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Pehesse

Hello and welcome to all :-)

I'll present you here with a few tidbits of information about Ashell as a project, and as background knowledge to better appreciate the story within.

If you'd rather jump right in, go right ahead, and look for it here : http://www.amilova.com/en/BD-manga/190/ashell.html.

And for all of you who stayed, here is without any further ado the pitch that lead to this precise story.

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HISTORIC CONTEXT

The year is 1973. The ashes of the previous wars have begun to form a new ground for a greater conflict to erupt... a precarious equilibrium now exists between the two superpowers that emerged victorious : the UNF in the West, and the eastern ECA.
This tense and uneasy cold war is based on the sharing of a new resource, Cyon, discovered in late 1943 by the eminent professor Samson.

This ore with wondrous properties is still largely misunderstood and unresearched, even though it helped develop a whole new industry dedicated to allow survivability in hostile environment : the shell suits. Powered using refined Cyon, these new vehicules were meant to be the tools and symbols of recovery for a devastated Europe... but they have become the new cogs of war as Cyon turned into a source of greed and envy.

PITCH

In 1944, Germany is brutally torn apart under the nuclear attack of the USA, determined to recover the Cyon sources that lie dormant within the european soil.
In 1973, as the world slowly recovers after years of several brutal conflicts, a new tension develops around the last few remaining sources...

A lone UNF ranger, major Wayward, crosses the path of the crew of the Magellan, a mining sandcrawler. This meeting will be the starting point of numerous realizations about the true nature of the conflict... and the cost they will have to pay to put and end to it.

AIM

Ashell is a retro science-fiction uchronia based on the developing relationships within its cast. Though it features giant robots, it is not a "mecha" story in the classical sense, and showcases little action and a slow rhythm.

It's also a stylistic experiment on narration rhythm and exposition processes. The objective is to open a small window on a coherent and wider context, that the reader can access and understand through the hints within the story. He can freely decide to look for them and recompose a more complete picture of the world that exists, or simply read the events that unfold in the story - and both attitudes would need to be equally rewarding.

The characters are to be considered more as individualities rather than actors. Instead of using classic and usual exposition means, the reader is thrust in the middle of an ongoing action and learns to identify, recognize and understand them as they do themselves "naturally" within the story. Ashell's ambition is to have a cast of characters that is not so much driven by a script, but by their identified and understandable motivations - and that the twists and turns of the plot appear to be fated, rather than necessary. "In the face of such events, such people couldn't have done any different, and what unfolds has to unfold this way". This fatalist observation is a key element of the story, testifying to both its potential width and its determinism.

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... it looks dreadfully serious, presented like this, doesn't it ?

Thank you for reading up to this point, and I hope this will make you appreciate the comic even more. Please do not hesitate to comment, here or on the pages themselves ! I hope to hear from you and discuss the future of Ashell with its audience :-)

Last edited by Pehesse (24 Sep, 2011 20:24:45)

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Amateurs de comics, superhéros, érotisme et mystère : lisez Imperfect et ses coulisses
Friands de robots, noir et blanc, intrigue et cynisme : découvrez Ashell ! Plein d'infos ici.

Esteryn

The artwork is simply amazing, that must have been so hard to ink all these stripes !

You've obviously done a lot of thought and research for your project, i'm sure it's going to be great ! I'm going to have a peek at it right now

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--- Vous aimez le mystère ? Vous apprécierez peut-être la BD Traces. ---
°°° Ou les contes "à la Fontaine" ? Essayez celui de La Grenouille. °°°

Pehesse

Thanks for your enthusiasm and interest :-D I was starting to think nobody would come and read this, I'm glad you found it interesting :-)

About the inking process, I'm using just a simple brush, actually - I was making the pages as part of a personal challenge (silly, I know), where I would not use any kind of "modern" assistance to finish the pages. So everything is done with basic materials, a cheap paper, a pen and ink, and a flimsy brush (who's not looking so hot right now, actually, after all that abuse). To tell the truth, my pen even broke during the inking of a page during chapter 2 :-p but, well, the point was to make each page in a first try - so each inking had to be the right one, right away... so you can see a few screw ups here and there :-p But I'll admit to spending a little more time on this particular image so as not to fail it... didn't want to, not that one :-)

I was going to post something (a few pictures) about the inking process eventually - would you be interested in seeing it sooner rather that later ?

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Amateurs de comics, superhéros, érotisme et mystère : lisez Imperfect et ses coulisses
Friands de robots, noir et blanc, intrigue et cynisme : découvrez Ashell ! Plein d'infos ici.

Esteryn

I'm even more impressed now that i know you did it all traditional ! I'm a patient woman, i can wait when you're ready to show it

Otherwise, i don't always think about checking the english forum too, i'm mostly in the French part.

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--- Vous aimez le mystère ? Vous apprécierez peut-être la BD Traces. ---
°°° Ou les contes "à la Fontaine" ? Essayez celui de La Grenouille. °°°

Pehesse

I'll post a few images tomorrow then, since you're interested - and I'll post them in both parts of the forum, so you'll stumble on at least one of them :-)

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Amateurs de comics, superhéros, érotisme et mystère : lisez Imperfect et ses coulisses
Friands de robots, noir et blanc, intrigue et cynisme : découvrez Ashell ! Plein d'infos ici.