Comments on: CHRONOS BATTALION

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 30 May 2008 17:14:28 +0000

I just saw the movie today. The ants were cool in a wierd way

By: Kyle

Kyle — Thu, 29 May 2008 08:56:47 +0000

Damnit, Bob, you should rebel against the conformity of the comics that Zuda has featured so far and make your 8 pages a lengthy essay on the ethical dilemnas faced by the German footsoldiers during WWII! You could put little cartoony doodles in the margins to make sure it counts as pictures and everything.

Also, bear in mind that with the current state of the dollar, 52 * $250 is still only about the price of a pint and a packet of pork scratchings…

By: Bob Byrne

Bob Byrne — Thu, 29 May 2008 07:52:21 +0000

Deadly! I skimmed through the submission crap and didn’t spot that, cheers Mr Thompson.

Kyle I hear ya. We’re getting ahead of ourselves though, I only have 8 screens to tell my story so there won’t be any in depth ethical talk. Writing comics is a piece of piss by the way everybody

By: Stephen Thompson

Stephen Thompson — Thu, 29 May 2008 00:21:36 +0000

They do pay you for Zuda work if you’re picked as a winner. $250 a page for 52 pages (or screens as they call them). That’s for all the art, writing and lettering though.

By: Kyle

Kyle — Wed, 28 May 2008 10:40:30 +0000

You can get some really interesting ideas out of the situation though; is it bad to be a soldier who goes along with orders unquestioningly? Is it bad if you do horrible things with good intentions? Is it bad to try and ignore what you suspect might be going on if it makes life easier for you?

I mean, sure, not every German in the country at the time was a committed Nazi, but horrible stuff still happened to people organised by those that were Nazis. In the same way that not every American is a xenophobic idiot, but there are still people being arrested, jailed and tortured in Guantanamo Bay. Some really uncomfortable ideas come out of there if you poke around long enough….

By: Bob Byrne

Bob Byrne — Wed, 28 May 2008 08:09:34 +0000

But they weren’t all bad, the vast majority of the average soldiers weren’t committed nazis, even some of the higher ups weren’t nazis, they were in the army long before Hitler came around. My favourite book, ‘The Forgotten Soldier’ is about a French kid who joins up and has to fight alongside equally normal lads. Get it, I’ve read it 6 times now.

I’d love to expand upon ‘are we the evil baddies?’ conversations between the soldiers. So far out of the 50ish men in the battalion only 8 are die-hard nazis, the rest just want to defend their country. From dinosaurs!!!

By: Kyle

Kyle — Tue, 27 May 2008 18:39:48 +0000

The thing with the Nazis is that they’re a great foil for a hero - you’ve got the massively organised military structure, some aesthetically striking uniforms with very cleverly-designed colour schemes and logos/iconography, and at the back of it all there’s a scary scary ideology that sets them apart from the “they’re not all bad” kind of villains because, well, the Nazis *were* all bad.

Mind you, they get so over-used that in comics at least a lot of the time I feel like nazis are present because the writers can’t think of any convincing “evil” characters of their own, so sticking a swastika on a character’s armband is visual shorthand for them being evil, rather than putting the effort into explaining why the character is evil in the first place. (Not saying you’ll do that, Bob, just one of those things I notice a lot. Like the way there are a lot of comics about ninjas which seem to not know much about the actual history of ninjas with the whole Hanzo Hattori myth and stuff…)

Dec, admit it - you just love nazi sex midgets, don’t you? It’s ok man, we’re not here to judge you…

By: Dec

Dec — Tue, 27 May 2008 13:48:32 +0000

I once tried explaining how i really like the dramatic imagery associated with Nazis. The uniforms, the inperial symbols, etc, as an artist i just think that’s all cool. However as i was drunk, i didn’t really explain myself right and it came out as “AH MAN, I LOVE NAZIS!!!’

Those character designs are great Bob.

Dec.

By: Bob Byrne

Bob Byrne — Tue, 27 May 2008 12:49:36 +0000

What’s not to love about Nazis? Nah, I’m fascinated with WW2 and love reading stories from the German perspective. Yeah they’re the baddies but in the new comic you’ll grow to love them. Or they’ll commit genocide on your ass!

By: Kyle

Kyle — Tue, 27 May 2008 12:47:02 +0000

Haven’t seen it yet but the complaints seem to be people saying that the new one didn’t live up to their expectations, which is hardly a fucking surprise when most of the reason people want to see a new Indy is nostalgia for how cool the originals were, back when we were all kids. On the other hand, that skidstain Shia Lebouf or whatever the fuck his name is was involved, so maybe the naysayers have a point…