I thought I'd take a post here to try playing the part of The Muse. Mainly because there's some ideas here that I think somebody ought to take advantage of, and I'm probably not the best person to do so. So here's some notes for you to scan over...

Oct. 31, 1876 - A cyclone off east coast of India killed 200,000.
Nov. 2, 1876 - A giant squid, 6.1 meters long, washed ashore at Thimble Tickle Bay in Newfoundland, Canada.
Nov. 7, 1876 – A grave robbery of Abraham Lincoln's tomb was attempted (and failed).
Nov. 10, 1876 - The Philadelphia World's Fair closed.
Nov. 29, 1876 - Porfirio Diaz became President of Mexico.
Dec. 5, 1876 – The Brooklyn Theater Fire killed at least 278, possibly more than 300.
Dec. 29, 1876 - The Ashtabula River Railroad bridge disaster, then called the worst disaster in American history, took place killing 92 people.
Jan. 1, 1877 - Queen Victoria was proclaimed the Empress of India.
Feb. 18, 1877 - The Lincoln County War began.
Feb. 20, 1877 - Pope Leo XIII becamethe 254th pope.
Mar. 18, 1877 - A riot in Bern, Switzerland broke out led in part by anarchist Paul Brousse.
Apr. 24, 1877 - The Russo-Turkish War began.
May 6, 1877 - Crazy Horse surrendered to U.S. troops in Nebraska.
May 21, 1877 – Romania declared itself independent from the Ottoman Empire.
Jun. 26, 1877 - Mt. Cotopaxi erupted in Ecuador killing 1,000.

You could probably pick any random nine month period and come up with an equally compelling list of events. They might or might not be related. But what if some, or all of them were? What if there were a connection between a giant squid washing up on a beach, and the desecration of Lincoln's tomb a week later? What if something in the early days of the Lincoln County War led to Pope Leo XIII being chosen as the pope over another candidate?

Life is full of random incidents, and it's a well-trod axiom that correlation does NOT mean causation. But that's a lot of what creativity is about: making a connection between two (or more) seemingly unrelated items. So, if you're ever hurting for story ideas or launching points, why not just scan through a list of events that are related only by temporal proximity (that is, they all happen around the same time) and see if you can't make some connections of your own. We're provided with hundreds of thousands of springboards all the time, and it's up to you how to frame them into your story.

I was playing in Second Life again last night and started trying to draft up some character designs for "Propaganda of the Deed." Using largely what I already had stashed away in my inventory, I came up with some basic designs for Joaquin Murrieta (right) and John Henry (below) in about two hours.

Henry still needs some work. He needs more muscle definition certainly, and I'm not entirely happy with the shape of his torso in general. Obviously, his nipples need to be tweaked down a notch or three. And his hammer is more of a battle hammer than a sledgehammer. But like I said, it's using what I had on hand.
There's an interesting bonus with my character choices that I hadn't even considered before last night. They all have pretty inherently significant visuals because of their respective races. Murrieta's Mexican, Wukong is Chinese, Henry is African-American. Liddell and Watson are both English, but they're opposite genders, so there's little chance of confusing the two visually. It's making character design go pretty smoothly since I don't have to concern myself overmuch with whether or not the characters are distinctive enough visually.

The downside that occurred to me, though, is that Sun Wukong will be difficult to design in his monkey form. I'll have to do some searching to see what might already be available as far as monkey avatars is concerned.

And, while I'm on the subject, let me throw out there again that I could use some help in making this happen. I've got one volunteer so far, but it'd make things a lot easier with a few more!

Good grief! Sometimes I astound myself with my own myopia!

Last week, I relayed some of my thought process in doing some development work in Second Life. My thought process continued by suggesting that I could still be a part of that same community within SL by creating what would essentially be fan fiction in a fashion not too far removed from the works of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. That's why I was talking yesterday about creating stories based around what can be found within SL. And I ended my post by saying, "And you put a little more time into some actual character and plot development? With a little prep work, you could create your own comic book without being able to draw a single thing!"

But it didn't occur to me until several hours later that I already have a comic book story I've been trying to tell! This is, in fact, a great environment for me to develop Propaganda of the Deed as an actual comic book! It's got several Victorian cities already and plenty of costuming and prop-making already done. All I would need to do is design the characters in the world and set them up in poses that I could then screen-grab and drop into a comic book page layout! Holy cow! Why did I not make that connection earlier?!

The problem I have, though, is that I'm still only one guy; I can only run/operate one avatar within Second Life at a time. So what I'd like to do is request the assistance of anyone out there who might be interested in working with me on this "Propaganda of the Deed" comic. You would NOT need any special skills, other than perhaps a nominal interest in the comic and/or Second Life. You don't even have to be a current Second Life user!

Let me recap with a brief overview of my story idea, and what I'd need from folks.

In the 1880s, there was a notion going around that small groups of individuals could make their voices be heard with dramatic and poignant showings of violence. There were a pretty high number of assassination attempts of various political figures, and a number of notable locations were blown up. These types of events indirectly bring together Alice Liddell (of Alice in Wonderland), John Watson (of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries), John Henry (of American ballads), Joaquin Murrieta (the Mexican patriot) and Sun Wukong (from Journey to the West); and the five of them use their particular skills to battle these forces of anarchy and terrorism. This first story will be about bringing them together to fight a particularly obscure sect of Italian anarchists. (You can read a more of my notes at length here, here, here, and here.)

Now, what I need is a handful of people to help control avatars of these characters within Second Life. Accounts are free, and you'd obviously be able to do whatever you like in SL. I would just need some time on occassion to have you pose your avatar with some others. Changing your appearance in Second Life is incredibly simple, so you could create your avatar to look however you like and only "suit up" for some occassional screen capture sessions. Indeed, depending on how many people would be willing to help and who was available at what time, any one person could portray any number of different characters -- they might be John Henry for some scenes and Alice Liddell for others.

I would naturally provide all the costumes, props, etc. within Second Life. I've still got to flesh out the storyboards on my loose script, as well as do some more location scouting in SL. But I'd also be willing to listen to any ideas on character designs, story possibilities, etc. that you might bring to the table, too!

So if you're interested in helping, please contact me. If you're not comfortable leaving a response here, you can either e-mail me at kleefeld@ffplaza.com or send an instant message to me within Second Life at "Feldane Klees".

As I mentioned the other day, I've recently read Neil Gaiman's Mr. Punch and since then, I've had these Punch and Judy images/voices rolling around in my head. Having mentally gone through a few Punch and Judy shows, it occurs to me that Mr. Punch is an anarchist. He stood up to any and every authority figure and quite literally beat them to death. As I'd noted even earlier, I was looking at having my "Propaganda of the Deed" storyline focus on my heroes battling against the anarchism movement of the later 1800s. Now I have a character to focus that negativity onto!

"But, wait! I think Mr. Punch is English, and that doesn't work with my notion of putting a wordly spin on things. Let me do some research..."

As it turns out, Mr. Punch is actually derived from the Pulcinella, a 17th century Italian character who's attitude isn't dissimilar to Punch's! Though you may not know the character by name, I suspect many of you have seen the chap before...
Holy cow! He's got a devilish looking mask already, which would also serve to hide his real identity perfectly! Plus, the large flowing costume could easily hide a person's frame, so the character could be fat or thin, man or woman... Or, better yet, the Pulcinella could be a series of people dressed up in the same manner!

I tell ya, this thing is writing itself! A little research evidently goes a LONG way!

(STILL searching for an artist, though!)

"Okay, Sean, I gather by your artwork at the side there that this is another post about your Wold Newton rip-off. But what the hell is propaganda of the deed supposed to mean?"

I'm glad you asked!

As you may know, I decided on a decent line-up for my team of fictional and real people last week. I was really happy with them as a group -- especially after a little more reading suggested that Joaquin was somewhat bigoted against the Chinese. (That should make for an interesting relationship with Sun Wukong!) But where I was having problems was coming up with a solid justification for WHY they would be together. Alice was something of a loner, Joaquin was keeping a low profile to perpetuate the belief that he was dead, Sun Wukong hadn't effectively been seen for centuries... what could bring them together in the 1870s?

In developing this, I was creating a timeline of real and fictional events to put things into perspective. What were people of the late 1800s actually dealing with? I was effectively giving myself a crash course in a fifty-year period of world history. Interestingly, I soon found that China was in a shambles. There was a plague pandemic, war after war after war, the Yellow River flood killed 200,000 people... plenty of reasons to get a character out of the country. And then I noticed Europe and -- to a lesser extent -- the United States were facing some unusual problems as well. I kept seeing incident after incident where a politician was attacked or killed by an assassin. Queen Victoria had several attacks on her, as did Czar Alexander II, King Adolfo XII and Kaiser Wilhelm I. Presidents Garfield and McKinley were both killed in office as was Nikolai Mezentsov, a member of the State Council of Imperial Russia.

Investigating further led me to an article entitled "Propaganda of the Deed" published in The Bulletin of the Jura Federation in August 1877. The author, Paul Brousse, was an anarchist who promoted the idea that the best way to effect change was through some sort of dramatic catalyst event. Blowing up Scotland Yard, for example, to try to coerce England to give Ireland its independence. (That actually occurred in 1884.)

This is brilliant! Not only does it give me plenty of story fodder to throw against the protagonists, it also has some fairly obvious analogies to the world situation today in 2006! Current social relevance and historical accuracy? Man, this is too good NOT to pass up!

My problem, of course, is that I'm not skilled enough as an artist to draw this myself. As you can see, the imagry I've used thus far for this has been limited to Photoshopping existing images together. I'd like to ask again that if there are any artists out there who would like to help put this together as a bona fide comic book, I'd be very eager to speak with you. I want to develop this as a complete (or nearly complete) package that could be shopped around to different publishers, but I need an artist to help me pull that off.

Admittedly, I am fairly biased here, but I think this is a great idea. I've had ideas in the past that I thought were good and seen others independently develop something similar while I was trying to get the ball rolling. I'd hate for that to happen with this as well, so please give me a buzz if you're interested in pursuing this project with me.

Okay, first off... I really need to think of a new name for this. "Wold Newton" is Farmer's bit in the first place, and in the second place, he calls it that because he ties everything together from an event that occurred in Wold Newton, Yorkshire, England.

In any event, I think I've assembled an interesting team here. I've added to the mix a gentleman by the name of Joaquin Murrieta. (Portrayed here by some guy in a relatively cheesey Halloween costume. I would rather have a shot of Victor Rivers' portrayal of the character from The Mask of Zorro but I couldn't find any decent shots of him.) Murrieta was a sort of Robin Hood type character from Mexico who, like some Mexicans today, saw better opportunities in the United States. Also like some Mexicans today, he couldn't find legal work in the U.S. and he resorted to robbery. The governor of California set up the California Rangers almost expressly to hunt Murietta down, and he was supposedly killed in 1853. However, there was at the time (and to this day) a lot of doubt about whether it was actually Murietta that was killed.

So, why this group? What do they bring to the table that make them interesting as a group?

John Watson -- This is before he met Sherlock Holmes, indeed, before he finished medical school. He's got intelligence, youthful enthusiasm and an interest in adventure. (He would later go on to join the British military.)

Alice Liddell -- Alice was, by most accounts, not a very cheerful person. She took the death of her sister in 1876 very hard, and the deaths of two of her sons during World War I was no less difficult. She brings a practical intelligence (to contrast Watson's book smarts) and a skeptism that should help them more than once. The down side is that she's more of a loner than a team player, so keeping her associated with this group will prove perpetually difficult.

John Henry -- John was a former slave, and thus has a decidedly different outlook on things than the others. He has some level of physical strength and endurance, certainly, but it will be his determination, persistence, and loyalty that are his strongest qualities. (BTW, I've updated his representation here with a picture of boxer Earl Maynard.)

Joaquin Murrieta -- Joaquin is about twenty years older than the others and has some life experience that they don't. He does understand suffering and being trodden on, but not quite to the extent that John Henry does. He's a man of action, certainly, but also one of great heart and character. If he feels the status quo is unfair, he'll fight to change it. Given that John Watson hasn't yet been trained in firearms, Joaquin also serves as the team's gunman. He's also got a cache of money saved up from his earlier adventures in California.

Sun Wukong -- Sun once was a mischevious imp of a character, trying to play tricks on Budda himself! He's learned his lesson and has been humbled considerably in the past few centuries, although that doesn't mean he's no longer above a few light-hearted deceptions amongst his friends! He's left China because of all the internal fighting going on during this time. For the most part, he intends to keep his true identity secret and play the part of a simple -- perhaps somewhat above average intelligence -- monkey. Although the rest of the group don't know it, he's their ace in the hole when their backs are against the wall! He can change shape and size at will, ride the clouds anywhere in the world, and wield a powerful staff that he normally has shrunk and tucked behind his ear. Not to mention that he's immortal! (Long-time readers might recognize, too, that I've been wanting to do something with this character since August.)

I really like that I've got a relatively diverse mix of characters here. Two British, one African-American, one Mexican, and one Chinese. Plus two are wholly fictional characters, one is quite real, and two more are somewhere in between. It should be easy to draw in contemporary parallels with a Mexican looking for work in the U.S. as well as with possible racial tensions and stereotypes all over the place. And, where I was running into problems at first, none of these characters have any copyright issues that I'd have to contend with -- they're all public domain.

I'm getting more excited about this idea. Seriously, if any artists out there want to take a shot at working on something like this, please do not hesitate to let me know!

Now, who have we here...?
I mentioned the other day how I was kicking around some ideas for a comic pulling together some characters from existing fiction. Well, I've been giving it a lot of thought the past couple of days, and had some intriguing notions on the concept.

First, all of the similar existing ideas I've seen thus far (The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, the "Wold Newton" universe, etc.) have a tendency to focus on Western literature. Sure, bringing Captain Nemo in gives adds Indian to the group so it's not totally homogeneous, but the fictions themselves were all based on Western literature. Stevenson was English, Verne was French, Twain was American... I think it would be more interesting if you pulled in a more global flavor. How about a character from Japanese or Chinese mythology? Where does South America get represented? Hey, what about getting an African in there? True, you don't want to alienate your largely English-speaking audience with characters and concepts they're wholly unfamiliar with, but that's why you still include some Western literature.

Next, what's wrong with mixing significant fictional and historical figures? I've seen all fictional, and all historical, but how about merging the two to allow for a little more realism/believability?

So, who do we have here anyway?

From left to right, my current "team" (and I'll explore why I use the term in quotes later) consists of John Henry, John Watson, Alice Liddell, and Sun Wukong. Henry was an early African-American who's a part of American folklore, Watson of course is the famous sidekick of Sherlock Holmes, Liddell is the famed character from the Alice in Wonderland stories and Wukong is from Chinese legend. I know I still need a few other international folks to round out the group, but this who I've come up with so far.

I have to cut this short at the moment because of time restraints, but I'll let you mull that over for a while.

And, hey! Any artists out there who might be interested in helping to develop this concept? The more I kick this idea around, the more interested I am in actively pursuing this.