Death Note Doujinshi
I was going to title this post "Remember that Death Note Doujinshi?" before I realized that I haven't posted about it since December. And my flist is kinda bigger now than it was then. So the answer is probably no. Explain? I'd be glad to!
telophase drew this based on a fanfic of mine called "Methods of Interrogation," which was in turn based on conversations between her, keraha and I about a possible Death Note doujinshi. Actually I could trace the causality back even further than that, because telophase got the initial idea for the doujinshi from a comment keraha made about a Death Note/Administration crossover, and she and I heard about The Administration from auster, who friended us because...but anyway. We've been working on it on and off (mostly off) since last September. I did most of the writing, telophase did all of the art, and keraha made suggestions and was just generally inspiring.
Aside to pornkings: Do you remember linking to "Methods of Interrogation" with the words "it's almost meta"? Something like that. I have to tell you that I had no idea what you meant. But looking back...Abu Gharib was all over the news while we were planning this, wasn't it -_- I suppose I didn't notice because telophase was the one who wanted to do a torture story. To write this, I drew on knowledge from French class (the Algerian war for independence), not Iraq.
The insomnia angle came from keraha's suggestion that the manga shift from setting to setting in a bizzare dream-like manner. I'm pretty sure she meant the scenery changes to be metaphoric only--something that would reflect the mental spaces of Light and L as they engaged in the massively clever mind games that we would invent at some later point. But telophase and I are too concrete for that, so we struck on sleep deprivation as a legitimate cause of hallucinations. And keraha, I'm sure, shook her head and wondered how we'd managed to miss the point entirely.
Below is the almost-completed doujinshi. 18 pages, large images. Spoilers through chapters 33-36, right before the handcuffs show up. This is going on sale at A-kon, so I'll have to ask that you please not link the images anywhere else. Thank you!
Okay, and I exhausted myself on the introduction so I'm just going to copy from of the (many many many) comments I left telophase, and her response.
Me:
"Augh, it's so wordy! *angsts* especially Chief Yagami's lines at the end. Too long! Giving the ridiculously long lines to L is one thing--he gets them all the time in the manga anyway (usually not out loud though). Yagami should have something shorter. And more in character--I didn't write those lines with him in mind, and it's weird to read him saying them."
And then I go on for a few more paragraphs about which scenes I liked and why I think the ending needs to be at least a page longer. (Short answer: Light's final scene takes place a few days after and as a consequesnce of L's. It should also take him longer to come to a descision of that magnitude.) In any case here was telophase's reply:
"Don't have time to add anything because of TEH SEKRIT PROJECT which is sucking up all of this week, so it's pretty much in the form it's in, lumps and all, for the printed doujinshi. However, I'd always said I was going to release it online at some point, probably in PDF format, and I'm not opposed to a bit of redrawing and adding stuff for that version. It makes me happy that it's different than the book, for sure. Anyway, we can add stuff but we have to make sure that the revelations are correctly paced - that last page has to remain on the left-hand side because we don't want people turning the page, seeing that on the right, and then startign to read the left-hand page - it blows the climax. So if stuff is added, it needs to be two pages.
If you have rewording for dialogue and can get it to me in the next 24-36 hours, I can drop it in otherwise it's heading to the printers in about 48 hours. If you can think of additional dialogue to be added to the two pages where Light's in the Gobi Desert, that would feel better to me; I ended up stretching what is really one to one and a half pages' worth of dialogue into two, to force the two-page spread of 12/13. And the big one of L with the crappy background where he's thinking "Am I going too far?" just SUX because of that background. If there's *any* way to place more dialogue there while at the same time staying smartly punchy like it is, let me know. It's probably impossible. I just hate that background."
So there you have it. SUGGESTIONS concerning either the dialogue or art are MORE THAN APPRECIATED. Especially for the parts telophase and I mentioned, but anything else would also be good. Art changes can't be implemented immediately, but could go into effect later. As for dialogue, telophase wants more and I want less, and we could really use a third opinion. (PLEASE someone help me edit down Chief Yagami's lines. They SUCK.)
Official Credits are
Concept: keraha, sub_divided, telophase
Story: sub_divided
Art: telophase, who rocks like woah.
telophase drew this based on a fanfic of mine called "Methods of Interrogation," which was in turn based on conversations between her, keraha and I about a possible Death Note doujinshi. Actually I could trace the causality back even further than that, because telophase got the initial idea for the doujinshi from a comment keraha made about a Death Note/Administration crossover, and she and I heard about The Administration from auster, who friended us because...but anyway. We've been working on it on and off (mostly off) since last September. I did most of the writing, telophase did all of the art, and keraha made suggestions and was just generally inspiring.
Aside to pornkings: Do you remember linking to "Methods of Interrogation" with the words "it's almost meta"? Something like that. I have to tell you that I had no idea what you meant. But looking back...Abu Gharib was all over the news while we were planning this, wasn't it -_- I suppose I didn't notice because telophase was the one who wanted to do a torture story. To write this, I drew on knowledge from French class (the Algerian war for independence), not Iraq.
The insomnia angle came from keraha's suggestion that the manga shift from setting to setting in a bizzare dream-like manner. I'm pretty sure she meant the scenery changes to be metaphoric only--something that would reflect the mental spaces of Light and L as they engaged in the massively clever mind games that we would invent at some later point. But telophase and I are too concrete for that, so we struck on sleep deprivation as a legitimate cause of hallucinations. And keraha, I'm sure, shook her head and wondered how we'd managed to miss the point entirely.
Below is the almost-completed doujinshi. 18 pages, large images. Spoilers through chapters 33-36, right before the handcuffs show up. This is going on sale at A-kon, so I'll have to ask that you please not link the images anywhere else. Thank you!
Okay, and I exhausted myself on the introduction so I'm just going to copy from of the (many many many) comments I left telophase, and her response.
Me:
"Augh, it's so wordy! *angsts* especially Chief Yagami's lines at the end. Too long! Giving the ridiculously long lines to L is one thing--he gets them all the time in the manga anyway (usually not out loud though). Yagami should have something shorter. And more in character--I didn't write those lines with him in mind, and it's weird to read him saying them."
And then I go on for a few more paragraphs about which scenes I liked and why I think the ending needs to be at least a page longer. (Short answer: Light's final scene takes place a few days after and as a consequesnce of L's. It should also take him longer to come to a descision of that magnitude.) In any case here was telophase's reply:
"Don't have time to add anything because of TEH SEKRIT PROJECT which is sucking up all of this week, so it's pretty much in the form it's in, lumps and all, for the printed doujinshi. However, I'd always said I was going to release it online at some point, probably in PDF format, and I'm not opposed to a bit of redrawing and adding stuff for that version. It makes me happy that it's different than the book, for sure. Anyway, we can add stuff but we have to make sure that the revelations are correctly paced - that last page has to remain on the left-hand side because we don't want people turning the page, seeing that on the right, and then startign to read the left-hand page - it blows the climax. So if stuff is added, it needs to be two pages.
If you have rewording for dialogue and can get it to me in the next 24-36 hours, I can drop it in otherwise it's heading to the printers in about 48 hours. If you can think of additional dialogue to be added to the two pages where Light's in the Gobi Desert, that would feel better to me; I ended up stretching what is really one to one and a half pages' worth of dialogue into two, to force the two-page spread of 12/13. And the big one of L with the crappy background where he's thinking "Am I going too far?" just SUX because of that background. If there's *any* way to place more dialogue there while at the same time staying smartly punchy like it is, let me know. It's probably impossible. I just hate that background."
So there you have it. SUGGESTIONS concerning either the dialogue or art are MORE THAN APPRECIATED. Especially for the parts telophase and I mentioned, but anything else would also be good. Art changes can't be implemented immediately, but could go into effect later. As for dialogue, telophase wants more and I want less, and we could really use a third opinion. (PLEASE someone help me edit down Chief Yagami's lines. They SUCK.)
Official Credits are
Concept: keraha, sub_divided, telophase
Story: sub_divided
Art: telophase, who rocks like woah.