Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Old World Monsters

Nothing haunts me more than an unfinished project, and buddy, let me tell you, I have got more than my fair share of 'em. Now, before I erroneously cast myself as a guy who can't complete anything, let me say this: I have finished a ton of projects. The downloads page on this very site is testament to that. Still, sometimes I've started a project and for one reason or another had to abandon it. Sometimes it's my fault. Sometimes not.

One of late that I've regretted pulling the plug on is the sequel to the League of Monster's story that Pierre and I were working on for Zuda. Zuda went under before we could finish it which is a durn shame because we both had some great stuff to show you in that comic. Namely, we were going to introduce the world to the incredibly fun Old World Monsters, a team of creatures from Europe. Today, I"ll show you some of the character concepts Pierre created for this story:

First up is Gentleman Jack, the ghost of a 17th century highway man:

 Next is a character I intended to be our brooding Red Tornado type of character, The Green Golem:

Countering the Golem's reserved nature would be this hot tempered beauty, The Bride:


The final member of the group is a character originally designed by the insanely talented Jerry Hinds, but used with his kind permission in this story; Baba Yaga.


These four characters and the story that introduced them was going to sort of be my homage to the story that introduced those classic Jim Shooter villains The Fatal Five. 

Except whereas Shooter cast The Fatal Five as black and white villains, I was going to go the more Marvel route of making the Old World Monsters all anti-heroes to one degree or another.

Pierre and I got about a third of the comic completed before the closing of Zuda made the project financially unfeasible. Still, I wouldn't say this project is completely dead. As the market changes and Pierre and I get more time to work on other things, I wouldn't be surprised if this story didn't bounced back up to the top of our list of things we would both like to work on.

Hope you liked this behind the scenes preview(?) of the Flashback Universe!

- Jim

4 comments:

MattComix said...

I really like all those designs, especially Baba Yaga. Fits the goal of a Fatal Five for the League of Monsters perfectly.

Trey said...

I a nice array of monsters. Too bad that never saw completion.

Sean Kleefeld said...

Some very nice designs there. I wouldn't at all mind seeing OWM seeing the light of day eventually.

Jim Shelley said...

Thanks guys! Seeing your comments makes me want to stop my current projects and complete this story, but I think that's sort of how this one got stopped in the first place. ;)

Pierre, who contacted me after seeing this post, agrees. We will find a way to do *something* to finish the story. I may make it an Android market project, then I can mentally write off the cost as enhancing my development skills.

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