Iron Harvest-Some thoughts.

So with last weeks concluding page (I hope you all read it ) ‘Iron Harvest’ has wrapped. I thought I’d post a little about how it came about, a bit of behind the scenes as it were.

The germ of the idea started when I read the graphic novel ‘Shooting War’ by Anthony Lappe and Dan Goldman. At one point in the book there was a scene (you’ll have to excuse my lack of memory on the context) where a room full of soldiers were controlling some unmanned combat drones and robots. Whether it was the artists intention or not it reminded me of a LAN gaming event. Thus the world of video gaming and the future of warfare collided and an idea was born (As an aside I highly recommend ‘Shooting War’).

I came up with the basic idea of drone’s being controlled by video game players first of all and went from there. This was all before the rise of drone’s into international headlines. There were a few articles here and there in science journals and the like, that’s all. The first few drafts of ‘Iron Harvest’ (back then it was called ‘Fragfest’, naming it after the game was Rick’s idea) were in the vein of ‘All the President’s Men’ as a journalist tried to uncover the truth behind the relationship between a shadowy multinational and a games company. Personally I thought it felt a little flat and I went back to the drawing board.

It was around this point that drones started to gain a lot more traction in the headlines. A raid here, a raid there, and even a few pieces on how the pilots and technology to pilot drones were heavily involved with gaming. Clearly I was onto something. It was also around this time that Rick Ross became involved. I’d met Rick via the boards at Digital Webbing after he replied to an ad I’d placed (the project never happened by the way, but I think I got a good deal out of it ). Eventually, we got to talking about his website and its anthology like nature. I can’t remember who mentioned the idea of working together first (probably me, I have a lot more to gain by Rick drawing my stuff than he does writing mine I think) but I mentioned the basic outline of the idea of Iron Harvest to him. Rick liked it and encouraged me to work on it some more.

The title ‘Iron Harvest’ comes from the term of the same name. This term is an annual harvest when people collect and retrieve any ordinance that hasn’t been expended. I also thought the term sounded perfect for the kind of pretentious overblown titles, war video games are often guilty of.

It wasn’t long after this that I had the notion of not having a central character in the traditional sense. Instead the game was the strips star, permeating every page in one way or another. The idea that each page would take on the form of a different type of media also came about at this time. Rick cemented this further by suggesting that each page stuck to a strict six panel grid (a great touch I thought). Rick also played a huge part in crafting the pacing of the ending of the strip, moving panels around and suggesting a slower burn on the last page building up to the reveal itself.

During the time I was redrafting the strip, a book entitled ‘Wired for War’ by PW Singer began to get a lot of press (featuring in Wired magazine amongst others). The book covers the future of warfare with an emphasis on unmanned vehicles. Whilst I read the book far too late for it to have any direct impact on the strip it did open my mind up to the various directions a story on the subject of unmanned warfare could go. Almost as a result of this (and also via Rick’s suggestion) I’m planning to take some of the elements of ‘Iron Harvest’ and the research I’ve done post-strip and spin them off into something a bit meatier.

All in all I’m extremely happy with the strip. A large part of this is due to Rick’s splendid art (I especially dig the last two pages). I know this was a bit of an experiment for him with each page calling for something different and I think the final results are great. The best part of writing in the comics medium for me is that moment when you first a page or visual that has been in your head for months. The art for Iron Harvest was better than anything I could have forseen. Rick has a real eye for capturing expressions and mood and I can’t speak more highly of the work he put in on the strip.

Give Rick’s site a visit today and you’ll be treated to the first page of a brand new strip penned by Rick himself, ‘Varangian Guard’. It further illustrates Rick’s talent of being able adapt his style to a number of genres.

Iron Harvest concludes

The final page of ‘Iron Harvest’ went up on Agitainment yesterday and can be found on the front page here:

http://agitainment.com/ics

For those who are late to the party or just want to read the thing in one sitting, click here.

The plan is that later in the week I’ll post a bit about the influences of ‘Iron Harvest’ and maybe some future plans I have in store for it.

Iron Harvest- Page 4

The penultimate page of Iron Harvest came out yesterday over at Agitainment! Comics.

The link as usual is http://agitainment.com/ics.

I really love the way Rick has taken the original remit that each page (which are all six panel grids) is told through a different medium and incorporated it into the strip. I know that he’s used a lot of new techniques and tools for the strip and I have to say it’s impressive for a first effort. Of course Rick is no slouch in the pencils department. The complete stories such as UFO, The Gryphon and The Collector are all worth looking at and can be found on the same site as Iron Harvest.

When Iron Harvest concludes next week I think I’ll post a little about my influences for the story etc and how it all came about.

Iron Harvest Page 3, out today!

Rick has a new page of ‘Iron Harvest’ up today and it looks fantastic.

Click through to http://agitainment.com/ics to have a look.

In other news, this site was having a bit of trouble last week with all of the posts disappearing. A quick question on Twitter and it was fixed. The power of social media, eh?

Huge thanks again to Nicholas Butler for fixing the blog!

His home on the web can be found here http://www.loudmouthman.com/

Thanks to Benjamin Read for the assist too! (he can be found here http://www.benjaminread.co.uk/)

Both are top guys and worthy of follow status on Twitter too!

That’s all for now.

‘Iron Harvest’ continues!

I’ve been having some problems with the blog lately (I’m not even sure this post will show up properly until I click the ‘Publish’ button) and so this is a little late being posted.

The second page of ‘Iron Harvest’ is up and we get a great look at Rick’s great art!

http://agitainment.com/ics/

Do you know what your video games are doing?

The first part of ‘Iron Harvest’ has hit today on Rick Ross’ Agitainment Comics website. The strip will be updated every Monday for the next four weeks. Enjoy!

http://agitainment.com/ics

Also, Rick recently did an interview with Cosmic Book News in which he talks briefly about Iron Harvest and his site as a whole.

http://cosmicbooknews.com/doi/rrossinterview

Bristol Expo

Whew! What a weekend!

My con experiences up to this point have been limited to Birmingham, with Bristol being only the third con I have attended. The first two cons in hindsight were akin to one dipping their toe sheepishly in the water. The bar was heaving on Friday night and it was great making impromptu friends as the night wore on.

Come Saturday morning I was handing out ‘Iron Harvest’ leaflets to those waiting to get into the convention space proper. One of the strangest experiences I had was when I would hand people a leaflet and several minutes later get a ‘Thanks for the leaflet!’ tweet. Bizarre!

Despite the limited resources I had (and the small amount of time to prep something for the con) I feel ‘Iron Harvest’ had a presence at the con with a lot of leaflets handed out–though I imagine more than a few were discarded.

It was also nice to finally put faces to a few names, finally meeting the first artist I ever worked with, Brett Buckle. I also forged a few new contacts.

It was also nice for Chris Staros (Top Shelf) to take a few minutes out of manning the Top Shelf booth to give me some feedback on the structure and makeup of a pitch document I’d put together. As one of my weakest points it was nice to get some input that showed I was doing something right!

Plus points: 2000AD Panel and Al Ewing dressed as Tharg (amazing scenes), seeing the Futurequake guys (including meeting Brett), the coolness that is Twitter during a con.

Minus points: Was it me or did the air conditioning just NOT work in the convention space?, missing the Tony Lee/Dan Boultwood panel (I hear it was full of laughs and debauchery as expected), missing the chance to meet a few people, and finally being confined to my room on Saturday night with horrendous stomach cramps.

Overall I learned a few valuable lessons concerning promotion and pitching, made some new friends (both physical and on Twitter) and saw some great comics.