House of Worms

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Welcome to the House of Worms! This lens is all about the new World of Warcraft comic, written by yours truly - Drew Shiel.

World of Warcraft is both a fantastic game and a wonderful setting for a comic - the sheer scale of the world is unrivalled in online games, and it's perfectly suited for comics, by virtue of its slightly skewed style of clean-line art. 

The name "House of Worms" derives from the name of the Prophet, Wormson, who you see in the first page. Malamor named the group after him in order to make the association clear. Malamor actually works for Wormson as an agent and vendor, and Wormson continuously protests that he's not a Prophet. It's not yet clear to anyone if Malamor really believes it himself - but Chalcedony certainly does. "House of Worms" is also a translation of a very old Arabic term for death - very appropriate for the Forsaken! 

I'm not promising that I'll continue House of Worms indefinitely. Most webcomics are indefinite, like old-style gaming campaigns, and I'd like to experiment with a definite storyline (most of it is already in mind). The screencap-posterise technique is easy enough that I might want to reuse it for other stories, though. I have a few more things I'd like to do, too - I'm not well up on current web comic where-it's-at-ness, so these may be done already.

Aims for House of Worms 

A list of things I want to do - and don't want to do - with House of Worms.
  1. No sad girls in snow. Megatokyo, back when I read it, was a reasonably good comic, except that the consistently apologetic artist/writer, Piro, would occasionally have a dead brain day, and be able to produce nothing but a pretty manga chick in a late Victorian frock, looking up at the point of view with a sad expression. No background, hence snow. This is probably my impression, rather than what actually happened, but I am resolved: if I can't post a comic, I won't be posting a filler.
  2. No regular schedule. In these days of feeds, the comics will come to the people, the people don't have to go look for the comics.
  3. No breaking the fourth wall. I had to have this idiom explained to me a few years ago, and I do consider it something to avoid if at all possible. The characters in HoW will not address you, advertise real-world stuff, or comment on the writer. Nor will they comment on the oddities of their reality (except when plausible, as with the Forsaken commenting on how odd it is being dead).
  4. No thought bubbles. They have their place, but I don't like them - I dislike showing a character's thoughts even in prose, unless it's first person. Probably my background in gamesmastering coming through.
  5. No commentary. No "Later..." or "In Orgrimmar..." in a little box at the top left. Those things drive me spare; if you can't show it in the art or the speech, don't tell me, it's clearly not important.

Page 1 

Page one of House of Worms: http://dukestreet.org/archives/003991.html

Page 2 

Page two of House of Worms: http://dukestreet.org/archives/003993.html

Page 3 

Page three of House of Worms: http://dukestreet.org/archives/003994.html

Page 4 

Page four of House of Worms: http://dukestreet.org/archives/004011.html

How House of Worms is Made 

The techniques I use to make House of Worms are very simple. You spend half an hour per character getting them lined up where you want them, take screenshots, repeat with each character, then go into Photoshop, cut'n'paste 'em until they're in the one shot, mutter cos the lighting is off, go back to WoW, get more screenshots, try again, realise you're going to have to futz around with more cut and paste, and why is Malamor's hair so awkward to copy... posterise with the nice handy filter (Filters -> Artistic -> Poster Edges), adjust colours and do some more adjustment with edges, then cut and paste the right section of each shot onto the main background, add the text balloons, add the text, add the little directional widget that tells you who said what, and presto! Comic!

I'm learning that the best shots come from those posterised from very nearly full screen, and then shrunk down (Image -> Size) to the necessary size for the panel. They have finer lines and better detail.

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by gothwalk

Hi. My name is Drew, and I'm working on a new World of Warcraft comic - House of Worms. (more)

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