Indiana Jones and the Mayan Secret - Chapter TWO!!

Lance Quazar

Well-known member
AC_in_SD said:
Wow! This is really phenomenal work. The detailing in the scenery, especially in that first setting, the Nazi storehouse, is absolutely terrific.

Hey now!!! Thank you VERY much for this lengthy, thoughtful commentary! VERY appreciated.

Yeah, the storehouse was an opportunity to showcase, even if only briefly, a bunch of the random do-dads and objects I've been collecting for six years, every since the Indy figures came out, that I thought would make great props or display pieces. I tried to cram in as much stuff as I could.

AC_in_SD said:
I really like the fact that Indy has sort of a hybrid of his standard attire and a military uniform, and the way you had that idea of losing helmets woven into the story really works well to create an implied history with Lizzie. What head was the base for Lizzie, anyway?

Thanks very much. As much as we all love the "classic" Indy look, I thought coming up with a variation would be a fun way to mix things up, as well as be more accurate for the wartime setting.

Glad the Lizzie/Indy stuff was working. Given the way this story unfolds, there was no time to introduce new characters gradually or give them much of a spotlight, so I kind of had to shorthand the relationship. We'll hopefully learn a little more about Lizzie as the story unfolds.

Lizzie's head is from a GI Joe Scarlett figure, often nicknamed "pilot Scarlett."

http://www.yojoe.com/action/08/scarlett10.shtml

But her hair is from two different Joe figures. The ponytail is from a previous version of Scarlett and the "wind-tossed" hair is from a comic pack "Agent Courtney Krieger".

AC_in_SD said:
Your ninja assassin made me slap my forehead. I just sold my Hogun, but of course he would have been perfect for some ninja custom!

Yeah, I originally had a different head for that figure (another GI Joe), but I agree, Hogun is just fantastic. I actually wound up selling the rest of the body on a different custom forum, all I wanted was the head! :)

AC_in_SD said:
I'm a bit of a writer myself. Since photonovels are closer to comic book storytelling than they are to cinema, you might be interested to browse through some of Scott McCloud's books to get ideas on how to make the most of the medium. Alan Moore also had a good (but very short) book on comic writing. I do recall him saying that a comic has some advantages over film. You can play with time and focus in a way that would be awkward in a movie, stretching out a second over several panels or focusing on a relevant image while characters speak via word bubbles while remaining out of scene. While I think your story is rolling very well, these could be some fun concepts to play with.

I actually HAVE read "Understanding Comics" by McCloud a few years back and it really is a great resource. It's true, there are some amazing things you can do with the medium. Although I'm not exactly sure how much I'll be able to do those things going forward (due as much to time as to my limited imagination and lack of experience with the format.)

I did give a lot of thought to making this in a more "comic book" style (with different sized panels and so forth). It definitely is much more comic than movie, of course, but I ended up not doing it at least partly out of laziness.

AC_in_SD said:
One last thing: Mayan gods and spears of destiny sound like perfectly plausible plot elements in the world of Indiana Jones. They sound cool, mysterious, and we know just enough about them to know we would rather Indy have them than the Nazis. See? How hard is that? I would trade your MacGuffins for all the crystal skulls in creation!

Well, I never had a problem with the idea of a crystal skull, per se, but there were so many other issues with that one that it's best to leave those to a different discussion, but thanks for the compliments. :)

The long, boring version of the genesis of this story is that I had mapped out a plan for an Indy photonovel that was going to be about the Spear of Destiny (even though I think that's kind of played out as a macguffin) if only because Hasbro made a damn spiffy version of the spear already (and because finding new, exciting macguffins is often damn hard!)

But when the contest rolled around, the rules were you had to use the "Mayan Secret" as the title. So I scrapped all my original plans and dove into Mayan mythology. And because I happened to already have those Mayan statue/monuments, I tried to bend the mythology to incorporate them.

But I still wanted to cram in the Spear there just for fun.

AC_in_SD said:
One last, last thing: Maybe it's just because Stormshadow is the one figure I find at every yard sale or swap meet, but when I look at Short Round, I see Stormshadow instead. The Power of the Jedi Bespin Guard head would probably be my choice for a grown-up Shorty.

Hey, I totally get that. Often times when I see customs, it bothers me if the head they're using is already SO identifiable as a different character. I think it's a bad idea if you're making a Star Wars custom, for instance, to use a Han Solo head to represent a different character.

As such, it's often very advisable to use the "generic soldier" figures for your customs. All those random pilots and troopers and whatnot that are just supposed to be "Guard #1" or whatever and use those for your new characters.

By that metric, the Bespin Guard would have been a great choice for Short Round and would have avoided the issues you have.

Now, in my case, since I have done my darndest to forget those "Joe" movies, I don't really have the Storm Shadow association you do, but I don't blame you.

Unfortunately, those soldier figures I used in the beginning are just a bit bigger than your standard Star Wars/Indy figures. And the Bespin Guard head would have looked comically minuscule on that soldier body. So that was really the only reason why I did that. Oh, and because it's an older figure without a removable ball-jointed head, it wouldn't have been possible to attach it to the body for the second Short Round custom that appears in this chapter (without a LOT of extra work.)

Hence the Storm Shadow head, but I'm not unsympathetic to your concern.


AC_in_SD said:
One last, last, last thing (for real this time): Thanks for bringing back Short Round and for making him such an integral part of your story. He was always one of my favorites.

Yeah, I always wanted to see him show up in SOME capacity. Bummer he wasn't given a cameo in KOTCS in the wedding! Alas. I was always a big fan of the character, too!

AC_in_SD said:
One last, last, last, last thing: Yank magazine. LOL!!!!!

Heh. :) Glad you liked it!

AC_in_SD said:
Can't wait for part 3!

Thanks again VERY much for your incredibly thoughtful comments. I'll be working diligently on Part 3 in the coming days, so stay tuned!

:D
 

Z dweller

Well-known member
Lance Quazar said:
I'll be working diligently on Part 3 in the coming days, so stay tuned!

:D
Hey Lance, any update on this?

I enjoyed Parts I and II enormously and can't wait for Part III !!!
 

Lance Quazar

Well-known member
Z dweller said:
Hey Lance, any update on this?

I enjoyed Parts I and II enormously and can't wait for Part III !!!

Hi there! Thanks very much for checking out the story and commenting!

Much appreciated!

The status of the story is a good news/bad news thing. After working exhaustively on the project in January and February, I needed to take a little time off.

My plan was to bang out Chapter 3 in April. However, I unexpectedly got a full time job (which was fairly good news), but that did prevent me from working on the story.

Alas, that job has kept me very busy all summer. I really did want to finish up another chapter before summer's end. Now, however, it looks like that won't realistically happen until September.

So I appreciate your patience! I definitely intend to finish the project (I estimate 4-5 chapters total).

I'm not done with Dr. Jones yet!

:)

Thanks again!
 

Attila the Professor

Moderator
Staff member
Today's my first time stumbling upon these threads, Lance, and let me just say that's it's some really impressive work, both technically and as a wartime Indy story.
 

Lance Quazar

Well-known member
Attila the Professor said:
Today's my first time stumbling upon these threads, Lance, and let me just say that's it's some really impressive work, both technically and as a wartime Indy story.

Thanks for the kind words, Attila! I'm very glad you stumbled onto the story. What a treat to get two new comments on the same day so many months after the original posting! (And now we've cracked double digits for unique commentators in the Part 2 thread!)

Every time the thread gets bumped up with new comments, it's another chance for someone to see it for the first time!

Thanks again for taking the time to comment, it really means so much!

:hat:
 

AlinaFox

New member
Wow, what a great story! It's amazing how you utilized the different custom figures to express different moods and situations. Very clever perspectives and beautiful backgrounds, stunning mise-en-scène! You obviously also have a knack for storytelling as the pace is quite good and the stills tend to flow evenly...
Personally, I wouldn't mind smaller word balloons and I don't think you need the descriptive captions but that's just my prefrernce...

I would really love to see a "motion comic" version someday ;) and I can't wait for the next installment!

Best,
Daniel
 

Lance Quazar

Well-known member
AlinaFox said:
Wow, what a great story! It's amazing how you utilized the different custom figures to express different moods and situations. Very clever perspectives and beautiful backgrounds, stunning mise-en-scène! You obviously also have a knack for storytelling as the pace is quite good and the stills tend to flow evenly...
Personally, I wouldn't mind smaller word balloons and I don't think you need the descriptive captions but that's just my prefrernce...

I would really love to see a "motion comic" version someday ;) and I can't wait for the next installment!

Best,
Daniel

Wow, sorry it took me so long to reply to your thoughtful comments.

Thanks so much for taking the time to leave feedback, it is VERY much appreciated!

interesting you mentioned the captions - I actually went back in and took many of the captions OUT after hearing feedback on multiple forums. Many said the captions were unnecessary at best, distracting and/or annoying at worst.

My initial thoughts were that I was worried the pictures and action wouldn't flow as well as I'd hoped and I might need to "walk the audience through it" a little bit. Clearly that wasn't necessary. Who knows, I may go back and reduce the captions even more - but I don't think I'll eliminate 100% of them.

And I had never heard anyone comment on the speech balloon size, but I definitely see your point. They certainly are big!

But, since I'm always concerned with readability, I wanted to make them big and bold and easy to follow. I have seen some action figure style comics with minuscule word balloons, which are just downright painful to read.

(for the same reason, I am always mindful to limit the amount of dialogue in a given panel to not overwhelm the reader with clutter.)

But perhaps I've gone too far in the other direction. :)

Anyway, thanks again for the comments!
 

Lance Quazar

Well-known member
Wow, I sat through the opening prologue of "Dial of Destiny" in slack-jawed disbelief, as that entire segment is a pretty shameless and obvious lift from this photonovel chapter here!

For shame, James Mangold! For shame!
 
Wow, I sat through the opening prologue of "Dial of Destiny" in slack-jawed disbelief, as that entire segment is a pretty shameless and obvious lift from this photonovel chapter here!

For shame, James Mangold! For shame!
I know you are close to the photo novel story but the only similarities was the mention that the Nazis got a lot of fakes and the spear of destiny. The spear of destiny as you know is historically well documented as an artifact that Hitler was obsessed with finding so possibly more like a coincidence? Who knows. But since fanfic isn’t protected by copyright laws if he did lift it I guess you should feel flattered.
 

Finn

Moderator
Staff member
But since fanfic isn’t protected by copyright laws
Not correct, actually. One of the key tenets of copyright is that a work is the property of its author - and this includes fan fiction.

Does this mean you could at any time create your own Indiana Jones novel, comic, movie or whatever and start making a living off of it? Well, no. If the work features unlicensed use of a narrative element (character, setting, etc) belonging to another rights holder, they can shut you down with a lawsuit. But... this is, in fact, a two-way street. The other rights holder can NOT freely utilize those ascpects of a work that don't infringe their copyrights and are original to it. Yes, this means that they can't just copy the original plot of a fan fiction work.

Of course, theory and practice are, as usual, not exactly the same. In practice, the bar for the fan fiction author to win a plagiarism-oriented case in court would be pretty darn high. But the case couldn't simply be thrown out due to a lack of standing because the work that was seemingly plagiarized happens to be fan fiction.
 

Lance Quazar

Well-known member
Not correct, actually. One of the key tenets of copyright is that a work is the property of its author - and this includes fan fiction.

Does this mean you could at any time create your own Indiana Jones novel, comic, movie or whatever and start making a living off of it? Well, no. If the work features unlicensed use of a narrative element (character, setting, etc) belonging to another rights holder, they can shut you down with a lawsuit. But... this is, in fact, a two-way street. The other rights holder can NOT freely utilize those ascpects of a work that don't infringe their copyrights and are original to it. Yes, this means that they can't just copy the original plot of a fan fiction work.

Of course, theory and practice are, as usual, not exactly the same. In practice, the bar for the fan fiction author to win a plagiarism-oriented case in court would be pretty darn high. But the case couldn't simply be thrown out due to a lack of standing because the work that was seemingly plagiarized happens to be fan fiction.
Thanks, Finn! I'm forwarding this to my lawyer.

At least he says he's a lawyer. But it is kind of strange that he's always taking my recyclables out of the trash.
 

Lance Quazar

Well-known member
I know you are close to the photo novel story but the only similarities was the mention that the Nazis got a lot of fakes and the spear of destiny. The spear of destiny as you know is historically well documented as an artifact that Hitler was obsessed with finding so possibly more like a coincidence? Who knows. But since fanfic isn’t protected by copyright laws if he did lift it I guess you should feel flattered.
Actually, if this were a copyright lawsuit or even a Writers Guild credit arbitration, I could list many similarities to make my case:

Setting: Germany during the tail end of World War II.
Characters: Villain is a Nazi scientist
Story: Involves Nazi plundering of both art and potentially dangerous/supernatural artifacts
Central MacGuffin is Spear of Destiny
Chase scene ensues
Spear of Destiny is used as a weapon in hand-to-hand combat
Spear is forgotten in favor of a different supernatural element

My advice would be to reconsider this action, as it could prove a bit pointless.

I mean, if he is a lawyer, he should know this already.
I haven't brought him up to speed yet. He knows the issues. Or so he says.....he usually just threatens to attack me with a broken bottle when I try to talk to him.
 

Finn

Moderator
Staff member
Setting: Germany during the tail end of World War II.
Characters: Villain is a Nazi scientist
Story: Involves Nazi plundering of both art and potentially dangerous/supernatural artifacts
Central MacGuffin is Spear of Destiny
Chase scene ensues
Spear of Destiny is used as a weapon in hand-to-hand combat
Spear is forgotten in favor of a different supernatural element
Can't tell if you're being facetious here or not, but most of these would have a high chance of getting written off as incidental.

Of course, even the ones that would get written off as incidental in isolation can be used to make the point if they appear in the same instance - especially if one or two of the elements genuinely do not come across as such.
 

Lance Quazar

Well-known member
Can't tell if you're being facetious here or not, but most of these would have a high chance of getting written off as incidental.

Of course, even the ones that would get written off as incidental in isolation can be used to make the point if they appear in the same instance - especially if one or two of the elements genuinely do not come across as such.
Have you ever actually read a plagiarism brief before or a WGA arbitration statement (or a WGA arbitration decision, for that matter?)

What I did is 100% consistent with the ways in which those are written. Often, they are wildly contorted or exaggerated to make a point.

What I did is actually totally consistent with those and I've seen ones where the statements bear much, much, much less resemblance to the truth than my example.

No satire here whatsoever. Or satire that is so on point because it is so, so accurate.
 

Finn

Moderator
Staff member
Have you ever actually read a plagiarism brief before or a WGA arbitration statement (or a WGA arbitration decision, for that matter?)
Nope. Just utilizing the highly generalized knowledge from the IP law courses that were a part of my curriculum.

(In other words, I know the basics of the subject, but I shouldn't be cited as an expert.)
 

Lance Quazar

Well-known member
Nope. Just utilizing the highly generalized knowledge from the IP law courses that were a part of my curriculum.

(In other words, I know the basics of the subject, but I shouldn't be cited as an expert.)
Cool.

Trust me, the examples I cited count. Or at least they're far less egregious stretches than exist in the real world.
 
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