Zoovilization ~ Page 4

After this page, everybody knows who is who for good, I imagine. That was the purpose of this page, alongside getting to know the characters a bit through their interaction.

I had this page planned for last week, but the power supply to my house had other plans. We experienced a power cut during what would otherwise have been my window of opportunity -- time-wise -- to produce this page. And since a huge part of each page is prepared on my computer, I simply couldn't work out the original ink drawings any longer, without electricity.

Power cuts are quite common around where I live, which is the rural countryside of France. For instance, you can depend on it to happen almost each time during your average thunderstorm. Mostly we're out of power for just a few seconds, couple of minutes at most. But this was no ordinary thunderstorm, it was a freak storm with hurricane-like features. It took us back to before the industrial revolution, leaving all households in the vicinity without electricity.

All this is due to the fact that all power lines are above ground. A falling tree probably took the power lines down.

Enough about that. Page 4 of Zoovilization takes us to the place where our three heroes shall be united for the first time on the next page. Afterwards the pace of story telling shall pick up a bit. I dare not predict when I shall place this next page, with freak storms and all. But normally it should be within a week or so. Probably a bit more, I'd say, just to be on the safe side.

Now, I have a cosy fire lit in my fireplace, as the evenings are getting colder already, despite beautiful weather during the day, most times. I shall attend to it now. And it shall attend to me.

I'm the Dopperdude.

Archive

Teaser	Prologue	Page 1	Page 2	Page 3
Page 4

More On The Zoovilization Project

Zoovilization is a new series in preparation by my hand and mind, this time added with creative craftsmanship of co-writer Maarten Schuit, who will supplement my writings with ideas on plot and humour.

'The Zooville Mystery' shall be the first story in the Zoovilization series: an adventure story, brought to you in separate gag strip episodes. For Zoovilization is not a traditional comic book, nor a traditional gag strip. It is both. And a lot more, as we shall find out when I kick off with the first episode SomeTimeSoon.

 
The story of 'The Zooville Mystery' starts in the zoociety of Zooville, a town that is a zoo, and a zoo that is a town. Obviously it stars a lot of animals, three of which you have already met through the teaser: Peter, Eric, and Hatch. Mouse, Turtle, and Crocodile, respectively. We shall catch up with them soon enough, as they are the main characters. And then we shall swiftly get the storyline going.

Other than that, and the mentioning of Zoovilization being an adventure story with a mystery to solve, I shall not disclose too much information about the scenario, to safeguard the element of surprise, for you enjoyment. The story will simply unveil itself in the gentle rhythm of episodes appearing on the Dopperdude.com.

 
As to this rhythm, there shall be no fixed update schedule--my very valuable time (valuable to me, anyway) does not allow for it, I'm afraid. I shall update as often as possible, hoping to attain at least a refreshment rate of 2-3 times a week. I hope to provide you thus with some continuity, which would benefit the following of the story.

However, because Zoovilization is, in the first place, a project for my own amusement, I shall be sure to keep its production amusing to me as well. So I can not promise you anything in the update area. Till you pay me. Money. Lots. (Besides my own amusement, by the way, I hope to amuse as many people as can find their way to Dopperdude.com, even though this is not a specific target. If the project turns out as I envision, I think it has the potential to serve a large-scaled audience, age-wise. But, in that respect, I especially hope it will amuse those visitors to my site who amuse me with their free-content websites).

 
Another strong motivation to take on this project, besides amusement, is that it enables me to bring a prolonged storyline, in a flexible layout, for a change. My main occupations in the cartoon/comic area of late, have been concentrated around self-imposed limitations, as a challenge.
For instance, my cartoons series Nothing Personal has a very fixed set-up: one picture in a fixed layout, no recurring characters. The same goes for my comic series Bor & Stampy, which is almost always presented in a fixed format of 8 standard size pictures per episode, filling an A4 paper format in a prefixed layout. Bor & Stampy are recurring characters, of course, as opposed to whomever is starring in a random Nothing Personal cartoon, but their limitation is that they have no hands or feet, since they are made of toilet-paper left-over carton-thingies. And that's a hell of a limitation, in terms of expression, I can assure you.
Zoovilization, now, allows me to do whatever I want with the layout, and the characters have all their limbs. Which is nice.

 
That said, I will go even further with throwing off the chains: each episode shall be brought to you in any form or style or level of completion that pleases me, or, again, that time dictates. In short: Zoovilization shall be presented to you in the state it is in at the time, which is not necessarily it's final state, but an enjoyable state nonetheless (I'll make sure). So individual panels may be presented polished or not, either as a clear sketched drawing, or in their black and white state, or even in their original concept drawing, if readability allows it. This is to prevent the lack of a normal update table threatening the appreciation of the storyline.
However, word has it, that The Zooville Mystery shall be transformed and reworked into traditional comic book shape upon completion of the story on the internet. Word in my head, that is.

Now on with the preparations of the story, which shall unwind itself as a true adventure story, encompassing everything you might expect from it's title: we shall visit places, face dangers, meet strangers, and make long faces come the end. But let's not hasten the story, for the ink of the early episodes isn't even dry yet!