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Underground > Comic Books >

New Hero

z3r0

12:15 / 22.06.01

By day complete loser, with drinking problems, living alone, with shitty job. Suicidal tendencies.
Also, has the ability to enter others dreams.
By night he enters other people's dreams and fight their nightmares, for no apparent reason. He doesn't make the world safer, or fights evil. He only fights harmless nightmares.
Not a regular super-hero, no uniform - was thought as a media to discuss psychological/mystical/emotional topics, with some drama provided by his bleak senseless existence during the day.
People he "saves" won't ever see him in the real world etc.
This are some of the ideas for this "hero". If anyone is interested in developing the idea, questions follow:

-Why he does this?
-What kind of reward, if any, he gets from his night errands? (Not anything like "gathering the magical forces that fuel the nightmares" or something like this. It has to be as reallistic as possible in this scenario.)
-Why is he this "loser?"
-What can be hidden behind his hability? (Lovecraftian developments, though, are welcome - but nothing too exagerated)
-ADD YOUR OWN QUESTIONS HERE...
--
Your turn: Provide drawings, storylines, scripts, supporting characters, what you wish.
Anyone interested?

13:12 / 22.06.01

he doesn't have much imagination. (ironical.) he had a long period of insomnia and then suddenly could sleep and then found that he couldn't dream without dreaming into somebody else's dream (and BTW physiologically dreaming does not sleeping) and couldn't leave that dream until it resolves itself.

possible other motivations: and/or he fights out of boredom and/or by doing good and fighting the nightmares he found he could feel good about himself.

this feels to me like something character-based to me and that seems like the area to develop the concept the most and out of this sort of Vertigo-like quality that it currently has.

13:16 / 22.06.01

A few thoughts:

-Why he does this/What kind of reward, if any, he gets from his night errands?

He can't dream.
He experienced a horrific nightmare (in reality, a psychic attack) as a child and due to his inability to deal with it, he flung himself from his own dreams into everyone else's.

That event caused him to subconciously block his own mind from ever having dreams again. So at night, he wanders the dreamscape looking for the adventure he cannot get from his own mind and certainly doesn't get from his waking life.
(He is also half-heartadly looking for the one who "attacked" him.)

-Why is he this "loser?"
His inablilty to dream means that his thoughts become unfocused and erractic when awake. He's unable to hold a conversation for more than ten minutes so his chances of holding down a job are non-existant.

13:47 / 22.06.01

Beginning to sound a bit like only forward by Michael marshall smith.(only better?)
Sorry to rain on your parade.

z3r0

14:35 / 22.06.01

quote: he doesn't have much imagination. (ironical.) he had a long period of insomnia and then suddenly could sleep and then found that he couldn't dream without dreaming into somebody else's dream (and BTW physiologically dreaming does not sleeping) and couldn't leave that dream until it resolves itself.
This is good.

quote: Why is he this "loser?"
His inablilty to dream means that his thoughts become unfocused and erractic when awake. He's unable to hold a conversation for more than ten minutes so his chances of holding down a job are non-existant.

Perhaps injecting some humor at his attempts to get a job, or sould still be the depressing, downer stuff?

quote: Beginning to sound a bit like only forward by Michael marshall smith.(only better?)
Sorry to rain on your parade.

Who is michael marshall smith?

Good one folks.
What about this:
He saves a girl in a dream, and falls in love with her, and never sees her again. (Or, a long time later, he finds her by accident, and she doesn't look as beautiful and interesting as she appeared to be in the dream, thus deceiving him).

Or - he inadvertely falls in his girlfriend's dream, and she is dreaming of making love to someone else...
Or makin glove with HIM - would he be jealous of a "DREAM-HIM"?

17:48 / 22.06.01

He suffers from insomnolescence (real condition involving damage to the hypothamus -- basically, the natural chemicals that compel you to sleep aren't produced), and is forced to down heavy sedatives just to get his body to calm down and sleep. It's not the same as regular sleep, alas, and the side effects include psychotic episodes... Anyway, he likely does his job from home, probably working as a data entry sod. He's a loser and suicidal because he can't cope well with his condition, the drinking acting as something to numb him from the real world.

When he does sleep, and this is suitably rare, some fluke (leave room for development later) tosses him around into other people's dreams. He thinks they are just his own fevered nightmares at first, then discovers that he's been probing around in other people's heads, saving them from imagined things.

He develops a kind of hero complex at first, and since he's a loser with no real attachments in the real world, he tries as much as he can to delve into this dream world. In the nightmares he can champion the masses and play out all the roles he can't in life.

After that... Well, I'll leave that up to the writers and artists.

z3r0

11:13 / 25.06.01

OK. Now:

a)Name the hero
b)Place him in some place of our adorable planet
c)Develop 3 characters to interact with him
d)ARTISTS: Anyone want to come up with his looks?
e)WRITERS: Anyone interested in coming up with a grandiloquent, larger-than-life opening story?

13:17 / 25.06.01

Are you trying to get rich by exploiting my genius? Just want to know so we're straight about my role as your man-bitch.

I'll write, if you want.

z3r0

13:40 / 25.06.01

The idea is: when we have the guidelines, the visual, a first story (i can write, too), perhaps we can present the project to some comic publisher. the ideal number of collaborators would be 3: 1 to draw, two to write. (i'm included)
If anyone interested, I can begin to write/discuss the outlines. who knows what can happen?
And it will be fun, also. Of course we wouldn't be doing it for too long here on the forum, cos it would involve sending scanned art, documents with scripts etc...
Think of it more like a hobby, for now. I mean, if the concept is attractive, here's a chance to imprint your style to it.

14:37 / 25.06.01

Two writers, eh? Fair 'nuff. I'm game.

One penciller, one inker (unless the artist wants both jobs), one colorist, one cover artist. PR representatives, advertising department and editorial duties might also be a consideration.

z3r0

15:13 / 25.06.01

oh, of course. I just need some sort of theme for the grand opening. You come w/ the concept, throw it to me, i return it to you etc... we chew it a little bit and spit it out in form of a story.
Then we can search for artists.

02:49 / 26.06.01

Grand opening? Well, my idea for the opening is far less than grand, but I'll hop to it. I'll try and get you something by the end of the week. An outline and a short intro.

17:23 / 26.06.01

I have some suggestions:

at the onset of the comic book you don't know the identity of the main character. so the action of the man who enters dreams could seem suspicious and perhaps the actions of a villain.

we see a vignette where a mystic type approaches him... not some bum on the street, I have seen that many many times... and offers to guide him or help him. he refuses in a way so rude it should make the reader cringe. then cut away to other people. then he enters the dream of a person who has killed for the government, for the mob, whoever, done very bad things. the protagonist resolves this. somehow they figure out that a real person has entered their dream and because they know something about their misdeeds he must die. he finds this out through some mundane means (attempted assasination or something) and then searches for the guru type to shield him as a last resort. end of first issue.

or something like that.

07:01 / 27.06.01

To be honest, I was toying with the first part of your suggestion from the get-go, but I'm still debating which course of action will end up having the most merit.

The rest would have the story lapsing into cliche, which I personally don't want to dreg up. The whole mysterious mentor/government conspiracy has been done to death.

With this concept, at least as it is brewing in my skull, the dreamer lives a mundane life, and his dream-walking goes more or less unnoticed by anyone... It's just his way of escaping his depressing life.

At first.

It'll quickly get into lucid dreaming and delve into other bizarro topics. Fascinating ideas floating around as it is. More as I come to a better conclusion.

Taking it slowly. A grueling pace, to some, but I'm just one of those irritating writers.

z3r0

11:37 / 27.06.01

thats what i think its fascinating about this character: so many interesting developments.
I think I'll start developing a second character, someone who our dreamer loves but its unreacheable. then he hops into her dreams to be close to her. (too cheesy?)

16:53 / 27.06.01

quote:
The rest would have the story lapsing into cliche, which I personally don't want to dreg up. The whole mysterious mentor/government conspiracy has been done to death.

I didn't say anything about government conspiracies... not as such. though the mentor... I agree.

maybe do a very ordinary life kind of story with the lucid dreams as one strand of it?

and the story doesn't have to happen in the present. it could take place anywhere and in any time.

02:03 / 28.06.01

...dreamer loves...(too cheesy?)...

Make it his psychiatrist... or the doctor that prescribes his drugs... or even the pharmacist... or, if you want, make it his landlady. As for being cheesy, nah.

maybe do a very ordinary life kind of story with the lucid dreams as one strand of it?

Well, not so much ordinary... since the poor sod is asocial and suffers from insomnolescence (no sleep without drugs, more or less), but he lives a very closed, boring life. Which would explain the drinking.

z3r0

10:20 / 28.06.01

About the affair:
He doesnt have money to go to a psychiatrist.
She can be a costumer at the supermarket where he works as cashier (this word is correct?)

11:39 / 28.06.01

I'd have his mentor just be a very practiced lucid dreamer--I kind of like the idea of ALL the superheroics being dream-related, 'cause that leaves open the slight possibility that the hero is just completely crackers.

I also like the idea that having someone fight my nightmares for me would defeat the purpose of the nightmares, and would actually be a Bad Thing. But maybe that's too depressing.

11:46 / 28.06.01

quote:About the affair: He doesnt have money to go to a psychiatrist. She can be a costumer at the supermarket where he works as cashier (this word is correct?)

I like that idea - it being an anybody who he fixates on just by the look of their face.

I also like making him a bit nasty. If he's had this power most (or all) of his life, I think he could be made into quite a creepy character - spending his formative years in others dreams getting some voyouristic thrill from them. This could intrude into his waking life, and he begins to follow/stalk some of the people who he watched in the dreams. Perhaps this stalking leads him to psychologically injure some of his 'victims,' and these injuries show up in their dreams, making him more curious about their life - an ever decreasing spiral.

Sorry; going off on my own tangents there.

z3r0

13:33 / 28.06.01

The idea of all the superpowerful people having dream-related power is fantastic: a brotherhood of dreamers. The dreaming brotherhood... hummm... "The Actors"... like "midnight theatre" huh, fuck, I suck at giving names, you will do better.

About the thing of his actions possibly be Bad Things, to tell y'all the truth, there was a time when I was thinking that perhaps this guy could turn out being a villain.
You know, he lives a life of shit, but during the night he is admired by those who he saves.
So he slowly build this web of unconscious dreamers, who recognize in him a leader/hero and worship him. It's like: he has all of the people of this city in his hands during the night.
So he's there, in an alley, drunk, watching the rich people passing in expensive cars, and just thinking that they're all his hostages, at night. He can even damage them psychically.
Or perhaps this role could be performed by THE VILLAIN, someone else with the same powers as him - a lost brother, perhaps??? I'm not that original, but, you know...
So, let's keep him as a hero, or...

14:07 / 28.06.01

quote:he slowly build this web of unconscious dreamers, who recognize in
him a leader/hero and worship him

That could be his 'reason' for doing this. He builds up this cult of followers, who often don't really remember him, just have some kind of subconscious recolection of him being in their dreams. But to him this group are a sort of substitute family and he will protect them as such.

15:44 / 28.06.01

contrasting the villian-like "hero" you could have a more traditional hero who has far far worse motives but on the mundane level does right.

example: the Mark Millar comic with a famous superhero actually the antiChrist and Jesus has returned as a cool kind of ordinary person. (can't remember the name of the comic book.)

22:57 / 28.06.01

The poor bastard suffers from insomnolescence -- he can't sleep without drugs. The government'll pay for his psychiatric bills, or at least his medical bills. *grin*

the hero is just completely crackers.

I'd say that's probably the case. Imagine if he tried to throw himself into a comatose state to satisfy his growing god-complex.

an ever decreasing spiral.

Interesting take. I could see it as being possible. After all... one of the major side effects of insomnolescence is psychosis.

Our character (I hesistate to call him heroic) would develop a god-complex. It's almost an inevitablity. The whole scenario stinks of a bad episode of Sliders I came across... but driving people into comas, or even death by tampering with their dreams. It's a frightening power.

While not being as brutal (you won't see slash marks across their chests if they get cut open) as Nightmare on Elm Street... it does have very similiar possibilities.

Anyway... This Sunday... I will unveil an introduction and outline... to the general public.

And email the rest to z3r0.

z3r0

12:04 / 29.06.01

Just dont make him bad. Make him confused and misguided... and at least in the beggining, a good character

23:51 / 01.07.01

I'll post it up next week sometime. Ended up being pestered into doing other work and didn't have time to write up the outline.