The first comic story I put together was for an anthology comic “Atomic Lead #2” compiled by Edward Pun. (Available print-on-demand here) https://indyplanet.com/atomic-lead-2
All the contributors to the 2007 comic issue were working at Sucker Punch Productions at the time.
With my experience in 3d art I felt more comfortable creating a story using digital 3d characters and environments constructed and rendered in Maya instead of doing traditional 2d art. The constraint of the issue being printed in black and white led me to try a scanning electron microscope look to the rendering. I’ve always loved the look of SEM images and wished I could have worked in a lab doing that while I was still doing molecular biology research.
The first character I settled on was a lazy/slacker stem cell, Stymie, who wouldn’t decide on what cell type he should differentiate into:
Like usual for personal projects I worked out a lot more world-building than was necessary for a six page story. The clash in Cell Culture Clash involved five groups at odds with each other at the microscopic level:
- Cells: Advanced Eukaryotic cells like those in plants and animals. In the story Stymie and his friend Mac belong to this group.
- Bacteria: Simpler Prokaryotic cells that were more “animalistic” than Cells. More like pets and nuisances animals to the “humanoid” cells. (unused in story)
- Virus: Presented as mechanical walkers or vehicles operated by their simple DNA or RNA pilots. The act of a virus infecting cells is like a religious conversion for them.
- Enzymes: Presented as small swarm of “insects” that are very particular or OCD about what they interact with. (unused in story)
- Molecules: Mindless cloud entities that could be dangerous depending on the properties of their components. Like a cloud of hydrogen chloride molecules that could break down the other groups. (unused in story)
Here are the final pages for my story:
And just for fun I did an autostereogram of the Mac character. So see if you can get your crossed a bit to see him in 3d!
