Indiana Jones and the Haunter of the Dark
 

Here's a dio sory I've been working on. I'll post it in chapters. It's not finished yet, but I reckon it will be about 15 chapters long.

Please note that this is my ideal Indy. He's a bit rougher round the edges (like Raiders Indy) than what Indy has become these days. There's mild swearing (but nothing that hasn't been heard in any Indy films), so please don't complain.

I also checked the ultimate guide so timescales and stuff should be fairly accurate, but I haven't read every detail in every book so please don't jump on any mistakes unless they really are that bad.

I'll probably edit a few bits here and there as I go. I'll note the changes here as I do that. ;)

Hope you all enjoy it.

Chapter 1 -

I enjoyed this a lot! Great job, and I can't wait for more!
Wish I had some figures now to start my own like this.

Dark Horse!

Bravo! This is off to a terrific start.

The comic book style you're using here is terrific. I remember many discussions back on yakface a few years ago about the benefits of the comic book style vs. the traditional "single frame" layout and I think the comic book style really adds a lot.

Great use of effects sounds, balloons, etc.

The shots look great - well-lit and well-composed. Great variety in shots between long shots, medium shots, etc.

My only minor nitpick in this regard is that I would avoid as many high angle shots as you can. It's not a major concern here at all, as there are only a few and the angles are not really that high.

But I've seen people do "bird's eye view" shots in other stories which really just make the toys look like, well, toys. The more low angle shots looking straight at your figures the better. It's very difficult in this case, since you're on the ground and cannot get yourself and camera lower than the figures. You work around this obstacle very well!

In fact, despite the fact that you're using real, full-size plants and landscaping, you do a great job of disguising that fact and making it look like real jungle for Indy and his pursuers.

I think the use of the more-articulated Wolverine figure as your base was another brilliant move, giving you a greater variety of possible action poses for Indy, making him far more dynamic.

Nice subtle customs with the Nazi figures, too.

I did have a few questions about the story.

I wasn't sure in the beginning if Indy was trying to get TO the location of the skull. The reveal that he already had the skull was surprising - is that what you were going for?

Maybe you should have mentioned Indy already had the skull and was escaping?

Along the same lines, I was curious as to why the Nazis kept saying "get him, find HIM", and didn't mention the skull at all. Presumably, that was their goal?

All in all, I think one or two more bits of information about the skull - either in dialogue or in captions - would have helped. Why are the Nazis after this particular artifact? Presumably it has some kind of mystical properties? They're not just after gold. Or are they?

Oh, and why did the Nazi captain order his two men to be killed? I didn't quite buy that moment.

Of course, it's perfectly fine that you don't hand us all the answers in the first chapter! Some mystery is all well and good. But I was just slightly confused about these issues.

While we only get a taste of it, I like the "rough around the edges" indy that you're going for here, which seems very appropriate given the early time period. I think it definitely fits that Indy would still be a bit cruder and a bit rougher in his younger years.

The ending DEFINITELY came as a surprise! Great shock and great cliffhanger. I'm looking forward to seeing the integration of the pulpy, sci-fi, "dieselpunk" elements into the story.

All in all, off to a wonderful start, I am very eager to see the continuation of your story! Well done!

Based on your poster, is it possible we are going to see Cthulhu?

Great stuff by the way. Keep it coming!

I was wondering the same thing Dr Gonzo.

DH, great work, really enjoyed it and am looking forward to more!

On the topic of the custom figures, I too like the choice of the woverine body for Indy and love how you swapped out the hands for different scenes. It added an extra bit of realism to the whole thing.

Story wise, I was wondring why Indy didn't grab the SMG from the first guy he whipped?

DH,

don't forget to post this on rebelscum, either in the Indy forum
or the photonovel forum (even though that place is a friggin'
ghost town - at least for PNs, not for artwork.)

Yakface also has a mildly active PN forum, though the participation of commenters is not what it once was.

But definitely get this out there to as many venues as possible!

It needs to be seen.

Thanks guys.

Pretty much all the answers will be forthcoming in the next few chapters.

Indy didn't have time to grab the gun as the pursuing Nazis were right on his heels. It would have killed the chase aspect as well.

The German Captain was following orders that any soldiers who showed complete ineptitude would be shot on the spot. I've since changed the dialogue in that bit. The jokey complaint by the other german is a bit crap.

The Golden skull is just a throw away maguffin to place Indy in Macapa. It has no relevance to the overall story. Things will all reveal themselves, don't worry. ;)

A few notes also - I used the Macapa location because of the Hellboy Nazi connection. I'm a massive HB fan as well. ;) It also ties in with Crystal skull, for reasons that will be explained later (don't worry, they are just character and history references; there's no CS crap gonna happen haha)

This first chapter was all shot in my back garden.

I'll post chapter 2 in a few days.

Excellent. I had the feeling that the sequence was just an Indy prologue in the "classic" (non KOTCS) style - a stand-alone adventure that would have little to do with the rest of the movie, except as a means to establish characters or themes.

In that context, it all makes sense. The Nazis don't care about the skull, they were always after Indy himself (I'm guessing). Great misdirect, it works beautifully with the surprise ending.

Keep up the great work, can't wait for part 2.

Dark Horse, I was enjoying it up until the point where the robot showed up.:down: Other than that, you've done a splendid job with the photos, the word ballons, bullet streaks & blood, etc. and the general, comic-book-page format. This is one of the better fan projects to appear here in quite a while so I'm looking forward to more (if you ditch the robot, that is).;)

P.S. In case you haven't seen it yet, this thread may interest you: Your Figures In Action! (with PICS!)

Thanks fellas.

The Sci Fi aspect is vital to the story. It will all be explained.

I think folk who are familiar with H.P. Lovecraft's work are going to enjoy this more than those who aren't.

Chapter 2

The sci-fi aspect has now killed my enjoyment of your project. Shame you took that route.:( Sorry, Dark Horse!:hat:

I've got to echo Stoo's statement. While you've done an outstanding job setting these panels up, the sci-fi fell flat.
I will still continue reading it, but I hope it will change course.

Oh well. You can't please everybody.

You guys (Stoo, Drifter) suck. This is a seriously impressive effort.

I will admit, Sci-Fi Indy would not be my preference, either.

But, in spite of those preferences, I found this impossible not to enjoy.

It's an action packed ride. The last panel is sensational. The action scenes are kinetic and very entertaining.

I admit, the exposition and the sci-fi mumbo-jumbo did drag a little bit. It does seem to hew a little too closely to KOTCS for my tastes (alien artifact with strange powers, etc.)

When you mentioned Hellboy, I thought you were going more in that direction, as the Hellboy universe is filled with weird tech, bizarre creatures, every kind of occult belief/mythology under the sun. But I don't think (and I have admittedly only read a fraction of the Hellboy/BPRD books) that they have used aliens. To my mind, aliens and Indy are not an ideal mixture.

However, there is still a lot of enjoy here and I overcame my prejudices based on how much fun it all was.

Indy's dialogue was very good.

The sets, filled with do-dads from various action figure lines, was imaginatively put together. Good customs, too.

I do have a few nitpicks regarding story.

I thought it was disappointing that Indy does nothing at all to assist in his own escape.

He is rescued by people we have never heard of before and that feels a little like a cheat.

Okay, in fairness, Indy did say he was waiting for "Ackbar", but we're led to believe it's just one guy, not a well-armed commando team.

I would have liked it if those characters were at least hinted at to a greater degree. Or if Indy had at least done something to distract the bad guys or something so that he literally isn't just a helpless damsel until he is saved by his friends.

Anyway, keep these coming, DK. I am enjoying this tale very much. Thanks for sharing!!

Um, I did say that this project was outstanding. I'm just not keen on the direction that it has took. Aren't Stoo and I entitled to our opinion?
Dark Horse did post this for the world to see, after all. And, I assume he knew he would get feedback (either good or bad).

It's cool if folk don't like the direction. There's only 3 really Sci Fi guys though.

I'd seriously recommend folk read H.P. Lovecraft's "Call of Cthulhu" and "The Haunter of the dark" as that will give a greater sense of the cosmic threat scale. They aren't aliens as such (many say they created the Earth etc).
Lovecraft's stuff is supposed to be more horror than Sci Fi.

Indy still has some escaping to do in the next chapter. He'll recover from his groggy state. ;) Bear in mind that he was an inch away from death. Not even Indy could recover in that time. :D We're talking maybe 60 seconds between the last torture blast and him being bundled in the car.

Ackbar is a throw away character.
Andrew Storm (the guy with the hat) is a similar character to Mac, he won't be in the story after the next chapter.
The other guy will have a massive impact and is secret for now.

The next chapter will be a car/ bike/ truck chase. I haven't started chapter 3 yet as it's gonna be a big deal taking all the vehicles on location. I also intend on using practical fire in a lot of shots.

Notes about chapter 2 -

The Sci Fi Nazi designs were heavily influenced by the concept Toht. One of my characters is called Belzig, Toht's original name (as you know).

The Nazi bunker is a guitar hardcase laid flat, and a car parcel shelf for the back wall. There's also a nose hair trimmer doubling for a power conduit.

The Red Trapezohedron is the maguffin from "The Haunter of the dark" by H.P. Lovecraft.

The head I used for the torture Indy was repurposed from my german Indy custom.

The Call of Cthulhu - http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/...fiction/cc.asp

The haunter of the dark - http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/...fiction/hd.asp

Glad you're enjoying it, Lance.

As for HB and Aliens- well, pretty much all the occult stuff HB deals with is of Alien origin in one way or another. Even HB himself is a Alien of sorts.
The Ogdru Jahad live in space, and HB came through the same portal.
There are characters simply refered to as Aliens who watch over HB on Earth. They're shape shifters who revert to their natural state after death. There's even a figure of one.

(Factory figure on the left; my custom 4" figure on the right)



I suppose that aspect gets close to KotCS's dimension angle. Hell in HB's verse is a dimension. Also the characters in H.P. Lovecraft's work can travel between them, though it's never fully explained in either case.

The intent of my previous post (written in a rush, but that's no excuse) was to come across as snarky, but playful. I realize that it didn't read that way at all, so sincere apologies to you both for being obnoxious and insulting.

However, though the tone of my comments was rude, I was reacting to what seemed to be a very dismissive attitude coming from the both of you guys.

Of course you're entitled to your opinions and of course you are free to express them, as Dark Horse has put his work out for public consumption.

But - and I really don't want to come across as holier than thou here - I think there is a way to be critical while also being polite.

Compared to some of the crap in the Otis Frampton thread, though, you guys were the model of civility. I would had to see this thread degenerate like that one has.

For years, I have been a passionate booster for action figure photonovels across various websites. And here comes the holier than thou part - I have always tried to be as constructive as possible with my criticisms. I have certainly not liked everything I have seen. Some PNs I avoided commenting on entirely because I didn't have anything good to say or I didn't feel like I could be sufficiently constructive.

I'm not saying that I'm Jesus or anything. But as someone who has dabbled occasionally with action figure photonovels like this, I'm acutely aware of just how mind-bogglingly hard and time consuming they are to make.

In the past, I've been vocal on other boards to try to drum up more comments from those communities, as it can be disheartening to work your butt off on a photonovel to get only a tiny handful of comments, if that.

So my negative reaction was in that context - the comments were brusque and kinda dismissive. I've received a few comments like that for some work I did myself and it was definitely frustrating.

Hey, I'm not generally fan of Sci-Fi/Indy hybrids, either. But, in this case, I was able to still find a lot of things to appreciate in Dark Horse's story and I think you guys could at least get partial enjoyment out of it, as well, if you gave it a chance.

Not saying you need to censor yourselves or that you're not entitled to a negative reaction. But I also think folks who spend countless hours cranking these stories out deserve a lot of credit for that. I'm always looking for things to enjoy in any given PN, even when there are elements that I don't enjoy.

Anyway, just my two cents on the matter. Again, I'm genuinely sorry to you both for the rude tone and to Dark Horse for this rather wordy tangent. Let's get back to talking about the story itself!

Hey, it's all good. I've been on forums long enough to not let stuff bother me.

Obviously I like to share my work and enthusiasm for Indy, but I'm really making this for myself, just to see if I can pull it off really.

I've done some wrestling figure PN's before. They turned out pretty good, but it was easier as I only needed the main arena and a few backstage rooms.

Lance, I really appreciate your comments. They are very encouraging. Even your nitpicks are worthwhile as it shows you've really digested the material.
I would say be a bit more patient with it. I am very anal about details and I hate loose ends and purposeless things probably as much as you do. Suffice to say if an answer isn't forthcoming immedietely, then it will be revealed later. ;)

A lot of dialogue has been edited already, but I won't update it until I finished the next chapter.

Obviously for me, I have a different overview from you guys as I know the direction of the whole project. Hopefully you'll all like it more with multiple reads. :)

It's certainlly the case with most Lovecraft(ian) writing that you need to read it multiple times to understand what was going on. Or at least wait for the italics at the end which reveal that "...the writer had been dead the whole time!"

My critiques:

* the transition from Nazi escape/jungle setting/"traditional Indy adventure" to secret base/high tech/robots is very abrupt. I feel that reveal should happen more slowly to ease the reader in. Don't get me wrong - the end of part 1 / start of part 2 look great. But everything that happens while Indy is tied up is exposition, and it's not pay-off for anything. There is no mystery being solved beyond "what am I looking at?". IMHO an interstitial scene where Indy fights Dreizehn without knowing what it is, escapes - continuing the mystery - then encounters other inexplicable tech before getting captured would improve the flow of the story.

* The robo-Nazis are too extreme. There is no intermediate form between "boring human" and "wtf is that?". Again, I think a bit more gradual reveal would improve things. For example, one resembling the Toht designs with just one augmentation. (Also, I couldn't help but think of the web comic "Romantically Apocalyptic")

* The rescue team's arrival seems like deus ex machina... and they are seemingly gratuitously multicultural. It's like the A-Team crossed with G.I. Joe crossed with... The Village People.

* The story lingers on the violence too much, both in the jungle and in the base. While the Indy films do contain a lot of death and especially Nazis getting killed (technically just German soldiers, but in the Indyverse they're all Nazis), the story doesn't linger on this. The comic's focus on each violent act is a bit disconcerting.

But hey, you have a story with Indy and the Shining Trapezohedron and alien/nazi/zombie/robots, so keep it up!

^Interesting points.

Perhaps scaling back a bit on the extent of the sci-fi stuff might have made it more digestible to some.

I agree, it does feel a bit like overkill. Compare to the concept Toht - that was just the arm. Or HB's Kroenen - that character was the exception, not the rule. He was the ONLY Nazi (in the film, not the comics) with a weird tech appearance.

Obviously, the comics contain some really nutty stuff, like the head in the jar robot dude, but that stuff would have been just too out there for the Hellboy films.

You have Battle droids, an unmodified Moff Trachta figure, and a Nazi officer who is more machine than man. Perhaps just the commandant as part robot would have been enough? Or putting the Trachta head on a regular Nazi body?

As I said, an interesting opinion. Perhaps a more subtle approach would have been more palatable to some folks.

But I'm still very eager to see where things go from here!

@Lance: No need to apologize, Lance, as I can also be quite brusque in my posts.:cool: Like Drifter, I already complimented Dark Horse before throwing out a negative. It's just that this thing started off so well and I'm constantly on the lookout for a perfect, high-quality Indy fan work (as elusive as they may be).

@Dark Horse: I am TRULY looking forward to seeing more of your efforts but will skip any panel that has a robot in it.:) (And this is coming from someone who started a thread on Toht/Belzig's robotic arm! Toht's Robotic Arm.):D

Lance, there is no need to apologize to me. I'm sorry that I misread your intentions in that post.
I think Dark Horse is doing a marvelous job, but I just dislike sci-fi mixed in with my Indy. That's the only complaint that I have, and that in itself should show him what great work he is doing if that's the only thing that I can nit-pick at. :p
I will continue to follow this thread and hope that DH will not let my opinion keep him from posting more of this story. It has caught my attention.

Like I said, I'm glad you guys even took the time to reply further than "Cool" Or "I don't like it" :)

Hopefully you'll warm to the whole thing as chapters wear on.

The reveal of the robot guys had to be stark and blunt. It's supposed to show Indy really, really being in over his head right from the get go. The same can be said of the rescue. I don't think the gang are Village people types; it's only Ackbar that is dressed differently than the others. :confused:
The whole vibe of the Cthulhu mythos is hopelessness. I want Indy to convey that, and to show how he deals with it throughout the story.

Even with the Sci Fi stuff, I hope you guys can look past the fact that they are Star Wars parts and not associate it with that type of Star Wars Sci Fi itself. The designs are supposed to be steampunky, like they would be what you could come up with if you had the knowledge and not neccessarily the materials. Think Tony Stark building the MkI armour in the cave ;)
I know it's almost an unadultered battle droid, but I hope you guys don't actually think it is a battle droid. Think more a big iron clockwork bastard or something.

Belzig only has a gas mask and goggles; that's not even Sci Fi.

Stahl and Dessler were originally going to be veterans with the updated limbs originally blown off. I rejected that idea because it might have given them a bit of sympathy. I just wanted them to be stereotypical Nazis, just with the twist.

As for the violence, I don't think it's different from the films that much. I was going for a rougher Indy.
We're still so early in the story also ;)

Well, they had a Hell-holegenerator that could cross dimensions, Rasputin's Mecha glove, and cyborg scientists. That was all in the first five minutes.

And don't be surprised if you don't see Von Klempt in HB 3 ;) He's loved by a lot of fans :)