Almost there, folks. Next week is the Season Finale, so get ready! After THAT, that’s when the fun REALLY starts!
As for me, well, I’m already up to my wrists in unedited artwork, and trying to figure out what to do with it all. It’s a very large task, what I’m trying to do, and I admit I’ve had a lot of advice from a number of different quarters that I shouldn’t even bother and just leave it as it is. But something in me is just not satisfied with that, and so with vast reluctance, after next week’s finale, I will be diving fully into the process of revising everything for print. I’m repeating this more for my benefit than yours, I admit, because as with anything the process of revision is such an unpleasant one for an author that it takes a lot of psyching-up to get me into it. And speaking of which:
Yes, another two-pager, this panoramic view, as it was meant to be!
So, with the first season coming to a close, the question is “But what about the weekly 6-Commando updates?” Well, in the next two weeks I’ll describe in full detail what the plan there is, but I do intend to continue updating every week, with SOMETHING, at least. There’s some really cool stuff coming on the front end, and after that, at the very least I’ll do something akin to a relaunch, perhaps – show off some of the revised artwork, to (hopefully) drum up some support for the print edition.
About the print edition, by the way, may not be ready by NYCC, I’m afraid. I’ve assessed my time constraints and it simply might not be an attainable goal at this point when you chop sixty days off the end of it for a print turnaround. I’m still going to bend every effort, though – I just want to put that in the mix on the front end, because with all this expended effort, I’m not going to rush things for the sake of a print date at this point. However, as most readers don’t seem to be in the New York area anyway, I’m not terribly distressed about that. Interestingly, this week marked the first time readership in Germany exceeded that in Canada! How 6-Commando got so popular in Germany, I don’t know, but you folks were number two behind the United States this week, according to Google, with Canada, the UK, and Australia filling out the top five.
But I digress. About printing. I’m finishing a survey of my final options vis-à-vis the ultimate form that this will take. The working title is “6-Commando, Season 1” and I’m looking into a Kickstarter campaign as a means of gauging interest and figuring out what kind of quality I can afford to pack into this. The Ogre campaign by Steve Jackson Games is the model I’m following, to wit: this book will be available no matter what; it simply remains to be seen how awesome I will be able to make it. With no support, it will be print on demand, perfect-bound, with updated artwork and some modest commentary by me. With support, I may be able to afford extras like process or offset printing, better binding, additional content such as essays and sketchbook material, or even hardcover. I need to get a reasonable assessment on what levels of financial support at which I would be able to do these things, and I’m already working on an animatic Hollywood-style 6-Commando trailer (ha!) for advertising purposes. So please keep your eyes on the page here and keep spreading the word about this comic to your friends. And remember that whatever happens, even if the Kickstarter thing fizzles, this book is happening, and then more 6-Commando will follow, right here, as always. This, I COMMAND!
Anyhow, that’s enough out of me for one week. Tune in next time for the Season Finale!
Ahhh! A Russian Kill-Bot. MIKE’s red counterpart: A semi-autonomous support walker. Infected by the HYB-virus as well?
Battle-time!
… or more likely one of the many new AI friends MIKE has made and now summoned to defend him…?
Fishing for clues, eh? 😉
Have to wait and see! O the suspense!
–M
i bet its a russian thing speaking in bits and bytes just to mess with the stupid humans
…oh crap.
😀
–M
Is that an M60 under all that applique armor?
An M75A4 Sentinel, actually. Based on the M103, as a matter of fact.
–M
Hopefully without all the M103’s design flaws. ^^
Now things are starting to go a bit terminator. All we need is a scorched human skull for the big guy to stomp on dramatically
And one of those Hunterkiller Tanks.
But no. Not THAT Terminator.
–M
Curiosier and curiosier…
So the YHB protocol overrides behavior patterns…
Makes me really wonder how the algorithms for those Rumblers were created. If “evolutionary self-educational” system was implemented, it would explain a lot. If so I would only hope that Azimov’s laws were inserted as core-level rules and were never overriden by evoluion… a faint hope, sisnce those bot’s would be used for war so it is hard to implement “do not hamr by action on inaction any sentient living being” law…
I’m not sure you can count on Asimov in the 6-Commando Universe, but there is definitely more going on than it seems at first. I kind of ruined it for everyone by revealing earlier (in the background material) that the FSR did have its own robots, but I think this scene still works as the “big reveal.” It remains to be seen what the real story is behind all of this, though! Three down (almost) and nine to go!
–M
It looks like a base from Red Alert. (And Red Alert 1 mind you.)
Well I was trying to make it look like the DEW Line, but I’ll take it!
–M
DEW line?
The Distant Early Warning Line, a series of Doppler radar stations in remote parts of Northern Canada and Greenland built by the U.S., Canadian and Danish governments during the Cold War to detect Soviet movement above the Arctic Circle. They were originally meant to detect long-range bombers and surface attacks, but couldn’t detect ICBM’s. After the Cold War they were repurposed into their current form as weather stations, with military tracking held for emergencies only.
As I understand it the main idea was to prevent a limited nuclear scenario where missiles were used in only small numbers and followed by an air attack across the arctic. I think a secondary purpose was to assert NATO control of the Arctic Circle and keep tabs on Soviet experiments in Novaya Zemlya.
–M
First thing I did when seeing this page was to translate the three words… no surprise, I just wasn’t expecting them to be in russian. Looks like God Mike is summoning his minions for… whatever he’s up to in is parking slot.
So far we’ve seen tanks, evil communists, power armors, bigger tanks, nuclear missiles, roasted communists, craters, wrecks, more missiles, white page, mad IA, mad soldier, useless CONASUR and UNA officer yielling at people, a classy yellow phone, and finally a mysterious mad communist robot.
Wondering what will happen in the next chapter 🙂
Something is telling me there is probably more than just one of those red kill-bots. They may be not as big and tough as MIKE, but they are very well armed and a swarm of – say two dozens – them might put Haulley and Zaballa in some serious trouble.
Of course they could send wave after wave of their own men against them until they have reached their pre-set kill limit.
…
Wrong fictional universe! My bad. ^^
That would be a dark day for Robotkind. But then, they can always build more Killbots!
–M
Awesome!
Oh, believe me, this is only the start. Check out next week’s finale!
–M
The wrecked vehicle to the right. I don’t think we’ve seen those before…?