Flat Life - Sex, Drugs & Video Games (NEW WEB COMIC)

Parabolee · Post by **Parabolee** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 7:01 am

Please check out my web comic.

Feedback welcome.

Enjoy

http://www.flat-life.com

Kris X · Post by **Kris X** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 7:08 am

Tell us about it.

Parabolee · Post by **Parabolee** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 7:22 am

Ok you asked for it

Flat Life started life as a movie script but after we realised we would never have the money to finance it's production and selling it was a long shot, it then became an animated TV Show. But after 2 years of work on the Pilot episode and several talks with industry insiders we had to take a step back and realise that without the money to finish the pilot episode we were going to have a very hard time selling the show.

So back to the drawing board and now the characters we put so much of our time and heart in to have been reborn as a web comic.

The name "Flat Life" refers to a number of things. The first being the 2D style of artwork featured in Flat Life, the second that the characters rarely leave the flat and the third being a social comment of the characters feeling that life is kind of "flat" or dull (Cleverly reflected by the movie/TV type adventures that reference popular culture that "real" people only experience on TV).

The idea of the Flat Life comic strip is to appeal to an early 20's audience by presenting them with a cast that they can identify with. A group of characters that although in certain ways are exaggeration's of certain personality types, are more realistic than the usual TV type personalities we are offered. A show about disenchanted youth, where none of the cast have a concrete idea of who they are or what they want to be in this big bad world. The cast are post college but pre-career and are doing there best to enjoy life right now and maybe figure out the big stuff later. The strip will be unafraid of being controversial and to tackle political and philisophical content.

The dynamic of the characters works like this - Art is the star of the show, he is a very strange person and in many ways he is a jerk, but a lovable one. He is opinionated about everything, an elitist geek in many ways when it comes to movies, comics, video games etc. etc. Seth is Art's best friend and the voice of reason in the group, a very smart person who holds the characters together in many ways. He is more reserved than the others and the only one who holds down a steady job (albeit freelance web design). Kurt is the most lovable character, he can seem very simple at times and is often naive. Kurt is an exceptionally nice person and would do anything for anyone and often gets himself into trouble because of Art. Natasha is our leading lady, she has a very dry wit and sardonic nature. She is (secretly) adored by all three guys but is only really interested in Seth (if only he would stop being so reserved and do something about it). She is also the land lady as her dad owns the apartments and has her oversee them. She would much rather be pursuing a career as an artist or musician, but her father disapproves of those lifestyles.

We have been running for almost 2 months now with the web comic, and so far we have been quite successful (hits wise). I also got some really positive feedback from other comic book artists and writers at MegaCon in Orlando this last weekend. Including web comic creators Tim Buckley of the Ctrl-Alt-Del and Brian Clevinger of Nuklear Power (Home of 8-Bit Theatre).

Jaybob81 · Post by **Jaybob81** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 8:36 am

I like it! I know someone has suggested to you on another board about changing fonts, but I advise going to http://www.blambot.com instead of the one they suggested, as it usually has a wide array of free fonts, and if you so desire, pay fonts.

Parabolee · Post by **Parabolee** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 8:43 am

Yes I already have all the free fonts from them.

I am thinking about changing the fonts on the comic so I will play around with what I have to see if I find something I like.

Thank you.

The Neko · Post by **The Neko** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 9:23 am

There's not really all that much to go on yet. So I don't have a good grip of the characters yet. I liked the "Memento" reference, however. I never would have thought to add it together with Phantasy Star Online.

Parabolee · Post by **Parabolee** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 9:34 am

Yeah that was a strange combination wasn't it.

Well don't worry we will do our best to combine the weirdest sources into new gags. Any combination of things we love that seem like they were never destined to be put together is our mission.

Dotty · Post by **Dotty** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 9:50 am

I'll keep reading this, as I find it hilarious and well drawn. I'll give a more put together review once I actually understand the characters a little better.

LibertyCabbage · Post by **LibertyCabbage** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 11:24 am

I think it's pretty good so far, the jokes are well done and the art looks really nice. The biggest problem I see is it seems too much like Penny Arcade. So, I'd like to see something more original. However I still think it's pretty cool and I see how it progresses once you draw more strips.

Dotty · Post by **Dotty** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 1:03 pm

LibertyCabbage wrote:The biggest problem I see is it seems too much like Penny Arcade.

I'm not even the guy asking for a review, but I would like to know what you mean with this?

Thirdworldvillian · Post by **Thirdworldvillian** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 6:15 pm

have you read penny arcade? This is prety close even with the character drawings....not that thats a bad thing because penny arcade is well drawn and pretty funny you just have to be careful how close you get....

LibertyCabbage · Post by **LibertyCabbage** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 7:45 pm

I'm not even the guy asking for a review, but I would like to know what you mean with this?

see for yourself, Penny-Arcade

Normally it's not a big deal that it's similar to another comic, but since Penny Arcade is one of the biggest if not THE biggest webcomic, you have to distance yourself from it because too many people are going to think "This is a ripoff of Penny Arcade" even if it's not. It's not a BAD thing that it's similar to PA, because I like PA, but it needs to be more unique.

Sketch286 · Post by **Sketch286** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 7:52 pm

actually, I don't think it's too much like PA. I mean, I can see where you're coming from, but I think that's just more of the Flash look. I don't think it's quite similar enough to call the look a rip off of it.

Dotty · Post by **Dotty** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 7:56 pm

I don't find the styles that similar at all. I've read penny arcade since 2001.

I thought maybe you were talking about the humor...but then I didn't quite understand that either. I find the two comics being compared here quite different.

Maybe the coloring?

LibertyCabbage · Post by **LibertyCabbage** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 7:59 pm

The art is pretty similar although I can ignore that. It's just Flat Life is a comic about twenty-something roommates who talk about games and have game-related jokes, which is exactly what Penny-Arcade is. That's at least what I've seen from the small amount of comics that have been posted.

Yeahduff · Post by **Yeahduff** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 12:29 am

This and Penny Arcade (and White Hydra, as Van would tell you if you asked (but I wouldn't recommend it)) have a very professional, stylized look with sharp thick lines. You can see this in lots of different cartoons, like Clerks or Batman Beyond or the PowerPuff Girls or Samurai Jack. It's just a popular style these days. If this was, in fact, originally going to be a cartoon series, it's more likely that those are influences. I wonder if this guy's even heard of Penny Arcade.

Parabolee · Post by **Parabolee** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 7:15 am

the style of the strip is based on the animated pilot episode we were working on. In fact if it hadn't been for the tv show design work, I am sure we would have gone in a different direction all together with the artwork. If you would like to see how the style progressed please visit the TV SHow section of the website.

Thanks to everyone who said cool things about the strip, it means a lot to us.

Now to the question of Penny Arcade, this has come up before. We wrote the movie screenplay 3 years before I had heard of Penny Arcade and we had been in production with the animated TV Show for 6 months when I discovered Penny Arcade for the first time. That was about 10 months ago now, and I think it is a great comic strip. Although Dan is not a fan.

I have always felt a small amount of affinity to the PA strip as I agree it is alike Flat Life in several ways. But We feel Flat Life is unique in many ways from Penny Arcade. Flat life is a comic strip about the kind of people we know and the kind of people we are. We play video games, and we talk about video games. This was always a big part of our characters, but so is jokes about comic books and movies. I see the main differences between us and PA are that PA is all about Video Games. Flat Life is about the kind of people we are. We felt that despite most of the people we knew did and liked the same things as us, there were no mivies or Tv shows that had characters like us. So we created them. I think our characters and comic strip will grow into something quite distinct from PA. I think it already is.

LibertyCabbage · Post by **LibertyCabbage** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 8:13 am

I suppose since there's only about 8 or so strips, it's easy to make generalizations.

I still think it's a lot like PA, but I believe you if you say it's going to grow away from it.

Parabolee · Post by **Parabolee** » Wed Mar 09, 2005 6:16 am

new strip online now if you want to check it out.

Parabolee · Post by **Parabolee** » Mon Mar 21, 2005 1:24 pm

Another new strip online now