Summary for those wanting the main idea, Hacking Human is a future-punk comic about a female hacker/catburgular who sees herself and her world as a videogame. From her perspective she is a silent protagonist (and thus never speaks, only grunts) and also there's a British ghost who swallows people whole as her partner. Explanation follows.
Hacking Human was originally a comic about a female catburgular/hacker, revolved entirely around them stealing shit. The comic was my first (of many) collaborations with artist Gregory Floch and was pitched with the idea of it being unique and wild. Frankly it wasn't crazy enough. All complaints centered around the ghost being fairly interesting, but the protagonist, the catburgular Selena, being a fairly ordinary "tough girl" protagonist. So around the fifth time Floch Skyped me "suggesting" that we work on Hacking Human again, I knew I had to totally reinvent Selena and make the rewrite focus on this change.
A fairly standard tip when writing characters is, if you want them to be relatable, it helps to put aspects of yourself into a character. I went overboard. Hacking Human is about a gamer...and although she's still a catburgular/hacker she has a different motivation, to steal gaming artifacts (this being the future). As stated she sees the world as a videogame, and we largely see the comic through her perspective. Thus if there's a boxing hitman (yes this happens in chapter 2) she'll see a "Fight or Flee" box similar to Final Fantasy Legends 2 for the gameboy (I'm pretty obscure). She gets "mission objectives" that tells the reader her thoughts, health bars appear above enemies at times, and the art will morph into a 2d frame at random moments. All while battling with insomnia and a persistant difficulty with connecting with people. If you read this far, well, I warned you with the disclaimer didn't I? The point though is even with her warped view of reality and her own difficulties, she still is able to live an exciting and fulfilling life. In a world when we look down on people with social difficulties and mental disorders like schizophrenia, I think a relatable (but still flawed) character who has similar symptoms is very important. Not the main idea of the comic, but it's there.
The completed chapter is here (letters to come later) https://www.dropbox.com/sh/an1cq5mbtbk3 ... uSGca?dl=0
With it's accompanying script (not too many words added though) https://www.dropbox.com/s/rlz8ivnkrofc1 ... .docx?dl=0
The only missing piece right now...a colorist. Although capable of such, the artist of Hacking Human, Gregory Floch, has a hilarious relationship with coloring...the kind that involves a lot of screaming and disorder. Okay, maybe not so funny. Long story short, we're looking for a colorist for Hacking Human, which is a 70 page or so graphic novel. We're simultaneously preparing it for self-publishing, as well as preparing to submit to publishers. Floch already has a relationship with WP comics, and I have a sort of familiarity with Creator's Edge, but we're totally prepared to promote and sell the comic with our own resources. Problem is, all that money and effort is going towards printing the book. We're not adverse to going to Kickstarter, but the current game-plan is to print the book ourselves and sell it ourselves. We don't trust Kickstarter to give it's approval, thus the focus. So yes, it's back-end.
As for requirements...be good
. That's really all there is too it, if you have colors you feel would look amazing with this art, we want to consider you. And considering all the leeway I give Floch to do what he wants (as well as vice-versa) we're looking with someone who is equally wild, crazy, and individualistic, and who'll continually surprise us even as he breaks our rules. As for style, Floch wants something as unique as his own work, and I want something that can at least be identified as comic colors (if you saw some of Floch's colors you'd know what I mean, his samples look like something out of Da-Vinci's sketchbook. I love it, but worry about selling such a thing). So it's pretty much a free for all. If you like the project let us know, just don't talk pay rates with us. As Floch would say, we both are investing a lot of time and effort into this project, so the idea of working with someone without that degree of investment feels weird to us. As for me, I simply can't afford a colorist at the moment due to an ongoing light novel illustration package I'm paying for. In the future I may be willing to pay (if I can convince Floch to let me) but now it's just impossible.Contact me at robert-finch@comcast.net If you're simply an observer and have a polite critique, we'd love to hear it. If you have an impolite critique with hints of "you're a terrible person who wants to use us as slave labor" well, you know why that is not helpful to us, as well as not helpful to you. So be nice to us! It's what you'd everyone else would do for you.
Best,
Robert Finch (contact robert-finch@comcast.net)