Dwarf Lover Director's Cut: Grummok's Plan, Ep. 2

Grummok's Plan

With the publishing of Grummok's Plan, the web comic had actually begun. The Beginning was a series of short moments published on NA!P in conjunction with the storyline developing in the Exploits of a Dwarf Lover Blog. Grummok's Plan really began the adventure.

Grummok and the Kobolds come from the 3rd Edition D&D Monster Manual as do all of the other characters. In the last post, I stated that some may have come from the Player's Handbook but I was wrong. The reason Brennan was a female elf instead of a male elf is because there was only a female elf in the MM. If I'd had the Player's Handbook at the time the comic was started, Brennan would have begun as the male figure he later chooses for himself and a large part of the storyline would have been different.

Duke Suetir's character is from the MM entry, Shield Guardian.

Okay, back to Grummok. The throne, cage, and stalagmites (unless they're stalactites!) are all scanned from Elquest Book Three. Incidentally, here is why I can never remember how to differentiate stalactites and stalagmites. Way back in ancient times, there was a Frank and Ernest Sunday comic in which they discuss ways to remember which is which. So one of them says something like, "The ones hanging from the ceiling are stalactites because they stick tight!" And the other guy says something like, "I thought those were stalagmites because they might fall!" So, fuck you Frank and Ernest for messing with my head. (Also stuck in my memory from that comic was this rule: "I before E except after C or when sounded like Aye as in neighbor or weigh. Except for a few weird exceptions." Or something like that.

Okay, back to Grummok! Venger is from the Dungeons and Dragons Cartoon. The idea of a series of villains each trapped and needing the help of the next villain was the main thrust of the plot I'd decided on. This along with the 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo idea that would allow me to take the adventurers through a baker's dozen of Old School Dungeons and Dragons Modules.

Even though they adventure in D&D Modules and many references are to D&D, the characters and the game they are playing is actually Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. This is because that game was much more fun and open ended with fewer rules to pay attention to. So it's the game my friends and I played the most. But I still loved the idea of the D&D Module, especially the old school ones that didn't really have much plot to them. Warhammer modules (the ones that did exist) generally were railroad story lines that I didn't find very interesting.

On page two, Venger thinks back to what I like to think of as Season Four of the Dungeons and Dragons Cartoon. Venger has managed to kill Hank, Bobby, and Uni. And Sheila and Diane make out. Which is something that apparently dozens of artists at Deviantart really wanted to happen.

The arrow piercing Uni was scanned from a Green Arrow comic book. I'm not sure where the axe is from that is taking off Hank's head. I really like Dungeon Master's broken look on this page as he watches the kids he pulled in to his world to help get killed one by one. What did he think was going to happen? If not their deaths, by Season Six they would have been either hating Dungeon Master for only ever giving them each one magick item for the whole campaign or they'd be total munchkins and Dungeon Master would be actively trying to kill them himself.

Being that Grummok is an orc and this is the characters' first adventure, it all takes place in B2, Keep on the Borderlands. More on that in subsequent Director's Cuts.

Dwarf Lover Director's Cut: The Beginning

The first episode of Dwarf Lover.

The Beginning

A title which points to the fact that I had no idea where I was going with this thing. I knew I wanted it to be complex. I wanted it to be epic in scale. So epic that I had no actual plans for finishing it. And seeing as how it took 10 years to actually get to the end of the 2nd Chapter of, probably, 13 Chapters, it doesn't look too good for the finishing thing.

But I did take a six year long hiatus where I worked on other projects. But at the beginning of this year, I really felt like revisiting the comic. I felt like, at least, getting these poor losers out of the Tomb of Horrors. And that'll be happening in less than a month. So, yay?

Back to The Beginning. The comic first appeared on my (our: Me and two long-time friends from high school) website, No Apologies! Press. No Apologies! was a chaotic jumble of anything that came to our minds. It was a nice place for a writer who cared more about the initial ideas of a project than the long term project itself. A place for lazy people with lots of creativity. It was wonderful!

Dwarf Lover began as a blog by our fictional friend, Chris Davenport. Yes, yes. He is fictional. Sorry to spoil the illusion for any Chris Davenport groupies. Except his image wasn't fictional and I think I should apologize to the real life person Chris was. His name may have been Cyrus. Or Cyril. Or something like that. He may have gone to Santa Cruz University. I used to have a link to his school webpage but that has been lost in time and multiple computer changes. His image got a little bit of fame over the years. He appeared on Mulletsgalore in its heyday. He appeared on How Fresh is This Guy. He also appeared in a Maxim Guide to the Web pull-out I still own (so proud!) featuring the How Fresh site and that page I just linked to.

Chris Davenport was partly based on Doom Bunny from No Apologies! Press. Partly, because it might be mostly in my head! But I seem to remember Doom Bunny playing Dwarves (or Dwarfs?) an awful lot because they little tanks. Perhaps that was our friend Roy I'm remembering too. Anyway, Dwarf Lover and the man who needed to defend Dwarfs at all cost, was born.

I'm not sure where the Dwarf Lover blog became a comic. Maybe I thought it would be easy to do. "Oh, I just scan a few pictures and it'll take no time at all!"

Even for the simple style of the comic in its early days, that was completely wrong. Just photoshopping the scans into useable pictures is tedious. Everything about the process is tedious. But I love seeing the scenes come together. And I still have a lot of story to tell.

So, about The Beginning. Probably not a lot to tell. I thought I would make it sort of Noirific. That didn't really keep but I revisit the Dwarf Narration every now and again. And make a point later on to show that Kohk is actually keeping a journal of his travels.

The initial scene is comprised of characters scanned from the 3rd edition Dungeons and Dragons Players Handbook. I think. This must have been back in 2000 or 2001 when I started. The window is from Dave Sim's Cerebus, as is the mug and the table. The table I colored myself in Photoshop! Amazing! The characters that aren't from the Players Handbook are from the Monster Manual, same edition.

The story basically retells what was going on in Chris Davenport's Blog at the time. He and deranged elf fan, Larry Pressfield (Upright from NA!P), had begun a war of words between the two clans. I decided that was spiraling out of control and a summit of some kind was needed. A summit that was being role-played.

Looking back on this comic, I like the set-up. The collage art is actually pretty decent for just getting started. I think I'd had some practice with some other NA!P features by then. And my favorite line still calls for a shirt or mug or mousepad: "Go fist a dryad!"

Attribution, Sprite Comics and Collage

I often wonder while making Dwarf Lover whether or not I should be making mention of every place I take a picture or every artist I can find that created the pieces I'm using. I imagine at some point I'll go through the comics one by one and try to remember all of the sources. Sort of like a director's cut except over here instead of over there with the comic.

And since I'm on the topic of using other art to create a comic, I thought I'd define Dwarf Lover as I see it. It often gets called a Sprite Comic which is both a neutral general term to describe a comic that doesn't use original art (usually a sprite comic because it uses the graphics from a video game) and in a derogatory sense because, well, the comic doesn't use original art.

Dwarf Lover, as you may have noticed, does not use original art. Well, not true. It generally doesn't use original art. My art is peppered through the comic where needed but this comic, The Journal of Kohk Korunch, is completely my work. Except for the initial hand.

But Dwarf Lover is also not a Sprite Comic. It's more of a collage. It takes images of every kind from many sources. The web, comics, gaming manuals, video games, movies. And the majority of the scenes and characters have been painstakingly reworked. All of the major characters have been pulled apart, torn limb from limb, and rebuilt so that I can move their parts around and put them in whatever poses I choose. Most of the backgrounds need to be turned into a blank and each individual set piece pulled out so that I can manipulate it to my will.

It takes a lot of work to put together an action scene in Dwarf Lover.

In the beginning, I wrote a lot of 'talking heads' episodes because it seemed easier. It was also boring. So I began writing the comic without thinking about the effort each page would take in Photoshop. I found I liked this best of all. Sometimes I wouldn't notice how difficult a page would be to shop until I started the actual work. But often, I'll write a page and just shake my head, thinking, "How in the world am I going to put THAT together?" And then I do it.

But since it still isn't my original art, it will always be looked down upon by the jerkier nerds on the internet. If people can look past that aspect and realize what I'm doing is art in and of itself (yes, art can have dick jokes), they might be pleasantly surprised at the story taking place on this obscure little place on the web.

Dwarf Lover: Ineption

This episode of Dwarf Lover, Ineption, was conceived and planned out long before I ever saw that South Park episode with Inception and Freddy Krueger. But I guess that's what happens when you take six years to finish a story arc and other writers finish a story every week of their stupid lives! Of course the story didn't have the inception bit when it was first planned. But I thought the spinning top was a nice way to introduce the dream aspect.

One of the things that fit so nicely when I brought Freddy Krueger into the story way back in The Journal of Kohk Korunch was that I knew there was a section in the Tomb much later where the party would be forced into a sleeping state. And that Freddy would be dealt with at that time.

Of course, he's only sort of half dealt with after this episode.

By the way, this is the first big encounter with one of the 13 Ghosts of the Chest of S'kubi Du! So anybody out there trying to guess who all 13 Ghosts are, well, um, now you only have to guess 12! Or 11 since you can be pretty sure Acererak is one of them also.

Graphic Adventure Games from the Eighties 101

As I play these old graphic adventure games, I'm trying to learn something from each one that might help me along in the next. So these are a few things the games I've played have taught me.

1. Alien Research Center: A relatively simple game which I thought I was going to win on my first attempt. Getting from beginning to end was fairly simple although one exit from one room remained blocked to me. After realizing I still had more things to find, I attempted to pass the pool blocking my way with no luck. It turned out there was a half-corroded floor in one room that you needed to kick to open up more of the ship. Thing I learned: When a Wall, Floor, or Ceiling has a special note, mark it for later. You may have to try a whole bunch of verbs useless in the rest of the game on the wall or floor or ceiling to continue on your quest.

2. Master of the Universe in Terraquake (unless it's really Super Adventure!): This game had a lot of Red Herrings which made me waste a lot of time. But it is possible to realize specific areas of a map that you don't need to fiddle with. But Terraquake's Red Herrings were mainly there to distract the player from the dead end under Snake Mountain with a wall that didn't have anything interesting about it at all. Of course, that was where a secret door was! Thing I learned: When a Wall, Floor, or Ceiling has no special note, you're fucked. You may have to try examining every wall and floor and ceiling in every location until you find one that says more than "Looks like an ordinary wall to me."

3. Frankie Crashed on Jupiter: Saying Fuck replaced the Drop All command in this game. But it did so by moving your entire inventory into the room you are currently in. This had the advantage of things that would normally break when you dropped them individually to not break! Very handy, indeed. Thing I learned: Saying Fuck can be very useful.

4. The Very Big Cave Adventure: If you say Fuck in this game, the female narrator breaks your arm and ends your game. But if you say Shit, you are transported to the Swear Box where you must Wash Mouth to leave. When you leave, you end up near the Wellie House where your treasure is stored. This can be very useful when you don't want to cross the entire cave to put some treasure away. But what is more, one of the major puzzles in the game (possibly the only real puzzle in the game!) can be avoided by swearing! In Gotham, you have to steal two treasures while That Man is in the bathroom. But you just don't have enough time! But you can steal both treasures and swear before going back to the heart of Gotham! You still need to get a ride back from That Man if you want his utility belt. But that's no problem! If you head back to Gotham, everything is reset! You can help That Man foil the Jester again and this time just hang out until That Man is done in the can. Game Won! Things I learned: When programmers try to get cute, they often fuck up the shit in their game.

5. Aztec Tomb Revisited: This game was a big fat programming turd. How it ever made it onto shelves is a mystery. But the worst part of the game is that the instructions outright lie to you. They tell you to look at rooms and examine things. But early on, you need to look at things while examine does nothing. Oh, what a clever ploy! Fuck you, Brandon James. I will never forget your name, Brandon James. Things I learned: Brandon James is a dick who can't program worth shit.

The Very Big Cave Adventure

Those must have been some really heady times, those halcyon days of the eighties. When you could write an adventure game and it would be published no matter how poorly thought out it was. Where people were in such need of computer entertainment that they would shell out 8 Pounds for a less than funny parody of the Grandfather of all text games.

Oh, to be a kid back then! When you could write a game where all of the action took place on the surface of Jupiter and nobody seemed to care. When you could insult the player constantly because they can't quite guess the verb to solve the nonsensical puzzle you placed in the first few moves of a game to make the game seem to last longer. When mazes were standard fare and the only thing standing in the way of someone figuring out all of your puzzles in a couple of hours.

"See, what I did here, was I made most of the map available. And you can see there are six main puzzles that the player needs to solve to move on. But! The player can't solve any of these puzzles until he finds all the correct items at the end of this dastardly maze I made where no direction ever takes you to the same place twice and there is only a 1 in 100 chance of finding the correct route!"

Oh, such beauty! Such innocence! No wonder I long to go back and replay all of these horrible, horrible games! Their allure is just too, too sweet.

Click on The Very Big Cave Adventure for my latest review.
Click on The Very Big Cave Adventure for my latest Walkstory.

Places & Predators

Places & Predators is the name of my website. I thought maybe I would list updates here with some notes on each project. I'm hoping that Blogger has better spam protection than the P&P Forum I'm currently using. Registration for the forum now needs authentication by me since at least one spammer per day was logging on. Usually, the same spammer but with a different name. He kept using a yahoo.uk email address and tacking two random capital letters onto he end of all of his random names.