"Meet Ichii, a cucumber loving student at Falls High.
She's also the queen of the school's delinquents. Go figure."
Just imagine your character fighting hand to hand the craziest bitches for the title of "Queen"
Ichii's love for cucumbers could be related to a childhood memory, I had imagined it could be the character's grandfather who had a big a** garden all of with with cucumbers only BUT ONE DAY YOUR CHARACTER FINDS HIM DEAD.
Because he was.. old. Died of.. oldness.
Your character's child self cries and then moves on but now she has her grandfather's dreams for a big cucumber related project.
After her grandpa died of oldness she was allowed to run wild 'cause her parents are busy working.
She was always sort of a (I think it's called a Tom Boy?) just wild-ish, hard to control and her granddad sort of calmed her down a few notches.
Dedicating herself to cucumbers for a few hours a day helps her calm down. It's her version of gardening which actually does count has gardening but cucumbers only.
It's her recurrent joke!
She grows these huge elaborate cucumber plants, like bonsai, but faster and bigger.
The parents are busy working.
What about the illegal dorm-rooftop garden where Ichii grows her cuc's? That sounds like a decent hang out spot.
If ichii is obsessed with her plants then I'm not sure if she would allow anyone near them but herself.
And the basic argument against people calling her a boy:
"D< I'm wearing a SKIRT for chrissake!"
"Oh . . . I thought that was a kilt."
"IT'S TURQUOISE!"
Itchii could be a single child
Martin:
side kick that just won't understand your character is NOT a dude.
he's scrawny and goofy looking. Maybe in one of the first episodes, when she's new to the school, he challenges her and gets the s**t knocked out of him. So he sort of worships her. That's the mark of a good flunky, right?
Introduced as a sort of cheerleader until we decide to dig into his backstory. I mean, we could even head straight into that after the intro comic, but it just doesn't feel right to begin at such a pivital moment in Ichii's history. Not to mention, I imagine Martin as an old standby by the time she gets to be absolute Queen of the J.D. (he rooted for her when she was an underdog sort of thing) because as Queen, I imagine there are all kinds of students that would LOVE to take Martin's place. (Oooh, potential plotline . . . !)
Martin's backstory or should we wait to do that until we have a fanbase who might actually care?
We wait for the fanbase.
Martin won't mind.
Martin could have an older brother who's sort of a ganster/tug who's distant and harsh.
I was thinking we could kill the brother in the future then make an whole chapter about martin being angsty. "He was my brother damn it! cry cry"
And wow, that's a heavy plot idea about Martin killing his brother. I like it though. I think all the ideas we've come up with so far have been really light and funny, but I wouldn't mind doing something darker, especially for such a comedic character; it would reveal his dark side and his internal struggle with feelings of anger and inadequacy. I think it would be even more poignant if he had to kill his brother to save Ichii.
Well maybe killing his own brother might be a bit too heavy. I was thinking mmore in the line of:
Martin: "You have to stop! If you keep selling that stuff you are gonna get yourself killed!"
Martin's Brother: "Shut up squirt! I do what I want and no one is going to stop me! It's good money and I'm not losing it just because you're a crying baby!"
Brother gets shot dead. He sold guns to stupid kids and one of his clients decides he would get a better deal killing Brother and taking his merchandise. OH, THE IRONY.
Martin: "NOOOOOOOO!"
I doubt he has a dad (dead, gone, or absent) if his brother's that much of a stupid thug, and his mom probably was a nervous wreck who had no choice but to send her sons to this school or they'd have run wild. What did Martin do to get sent to Rooster's? His brother's obvious, but Martin?
Tiffany:
this sort of fan girl that sees Itchii has a strong female role model.
this slightly chubby little girl with big glasses (who doesn't wear them 'cause they make her look stupid and thus has little squinty eyes),
Maybe she could have some creepy friend that also looks up to Itchii.
If we ever had a fan club, they'll be in charge of it.
Martin and Tiffany handle the impatient fans in thread (Q&A).
Fangirl: "Oh EM GEE! It's time for the latest Cucumber Punch! I can wait to see what Ichii is up to this week!!!!!!!11111)!"
Martin: "We went to the movies."
Fangirl: "DID YOU BATTLE A GORILLA-LIKE USHER WHO REFUSED TO SEAT YOU!?!?"
Martin: "Um . . . we got some popcorn . . ."
Of course she'll be more girly in my drawings because girly is all in the details. She'll also be pudgy. :3
I imagined something like a girlie girl dressed girlie but with "soldier boots" and a leather jacket with girlie motif.
Because she wants to be more badass but fails.
I don't imagine her being fat, just squishy around the middle. Not curvaceous in a sexy way, but in a dumpy sort of doesn't-carry-weight-well way. Maybe in one storyline she works out so much she actually becomes a threat! And at the end of it, Martin has to feed her muffins to get her back to her usual squishy, nonthreatening self.
Headmaster Tutor:
Keeps the crazy kids undercontrol, because of a shady deal he made many hundreds of years ago he was ever since bound to do that work.
keeps on NOT believing/understanding your character is a girl until... chapter seven.
a wise old man.. that takes down the dumb punks in a instant.
he just doesn't give a crap what the kids do as long as they don't interrupt his activities . . . which could include listening to the Carpenters and watching reality television.
character does what he musts but aside from doing principal stuff and working has replacement professor (which happens allot because some of the teachers keep being pounded or scared away), he just acts lazy, reads books, plays video games or hit on the karate/whatever fight activities teacher, Sensei Masako.
Headmaster Tutor (is that his name?) keeps his supernatural eye on them all pretty well, except this one spot that is recognized as the "throne room" of the ruler of the J.D. that's got a sort of unspoken agreement about his intrusion (aka as long as they behave relatively calmly there, Headmaster won't poke his nose around too much).
Being busy keeping the other delinquents under watch he wouldn't be worrying about two kids using rooms that were forgotten.
I mean keeping a school from falling apart is allot of hard work.. most of which he spends sitting in his office, reading.
Sensei Masako:
the hot martial arts teacher, kept around to teach discipline to these rowdy, street-brawling kids.
Not bad. I think we can give her that apparent serenity as well as the badass attitude. I think that would actually improve her character because then she doesn't take s**t from nobody in a very polite manner.
Willian Frost a.k.a. Snow White:
Tall, white hair, clear blue eyes, deep blue lips and whacky white and blue outfits with ice/snow motif (optional).
Eccentric gay man, main obsessions are small people and snow. He loves both.
I was thinking he could be the science teacher and have seven small mutant, robots or actual midgets has his assistants.
The robots would look like little boys and girls. His weapon could a be a freezing gun.
Maybe Ichii pisses him off and they have a duel. Midgets vs. Cucumber Club = BASEBALL! :3
I was thinking they have a discussion sometime in the future has he insists in calling her "an adorable little man".
She pwns him and gets detention for a few weeks.
It could be a single comic maybe a longer storyline when Ichii's having some trouble with an enemy or something and Prof. Frost gives her a pep talk ending it with that line so she has to beat him up despite his decent advice.
Tough Guys:
With Crushes on Ichii
General:
IS like the bad a** anime school hooligan but with comic bits!
"Vegetable PUnch!"
That actually sounds like a interesting manga.
We can make one page stories with three, four panels each.
So we have a baseball special with Ichii dressed has a chicken...
Has action and humour and gives people a clear sight of what they can expect from this project.
The projector room in the auditorium. Everyone thinks it's boarded up, but the rulers of the J.D. pass the secret of the entrance down to each other (a key, a secret panel, a magic word, etc.?) to use.
Yeah. I'm thinking of a sort of "we interrupt this program" comic about Ichii getting a really bad haircut (think buzzcut) that makes her look a lot like a dude.
I can imagine that the poor b*****d responsible will get a cucumber shoved down his throat.
"It's pay time!"
Yes, I bet that gag will stick like a nicotine addiction!
(also before I forget if we ever do a flashback sort of thing of young ichii, I think she should have long hair (imagine the tiny cute long haired Itchii!))
How many comics to a chapter do you think?
I think it would be a good idea to keep it short.
I want the story neatly divided so we can keep track of stuff.
I think we shouldn't establish a base for how many pages for chapter thought. We do has many we need in order for each chapter to fill complete being that each chapter should tell a story which people can read and understand without having read the previous ones. My love has always been the short stories Like in Hell Boy. the best stuff comes from the short stuff.
The chapters should help to that and give some chronology...
So if you agree: we won't establish a minim or maximum page number, which would I think gives us more freedom to work on stuff.
The whole concept is that the comic is light mood and silly but there's depth to the characters: they are not unidimensional clowns. They have feelings and specially the kids which don't know how to deal with this and do their best to deal with them.
Fors instance one of teh ideas I had for a future chapter is a sort of Romeo and Juliet with two secondary characters to be developed.
The school has it's "gangs" and some of them don't go along so well. The story writes itself really.
This two would pretty much keep stepping on each others nerves and "Romeo" would keep geting in fights and what not with the people from Juliet's boyfriend's gang .
Martin and Itchii would end up being dragged in because Martin and Romeo are/were friends.
, I almost liked it better when Martin was the murderer. I think that hardship would be more telling on his character. Or maybe even if Martin was prepared to kill his brother, gun pointed at him trying to talk him out of something rash, but someone else (those stupid punks you mentioned) beat him to the punch. That still leaves Martin feeling guilty for the death, without having to pull the trigger.
And if it's Ichii Martin's brother is threatening, then we get to explore her response to being a helpless captive which I imagine is very interesting and hard on her, given how hard she works to free herself from everyone around her by refusing to meet expectations and conform. That would be a really dramatic close to the chapter: leave it open with Martin grieving and Ichii's whole persona in ruins.
Then at the beginning of the next chapter ("Reconstruction" ) we fade into months afterward . . . Ichii would be in the Throne Room, Martin with her, both silent. Ichii's been avoiding fights since then, keeping a low profile. The Headmaster flipped his s**t when he heard about the incident, but was carefully to react kindly with Ichii and Martin. (I think he probably has a bit of a soft spot for them--- well, as soft a spot as he gets anyway.) . . . I'm not sure how this is resolved. Ichii has to keep fighting, we'd need to determine a good motive for her to return to her previous attitude and Martin . . . I'm not sure how we'd heal him. Maybe they work it out between themselves:
Martin: *breaking the silence* "Ichii, do you still want to be the Queen?"
Ichii: "I still am, aren't I?"
Martin: ". . . Yeah, but you won't be if you don't go back to managing your reputation."
Ichii: *silent*
Martin: "I would understand if you didn't want to do this anymore. I don't know if I want to do this anymore. It was fun for a while, a nice ride, but I didn't . . . we didn't think about it properly, did we?"
Ichii: *no response*
Martin: "I mean, we're the top dogs in a school full of violent thugs just looking to get ahead by crushing others beneath them. What kind of life is that? What kind of price to pay for respect?"
Ichii: ". . . If we weren't on top, who would be?"
Martin: "I don't know . . . maybe [Insert bad guy name here] and his gang?"
Ichii: "And how would he run this place? How would he abuse this power?"
Martin: *his turn to be silent*
Ichii: *looks hard a Maritn* "So we stay at the top. We do the job we have to so that s**t like what happened to your brother doesn't happen again. I will not allow it. Not in my school."
The Headmaster somehow finds out about this, maybe he's increase security since the accident and now has cameras where he didn't before, or maybe he's just good at guessing how Ichii and Marin react to the crisis, and decides to leave it with them.
Chapter one:
So we bein with a basic intro: Ichii in the middle of a fight.
First Panel: (seen from behind Ichii) Ichii and a random baddie (perhaps a Bad Girl from NMH homage?) squaring off cowboy style at high noon in an empty hallway. We see students peering from classrooms and lockers and a few staring from far down the hall.
Second Panel: Ichii's fingers twitch on her Cucumber Club/ Bad Girl smirks. (This would be a split panel.)
Third Panel: Ichii suddenly hits Bad Girl out of the park! biggrin Martin cheers in the background.
Fourth Panel: Ichii stands calm and collected, with her Cucumber by her side and a block of text says something like: "This is my life as Queen of the J.D. at Rooster Academy for Troubled Youth."
after the intro we could slow down a little.
We get a few panels of the school from the outside, give a notion of how the campus looks overall.
Not sure if we should go for a prison sort of look or degraded school.
If my character's attitude has principal is a "I don't care" one then I guess we see at least the main building still in one piece but with a few graphites and broken windows.
If the characters will mostly criminal like I can imagine the mood to be a bit... dark. Gloomy.
The thing is: if the teachers are (at least some of them) hard asses themselves and since even this kinds of schools have student councils, it could happen that the school looks like a normal one from the outside but the students do the occasional damage (which could be quickly fixed or not).
Anyway, in the chapter after the intro, after a few of this shots we could see Itchii, Martin, Bad Girl and possibly some shadowy background students in detention, after class.
Itchii looking outside, through the window.
. If we want to introduce the school, I suggest doing that by having the Headmaster have a conversation with someone (preferably on the phone) about the school and/or Ichii, at the time a relatively new student. So the conversation will float in text boxes above stills of the empty school in twilight.
And the building I'm envisioning is old, but well-kept by the staff. The place needs to look nice, so parents will want to send their kids there, and the security is there, just hard to spot: bullet proof windows, reinforced doors and locks, high-tech surveillance, but the building itself is so old there are hidden places like the Throne Room that aren't watched.
I guess the principal could be talking to Itchii's big brother (if we make one for her) or a future teacher!
"Good morning Mister Idej. Yes, we would be interested if you could fill a position has the head of our math department.
Yes, THAT school. No, you don't need to worry about the students they mostly behave during class and they now they will be dealt with if they misbehave.
... Yes, true, your predecessor ended in a coma but it was only for three days. Hello? Mister Idej?"
The teachers will have to be bad asses....
THAT'S PERFECT!
And I won't have to draw anyone but the Headmaster! (I can also reuse the background from the first comic.)
So I think I'll do the first few in color, just 'cause, but once I master this stupid Illustrator, I might move on to black and white.
Return to Ichii and Martin doing something mundane like eating in the cafeteria (to contrast with their previous activities) and trading witty banter. Martin does most of the talking, Ichii inserts short quips. I kinda see her as a woman of few words. Then at the end of the comic someone challenges her out of no where: one of those tough guy enemy/admirer fellas probably.
