6/13/2014 - Jonny Crossbones

I was playing a lot of Skyrim when I wrote up my The Skyrim RPG piece (found at fav.me/d5km2yx ) so it shouldn't be surprising that I came up with a possible way to make it into a pen and paper RPG. In fact, looking at it now I can see that all I did was translate the way the game works (stamina or Magicka cost for attacking, free action to do inventory stuff, monsters that get tougher as you do) into how a pen and paper game works. The character sheet would use the star sign skills as a way to track leveling but other than that it's basically a Fudge-style character. I did have to make some concessions to the medium; for example, pen and paper gamers don't have save points in case they die, so I added the ability for heroes to save each other from dying and a punishment in the form of lasting wounds. None of the stats really looked like initiative so I went and made it old-school initiative-less, with rounds that play out how the group envisions. It would be hard to balance characters from leveling at different rates, so I made a strict ruling that only one skill point could be gained per fight or rest period, which then meant that it was useful to differentiate between combat-focused skills and non-combat. Do I like the idea? It looks lazy now, like I was taking the week easy, although I guess it was an interesting puzzle to solve. What did I learn? Video games make me think video-game thoughts; I need to be reading books and watching anime to have good writing thoughts.

This week it's part 3 and the finale of High War's chapter 12! Teal gets angry after Rolf's first date story, the morning divination ritual occurs in its full glory, and our heroes finally learn the name of their ultimate foe! But they'd better watch out because now that foe knows about them too! High War's next chapter will be spent scouring the city for evil, but next week will be something else! Hopefully the Game!

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Jonny Crossbones
by Les McClaine

Home: jonnycrossbones.com/
First: jonnycrossbones.com/2004/07/01…

Nostalgia should not be an ugly word. To be nostalgic is to look back, often to the childhood, and then to try recreating those happy times; the reason that nostalgia is looked down upon is that we see only the good through covering up or forgetting of the bad. Rose-colored glasses hide the flaws and make the bright spots shine in comparison, while human memory is prone to keeping the very best and very worst and losing all the rest. The other reason of course for nostalgia's dirty reputation would be the business models that run off selling products that are only nostalgic in value. But what we should remember is that nostalgia can be a style as well, and here we find the value of bringing up the past. Society has changed even since then, people did some things better and some things worse, and a nostalgic style can bring that past to life and allow us to gain from history's lessons. This webcomic for example uses nostalgia to be an homage to those old “boy adventurer” stories that used to be so popular in comics. Our hero of humble beginnings lives in a small apartment, works at an auto shop and has a natural interest for mysteries and detective work. He's also got a face like a cartoon skull and an almost magical power to run across clues, either of which may explain why he's been having weird dreams about pirate treasure. After nearly getting run over he meets his real-life hero, and through that ex-boy adventurer we meet our second protagonist the niece. She's grown up around adventurous sorts and has all the necessary adventuring skills like getting out of tight spots and speaking various languages, not to mention the always-helpful wealthy uncle. Soon she and our skull-faced hero are quite the adventuring pair, along with being a budding couple perhaps; they've stumbled upon the clues to one of her uncle's unsolved mysteries, and a couple of bad professors won't be enough to keep our duo from traveling around the world in search of the ancient relics they need. The art is full color from day one and the style will be immediately recognizable to anyone who grew up on newspaper adventure comics, and more so when familiar faces show up as extras in the crowd scenes.

Why you should read this: For the nostalgia of course, for example a world where people actually said gosh, cripes and cheese it. But also for how that nostalgia gets mixed with modern sensibilities, such as the female protagonist who is a girl adventurer in her own right and more than just a love interest.

Why you shouldn't read this: No one ever asks why our hero has a skull face but at least one place refers to him as wearing a skeleton suit, so why does no one care? The comic has been on hiatus while the artist pursues paying work and meanwhile they decided to spruce up the plot, so if you don't like waiting for that to be done.

Other cool stuff: Some interesting tutorials, especially one that serves as an impromptu history lesson on how comics used to be colored. The news on the front page has some art from classic adventures by the ex-boy adventurer, among other things, and there's a side story (also found in the archives between chapters 1 and 2) where the newspaper comic style is even more pronounced. The artist's sketch blog has some interesting tidbits but hasn't been updated for a while either, while the portfolio website has some fun stuff as well.