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181

Discuss Comic Pages / Issue 2 - Party Like It's 198X - Page 3 - Eddie's Destiny

« on: June 28, 2014, 06:39:10 AM »

When all I had was a detailed synopsis for the overarching plot of  Satan Ninja, Eddie was mostly characterized as an every-man. It wasn't until I was writing this issue that I noticed he had evolved into a naive and determined optimist. And I'm totally cool with that. It makes for a great juxtaposition with what he eventually becomes.

By the way, the brunette drug gifter there is Alex's older sister (and Veronica's best friend), Heather. The red-head on Veronica's left is Tina. They'll eventually be getting write-ups for the "About the Characters" page, as will the foreign exchange student Carmen.

Next week's update will take us someplace far, far removed from the school's lunchroom.

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Discuss Blog Entries / Movie Review - Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn [1983]

« on: June 26, 2014, 04:10:31 AM »

You can read my review here: https://satanninja.com/blog/2014/06/movie-review-metalstorm-the-destruction-of-jared-syn-1983

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Discuss Comic Pages / Issue 2 - Party Like It's 198X - Page 2 - Lunch with Carmen

« on: June 21, 2014, 07:04:02 PM »

This was the first page Jessica drew with Manga Studio instead of Adobe Photoshop. Our friend Dave recommended Manga Studio to her, and, despite being a little put off by the name, Jessica gave it a shot. She ended up really liking the program and will probably use it to illustrate the rest of the comic.

Satan Ninja trivia for the day: just about every article of clothing that our characters wear is inspired by outfits worn in actual '80s movies.

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Discuss Blog Entries / Minor Retcon

« on: June 14, 2014, 05:59:08 PM »

So a couple weeks ago, we stealthily added our first retcon to the comic (I promise we won't make a habit of it). Back when this website launched, Eddie and his friends were high school juniors, and Eddie was celebrating his 17th birthday in mid-May. But now, if you go back and read the comic you'll find that Eddie and his friends are high school seniors, and Eddie is celebrating his 18th birthday in early May.

Why the change? Well, we decided that this was the only "high school" era tale we wanted to tell in Satan Ninja 198X so there wasn't much point in keeping Eddie in school for another year. Also, since this story arc is building up to the prom, it made more sense to make it the penultimate high school event: the senior prom. Plus, making most of the characters 18 has the added benefit of helping us stay out of legal hot water with these characters engaging in sexual activities.

The date was changed to the start of May so that we had a bit more room to play with before the prom occurs.

The character profiles have also been updated to reflect this change. Oh, and Jessica re-drew Veronica's school picture, because we weren't happy with the old one: https://satanninja.com/about/the-characters

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Discuss Comic Pages / Issue 2 - Party Like It's 198X - Page 1 - Lunchroom Daydreaming

« on: June 14, 2014, 05:43:47 PM »

If only our characters were in elementary school so we could show off some of those rad Saturday morning cartoon lunchboxes. I had a Transformers one, myself.

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Discuss Comic Pages / Issue 2 - Party Like It's 198X - Cover

« on: June 07, 2014, 06:04:35 AM »

This is definitely one of my favorite things Jessica has drawn for the comic so far. I feel it perfectly encapsulates what the second issue has in store.

This issue will introduce the rest of the core cast and really get things going full swing. We keep coming up with last-minute alterations as we're working on it and it just keeps getting better and better. We're pumped as hell to be making it.

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Discuss Comic Pages / Issue 1 - Video Dreamer - Page 22 - Birthday Dream

« on: May 31, 2014, 06:14:24 AM »

The final page of issue 1 also happens to be another one of our favorites.

In my initial script it was just going to be a splash page of the glove resting on the forest floor, but after we added the arcade scene and Eddie's dream, it seemed more fitting to end the issue by returning to Eddie's slumber fantasy. Especially since the last half of the issue is dominated by Viper and we didn't want to give the impression that Viper was the comic's main character.

The design on Satan Ninja's second form is a little different from what was shown earlier, because Jessica drew this page before deciding to go back and re-do the pixel art for his second form. We decided to let the discrepancy slide since it's subtle and it's a dream, which rarely reflects reality with much accuracy.

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Discuss Comic Pages / Issue 1 - Video Dreamer - Page 21 - Viper & Mr. Moore

« on: May 24, 2014, 05:12:13 PM »

Poor Viper. I think there comes a point in all our lives where we fail to stop satanic ninjas from stealing the ancient artifacts of our boss. It's just one of those life hurdles that you need to make it through and hopefully you learn from it and come out stronger.

That's what Satan Ninja 198X is really all about. Inspiring people to persevere through the rough spots in life.

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Discuss Comic Pages / Issue 1 - Video Dreamer - Page 20 - Spooky Powers

« on: May 17, 2014, 08:25:51 PM »

In the original version of this page, once the ninja comes to the cliff, he simply pulls out his sword and turns around to fight Viper, who shoots him off the cliff. But after Jessica had drawn the page, I decided it'd be way sweeter to have the ninja grow big-ass bat-wings and fly toward a fiery vortex in the sky to escape. Besides, since the supernatural plays a huge part in the comic, I realized that we needed to introduce supernatural elements into the first issue.

The original version of this page can be seen in the "198X Sketchbook" that's included with the digital copy of the first issue that you can buy in our store.

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Discuss Blog Entries / Issue 01, Page 19 Posted - Also A News Update

« on: May 10, 2014, 05:37:12 AM »

Page 19 is now posted and you can check it out here : https://satanninja.com/comic/satan-ninja-198x/issue-1-video-dreamer/page-19#comic

That leaves us with only three more pages before all of Issue 01 - Video Dreamer is available to read on the site. But if you'd rather read the rest of the issue right-fucking-now, or simply want to support the comic, you can purchase the entire first issue from our store (paying whatever you'd like for it). It includes 4 exclusive pages of early concept sketches with commentary by Jessica. And it has a preview of the badass cover Jessica did for Issue 02 - Party Like It's 198X.

Speaking of which, here's Jessica hard at work on one of the pages for Issue 02.



And here's me, probably writing about boobs or something.



We just got our first convention confirmation, so if you'd like to meet us in person and pick up a physical copy of the comic, you should be able to do so at this year's Midoricon.

Okay, so we've got this sweet comic that we're making. We love it, and we intend to keep going with it even if it never picks up much of an audience. The story is all plotted out, and we're too excited about it not to see it through to completion.

However, we know there have to be plenty of like-minded people out there who would dig the comic as much as we do. The problem, of course, is how to make these awesome people aware that this comic exists.

When we launched the website at the start of March, we basically only told our friends and family about it. More recently, we posted it to r/Comics on Reddit, which got us a big spike in page views, but r/Comics mostly caters to the three-panel gag-a-day style comic. We also got a Twitter shout-out from none-other than Maddox, which was awesome since we both think Maddox is fucking rad. So we're slowly but surely gaining some traction.

We're now looking into paying for advertisement, and all signs seem to be pointing us to Project Wonderful. We intend to take the money we've gotten from donations and comic sales and put that toward advertising, but that's not a lot of money, so we need to be selective and really make it count. It's a bit tricky to come up with the best places to advertise the comic since Satan Ninja 198X is kind of an odd beast. It's not a super hero comic, at least, not in the traditional sense. It's not a high-brow indy slice-of-life comic. It's not your traditional manga-inspired martial arts action adventure. It's not completely focused on video games and video game culture. It's not an erotic comic, although it does contain quite a bit of sex and gratuitous nudity. And it's certainly not a furry comic. So in the world of webcomics, that makes it hard to find its niche.

We're obviously new to this, so if any of you have any suggestions for us, we'd love to hear them. Also, if you know anyone that's a bad enough dude to like our comic, you should totally pass the word on. Meanwhile, we'll continue to churn out the radical glory that is Satan Ninja 198X.

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Discuss Comic Pages / Issue 1 - Video Dreamer - Page 19 - Ninja Flee

« on: May 10, 2014, 05:23:54 AM »

Fun fact of the day: I briefly considered naming this page "shadow dong."

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Discuss Comic Pages / Issue 1 - Video Dreamer - Page 18 - Jump Kick

« on: May 03, 2014, 08:38:48 PM »

Reading these pages, I can just hear the synth-heavy 80s action movie score.

Speaking of music, Jessica and I would like to eventually record a song or two to serve as kind of companion pieces for the comic. It'd be fun.

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Discuss Comic Pages / Issue 1 - Video Dreamer - Page 17 - Viper Vs. Ninjas

« on: April 26, 2014, 08:56:12 PM »

Nothing seems to make Viper happier than shotgun blasting some ninjas.

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Discuss Blog Entries / Alternate Issue 1 Cover & Promotion

« on: April 20, 2014, 10:17:17 PM »

Above you can see a preview image for the alternate cover that'll be featured on some of the print versions of Issue 01 (we hope to have the print versions of issue 01 ready by this summer). If the image looks familiar to you, that's because it's a parody of this badass promotional art done for Double Dragon II.



We'd love to credit the original artist, but can't find out that information anywhere. So if any of you know who made that masterpiece, let us know.

Also, since we launched this website back in March, we've pretty much only told our friends and acquaintances about it. But starting today, we're going to promote it to strangers on the 'net. Hopefully our rad little comic can find its audience.

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Discuss Comic Pages / Issue 1 - Video Dreamer - Page 16 - The Glove

« on: April 19, 2014, 05:54:51 AM »

And now the all-important glove finally makes its debut in the comic. The design of the glove is something we spent a lot of time on, as it went through a few different appearances before we got to its current form (you can see one of the earlier designs in the bonus sketch section at the back of the issue 01 download we have in our store). Of course, the main inspiration for the glove is probably obvious to most of you. After all, "it's so bad."