diego GO!!!
I love the look and feel of this strip. The un-inked pencils bring such a warmth to the artwork. Very engageing character, I look forward to his futre adventures :]
Thats one cool synopsis you have there.
Great texture and color in the artwork. Love the pacing of the story, the twist at the end really hooks. I'm on board with this one.
Those scientists looked like *******. Well, I didn't love this strip, but I didn't hate it either. The way that Ace spoke was pretty distracting, and then you just threw him out, anyway, so... Maybe next time.
This one is the toughest to critique. The art definitely had that throwback style. But man, Ace was talking coooooold-**** to MC on page 3. And the best MC could come back with was, "Now I don't have an excuse to hold back." Pa-leeze. I'm not too familiar with pulp-style comics but do villains talk that much trash in them?!? I take it that Ace has been dragged into the future w/ MC? This comic isn't particularly my flavor but the art style fits the story well, and it had good pacing. Overall, a good read. I took humor in Ace's more contemporary trash-talking which counterbalanced MC's stiff, 'ole skool' hero speech. I'm sure for those that do love the pulp/retro style, will vibe to the twist you put on this genre. G'Job and G'Luck Brother.
Don Diego,
in keeping with Rob's questions, how long does it take for you to complete a full page (pencils, layouts, colors, etc.)?
-gabe
We're only creating suspense here... Mister Crimson will rise!
NOOOO! IT'S DROPPED TO 5!!!
Thanks for the feedback, it's appreciated!
Not enough going on here to really catch my interest.
@BlaqueSaber: Thanks for the nice words, glad to hear you're enjoying this series!
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@Vero: Gracias por unirte a la campaña!
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@passive: I'm looking forward to meeting them as well!
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@frequentcontributor: Pages 9 to 59 of this comic will feature the scientists' secret origin tale. Thanks for checking the comic!
@Rob: The main difference between Crimson and Eden is the way we're telling these stories. Eden was done before the very first round of Zuda competitors started, so we built that story thinking that it would have had to work with a one weekly page update, so we developed this storytelling method that we felt was a good fit for that schedule, and particularly a good fit for a character like Eden. I guess that series was a bit on the "experimental" side, and it seemed like many readers felt left out of it. So that whole experience made us want to approach Mister Crimson in a more traditional way.
Another decision we made, was to get rid of this "sinister" feel that Pieces of Eden had, which of course was very important for that series. I find things to enjoy in most (or all) genres, and I guess Seth probably feels the same way about this, so from the beginning we agreed that we wanted this comic to be fun. That wasn't a hard decision to make.
Visually, one of the biggest decisions for me was not to work with ink. I had been experimenting with working with digitally colored pencils for a few months, and when we started talking about this series, it felt like this style was suitable for this comic, so I decided to stick with it.
@Pierre: Thanks for the support!
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@king: Thanks for the feedback, you definitely made an interesting point here. Seth already wrote a better response to your comment, and I would like to add that while we did take a look at the pulps (amongst other stuff), that was more like an starting point to build the series. And that's it. I think that doing everything the same way it has been done wouldn't have been interesting. To make a music analogy, I love the Ramones, but I couldn't care less about all the Ramones clones or cover bands that are out there. I hope that makes sense.
Just read it a second time and I like it even more...love the look with the goggles, hat, tie, coat, etc. I REALLY want to meet Mister Crimson's family...should be a fascinating bunch.
pudeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
pudeeeeeeeeeeee
esto es glorioso.
Este camino tuyo no tiene fin!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(y ahora nos cantamos una de Massacre together)
love
*
WHOA! The comments on this page are almost more vibrant than the art style used! Over on S-Type, there is but one page of "responses" or "comments" while there is two here. Most of the comments on S-Type are moderate or positive. Here they seem to be taking the subject matter apart at the seems. Here there are two pages of comments (as of writing this). The thing is...S-Type is ranked 9 and Crimson is ranked 4. Like quasilucid - I too love your style (as well as your work over at Flashback Universe) and I'd be willing to bet that Ridly Scott had Blade Runner ripped apart at the seems before it was considered a cult classic as well. Keep it up man, I enjoyed the ride. It is just comics anyway...
There's a fine line between homage, and just aping something. Borrowing one element is esay, borrow all of them, and then you're just working in that space. You need to find the balance of borrowing what's just right, and turn it on end.
I'm certainly not afraid of writing in a pulp style, as Rob pointed out, Eden fell into that mold a bit. It was certainly a consideration for this. I'm a huge Dashiell Hammet fan in addition to early superhero pulps. But here's two words for you: Blade Runner. Dark future noir has been done perfectly, and honestly I didn't want to draw too many comparisons to that movie. I didn't want this to seem like a 30's detective plopped into a dark future.
To that end, while Crimson certainly evokes those detective-style pulp heroes, I wanted him to bridge the distance between The Shadow and somebody like Batman. Between detective, and superhero. To drive that home, I styled their dialog in more of stilted superhero golden age style.
Again-- I'm cherry picking tropes from various genres. To me, that makes things more dynamic than doing what is expected.
Short version: Yes kingofsnake, I have read many a pulp. But I didn't want to just lift everything from one source as then it would be a lot less original.
Kingofsnake makes an interesting point about pulps here, guys. There's elements of classic pulp writers like Lester Dent that don't seem to jibe with the way you're writing the first few pages of this story and they seem, instead, to follow a style more like Matt Wagner's take on SANDMAN MYSTERY THEATRE. I'm a huge of that work, mind you, so it doesn't bother me, but it does present some questions.
Particularly as I just went back and re-read PIECES OF EDEN here on Zuda (new readers are encouraged to go look it up in the "explore comics" catalog. It's worth finding).
PIECES OF EDEN has a lot of the same trappings as one finds in hard-boiled pulps, particularly in the use of "voice-over" dialogue and the speech patterns. It seems clear that Seth is really comfortable with that tone of voice and I'm surprised that they chose to play it down here. So;
6) What were some of the decisions you guys made in approaching a second Zuda pitch? What were some of the things you felt needed changing this time around?
-Rob
I love pulp heros, but this doesn't really feel like a pulp hero to me. It feels more like a contemporart hero in a scarf and a fedora. Did you read any Doc Savage, or The Shadow or anything before creating this, or were you just going offa memory about how pulp heros felt to you?
The art has a very pulp feel, and thats great. I think I'd rather see this character interact in the storyline we were presented at the beginning of the comic than the travel to the future angle we've since been given.
Your second exposure at Zuda. Darn Diego I am green with envy.
Love this comic.
Best of luck to you.
5) Online.
Okay. Last of the general copy/paste questions and then we'll do some that are specific to each of this month's comics.
5) Where did you first hear about Zuda and it's competition? Through comic fans, other industry professionals, ads or news features? On-line, word-of-mouth or in print? Exactly how do you think the news about the Zuda comp is traveling these days to readers and future contributors?
-Rob