(May contain some minor spoilers if you are not 100% up to date on the comic.)
Something I’ve been thinking about for a couple years has been the world and history of P.S.I. Already, through the comic, readers have learned a few things about the world. And through some of Nemi’s exposition, have learned a bit about the history.
Keep in mind, the 4th wall stuff and Crossover Wars are still very much apart of P.S.I. as a whole, but that does not mean that “Universe P.S.I.” does not have any substance.
(Minor Spoilers Below. Already revealed in-comic.)
Now, there are a few things that have been revealed in the comic: At least all land-animals have co-evolved into humanoid forms; Insects have evolved into larger beings, and are maintained as the “meat” food source; The government controls and regulates magick; There was conflict involving magick in the past, at least over 500 years ago.
There might have been a few other bits, but I am very close to solidifying the history of “Universe P.S.I.”. As people SHOULD know by now, P.S.I. is my experimental, hobby comic. So writing a backstory has been an on-going process with mostly only a simple idea. But people like consistency and will just on plot holes and such… so I need to think of a lot of angles.
(The Point:)
Basically, I’m wanting to know how my readers would like to be told the history. I mean, I can only say so much through Nemi, because Fes and Ernst SHOULD know more than her anyway…. at least if they payed attention to history class…. Much of this is stuff that really does not work being divulged by any character… in-comic anyway.
I have a couple ideas, and I’d like some feedback. Should I reveal the history as:
(1) Text Story. (easiest)
(2) Text Story, sprinkled with a few pictures with captions. (easy)
(3) Another Reader “Q & A” Arc. (more difficult)
(4) Narrated Mini-Comic. (most difficult)
I kinda know what I wanna do. 3 & 4 would be most difficult for me to do at the moment, though.
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Ah, could it be an “origins” arc? Where have I heard that much-discussed topic before?
Although it would be best to do it in comic form, you might want to do it in text if it gets to be too much of an info dump.
Maybe you could just do the important details in a 10-20 comic arc, and reveal the rest as you go along. That’s kind of similar to what I’ve decided to do with my own origins storyline.
10-20? I was thinking 8 max. Purely narrated, with some pictorial aides. This simply CAN’T be done like a regular comic because there are no characters for it. It covers History of the Universe of P.S.I., not the history of the characters themselves.
The point is that I can “reveal” the history without making it in info-dump in some way, because the characters already should know the history. Except for Nemi and the past 500 years, however before that, only a few bits I could reveal
However…. I did JUST get an idea to make it apart of the storyline… but it will still need to be a sort of info dump… it would take a lot of work though… hmmm… Actually, yea… I have a plan now! o_O … still needs to be info-dumpy.
On a side note, I have a plan for a Print-Only comic storyline…. But that’s a ways off.
If it’s part of the storyline, I think it would be best as a comic, but you could also make it supplementary material, in which case the prose with images would work well.
See, that’s what I was thinking. That it was going to be supplemental material…. since I’m trying to keep the main comic archive as all story related. One-off jokes and such, that don;t relate to… or can’t be incorporated into the storyline somehow, would be posted on the blog and stored in the “Side Strips” section.
However, I just got and idea on how I can…. more or less… info-dump into an actual story comic…. though it’s going to need to art for it for sure…. may take me a while because I need to figure out how exactly I’ll be needing to present it… but it should work out great as far as the storyline is concerned.