Adding to that the structuring of a game and you've got something that only someone with plenty of time on their hands would dare to do. That's another reason why I dropped K7 SINdrome. While I already had the basic outline down. What I dreaded was writing all the actual dialogue. That & I did not want to work on designing levels, dungeons & all that shit. As for adapting your comic to a visual novel format. I feel that it would only take moi a month if I worked hard enough at least 5 times a week. I would only take 3 stories. (The maximum I would go to is maybe 5. 2 being bonus or side stories.) I'd use the same exact dialogue that you've written & and add in a couple of dialogue trees to make the game more interactive. I'll probably just end the SINdrome game with a cliffhanger that leads directly into one of the chapters in the comic. The game will direct everybody to the main HIK 7 comic that you're making. In case the game intrigued people enough to see the rest of the story. (I plan on SINdrome being something like a butchered movie version of a hit novel. In the sense that the movie/game is not really needed, but it's cool just to see it with music & sfx.) Kinda like how Suda's Silver Case wants you to read the Sakura Natsume novel after the KAMUIDROME level in order for you to fill in the blanks of what happened to Sumio after he was arrested during the PARADE level. Note: By butchered I mean that I would have to make some edits & cuts here & there just to add in some gameplay. Summoning the official K7 comic again, is it just me, or the artwork style resembles the early Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic? I thoguht the original TMNT looked mangaish. Something like Blade of the immortal or Frank Miller. I'm prolly thinking of a different comic. K7 the comic reminds moi of Resident Evil. Who the fuck is this bitch? I can say this much, that ain't Ada Wong. She's supposed to be hot & sexy. Look at Leon. He's pissed off! For some reason everybody is always drawn with a constipated look on their face. You just had to bring up the comic. Now I won't shut up about how much it sucks. (I even went on their myspace just to tell them how crappy I think their comic was. I said it as civil as I possibly could. You can probably still see me bitching if you go to to the Killer 7 myspace group.) While the art for the K7 comic was pretty bad. What really killed it for moi was the god awful writing. What I hated was how they completely misinterpreted the majority of the cutscenes in the game. "Japan is our ally!" In the game what was implied by that comment was that the U.S. needed to come to Japan's rescue, because Japan was being nuked by a foreign entity. Which enforces that the promise that Garcie & Mills talk about is indeed the U.S. Japan peace treaty. In real life the U.S. is bound by that treaty to come to Japan's aid if they ever get attacked by a foreign nation. In the comic well just look at this bullshit. I cropped & pasted several panels that just made me go WTF!? Are they actually political officials or are they just stupid children on a message board spouting armchair rhetoric? If the rising wind party are supposed to be terrorists who want to return Japan to it's former glory. Why the fuck are they blowing their own country up, LOL!? It gets worse look at what they did to Toru Fukushima. In the game he was painted out to be Japan's last hope for survival as a nation. In the comic Mr. Fuk is just a typical terrorist goon from a Steven Seagal film. I mean shit, I thought Fukushima was a former liberal, not a useless ass army grunt. Why the fuck is Mr. Fuk talking about god? He's japanese. They don't believe in omnipotent gods. Only Pagan spirits. The comic probably wouldn't bother moi so much if the political logic from the Killer 7 source material weren't so accurate & complex to begin with. The drivel that was being spewed in the K7 comic came off like some pedestrian political version of politics as told through an episode of G.I. fuckin' Joe. In short the K7 comic used childish political logic in order to pull their story forward. Another thing I hate was that the dialogue in the comic lacked subtlety. Everybody speaks in a straight forward tone. Man I don't know, the writing just came off as childish. In the Killer 7 game I always got the impression that most of the people in the game were in league with the higher echelons of the government. As such everybody spoke in code, or secret code phrases that only those in the know would understand. Compartmentalization. Information that's obtained on a "need to know" basis. That's part of what made the K7 game what it was. You seriously did not know anything that was going on in the game, because you (The hitman) weren't required to know all the details. What really pissed moi off about the comic is that a lot of K7 fans assumed that the comic was actually canon. Most K7 fans believed that the comic was telling the same exact story as the game, but in a more coherent straight forward matter. (When in reality the K7 comic just made up some random shit that they felt was true to the game.) If only the official comic had been more like your HIK7 comic. Both the art & the writing have the K7 feel. Especially Travis, lol. What really killed the official comic is that they tried to get political when it's obvious that they don't understand how politics flows at all. They wrote some shit that looked like it came straight out of a videogame. (I know K7 is a game, but the writing in K7 wasn't typical video game shit.)

The TMNT comic I'm talking about is this one: http://www.ninjaturtles.com/comics/mirage/one/pg01.htm (The first four volumes were draw by the two original creators. Laird has more "crude" style, which is the one I'm showing here. Eastman's style is a lot sleeker, which I prefer. From there on, they hired other artists.) The K7 comic has a style similar to the one posted above. As for adapting your comic to a visual novel format. I feel that it would only take moi a month if I worked hard enough at least 5 times a week. I would only take 3 stories. (The maximum I would go to is maybe 5. 2 being bonus or side stories.) I'd use the same exact dialogue that you've written & and add in a couple of dialogue trees to make the game more interactive. I'll probably just end the SINdrome game with a cliffhanger that leads directly into one of the chapters in the comic. The game will direct everybody to the main HIK 7 comic that you're making. In case the game intrigued people enough to see the rest of the story. (I plan on SINdrome being something like a butchered movie version of a hit novel. In the sense that the movie/game is not really needed, but it's cool just to see it with music & sfx.) Kinda like how Suda's Silver Case wants you to read the Sakura Natsume novel after the KAMUIDROME level in order for you to fill in the blanks of what happened to Sumio after he was arrested during the PARADE level. I'm interested in the idea of a visual novel that ties in to the comic. As fo myself, just drawing and post-prod. the pages is already a lot of work. There's also the matter of the dialogue. I won't know for sure if the dialogue I'm writing will sound good to an english-speaking reader, but since there's a good share of code speaking (especially coming from Sundance Shot and Y. Harman Smith - they're linked at a "surface level", as Harman says), it can be hidden. There's also a Tarantino-esque conversation I came up with just before Garcian (in his purple suit and sunglasses) starts his job that I personally found funny - between Mills and Garcian revolving around Mills' car and ends in a debate about homosexuality. Mills just goes on and on and on till Garcian shuts him up somehow, lol. More on that later. "Japan is our ally!" In the game what was implied by that comment was that the U.S. needed to come to Japan's rescue, because Japan was being nuked by a foreign entity. Which enforces that the promise that Garcie & Mills talk about is indeed the U.S. Japan peace treaty. In real life the U.S. is bound by that treaty to come to Japan's aid if they ever get attacked by a foreign nation. What I still haven't decided is if Japan ends up getting totally destroyed like in HIK7, partially destroyed or not at all. The only logical thing to do in order for the rest of the plot to make sense is exactly have Matsuken pull some strings and save Japan's ass at the last minute before the US has any chance of doing anything (that they wouldn't do anyway). Matsuken could pull it off when he realized that real politics is a actually a game of death (real politics is literally underground table negotiations -the mahjong table scene in the game is genius, because it shows what real politics are like, without the big meetings at the national Big House of Mighty National Importance complete with bullshit shiny smiles handshakes, public media fodder- and violent war). Therefore, the moment he realized that, he could also see Kun Lan, who exists at a higher level, and also Kurahashi and Akiba, who seemed to be the embodiment of current Japanese politicians, who suck cocks for a living. When Matsuken "kills" them, he killed the past and started a new age for Japan. The two geezers persist as half-dead ideas, as opposed to their prior forms as strong influences. The Killer7 just finish them shortly afterwards. The K7 are able to operate at a spiritual level, so they're actually able to kill ideas, so that they lose influence. Matsuken started working on the real level of politics, which is the underground activity. Underground politics - Where everything is decided. Visible politics - Bullshit/ Propaganda to garner votes. War - The only outcome of real politics. What Matsuken hasn't realized up to that point, is that the real political world is no different from before the roman empire, or even before that. You want it, you conquer it. That's still what happens today, and it's the only way to get things done. Wishing doesn't get you anywhere. You can have all the reason in the world, that doesn't mean shit. What counts is that I've got a loaded gun and you don't, therefore I'm right. It's just that today a smokescreen is used to convince people that they're living in a civilized world in which everything must be done taking laws and rules and all that good sounding crap into account, oblivious to what's really going on, which is savagery that has been at the hearts of everything since the dawn of mankind. Nothing's changed. That Rising Wind crap and Toru Fukushima/god in the comic is ridiculous. It's not even funny. Both the art & the writing have the K7 feel. Especially Travis, lol. Travis is the man, and he's going to appear a lot in this version. How can I not bring him in? His detached attitude and his lack of giving a shit plays very well against all the violence. Like in the game, there's not two-way dialogue between Travis and the Killer7, the K7 just listens. I still haven't devised how Travis got killed, but he seems to know Emir. Do any of the remnant psyches appear at all in the official comic? I haven't read much of it, so I don't know for sure. I'm thinking of cutting to different points in time frequently, depending on the present situation. They come unannounced on purpose, to make things confusing in terms of chronology, but not in terms of ideas. It will all make sense at the end. 1989-1990: Matsuken (in his early 20's) and Kaede's relationship has a hot scene near the beginning of the second chapter. The scene is mora about Matsuken than Kaede, since she's little more than his bitch here. Matsuken is an up and coming politician whose real skills are being repressed by his older fellow party members (which reflects on him not being able to get it up, not even for Kaede, much to her chagrin). Meanwhile, Kaede just got an invitation (by Harman) to do a bodyguard job at Flower, Sun and Rain. Plus 5 others, they all got a similar letter. An important meeting is taking place there, and she plus 5 others are being assigned to protect the participants. 1975 - There's a scene of Young Harman Smith and Dimitri Nightmare torturing the chairman of the Energy Security Meeting in Hakone, in which you learn about the real extent of the IEC's pull in geopolitics (not much, it's really the US the ones calling the shots. The IEC is trying to get leverage with Russia, China, N.Korea, etc. in order to take Japan out of the US' hands and into their own. The US knows this and is just just waiting to see how it all play out without flexing a muscle. By allowing Harman Smith to help Fukushima, the US is really pulling the rug from under the IEC's feet - this in 1975. Fukushima has his own agenda, of course. The chairman is in league with the IEC). Toru Fukushima hired Harman to see how the participant countries would vote, so Fukushima, with that data could manipulate their intentions. And from there, lay the path that would end with Japan's total independence. The US learned of this all too late. In 2010, it's a race. 1975 - The Multifoliae Personae Phenomenon has a quick explanation by Dr. McAllister right in the middle of the first (2003) transformation, heh. I'm doing a quick flashback the day the doc and Harman met and Harman explained to him how it works.

I like the political build up & tension that you have going on. I just wish a certain comic would have done the same. There's also a Tarantino-esque conversation I came up with just before Garcian (in his purple suit and sunglasses) starts his job that I personally found funny - between Mills and Garcian revolving around Mills' car and ends in a debate about homosexuality. Mills just goes on and on and on till Garcian shuts him up somehow, lol. Practically my whole K7 SINdrome game had tarantinoesque dialogue. (Excluding all the prolouge & majour scenes & shit.) My favorite piece of dialogue that I wrote revolved around 3 female roomates.One asian chick, one gothic latina, and one caucasian woman. Their cut scene was the longest, because they just wouldn't shut the fuck up about pointless bull shit. BTW here's a demo I conjured using the HIK7 scans you've uploaded in this thread. Mini version (Only comes with the HIK 7 demo.) http://www.megaupload.com/?d=SXDT0XNP I'm not sure if this version works. I made this version for you. So you could check out how I converted HIK 7. I'm pretty sure you'll be impressed with the way I handled the Sylvia panels. Full version (Comes with HIK 7 demo, & the can celled K7 SINdrome.) http://www.megaupload.com/?d=R7OWNBDR I recommend this version. As it shows you the full extent of the type of direction that I was working on, before I just dropped it. (Way too much dialogue to write.) I'm pretty shocked with how well written most of the dialogue was. The only shit in SINdrome that seemed forced was when I tried to write Garcian as some guy who actually cares. I wrote a bunch of random ass placeholder dialogue just to see how the game would look like. Sundance Shot I didn't have much to work with so I tried to squeeze as much insanity as I could with the pics that I had. (It's pretty damn crazy, lol. As long as you don't get stuck in the Samantha Sitbon part.) I'll post more at the new Hand in Killer 7 SINdrome digital comic thread. Underground politics - Where everything is decided. Visible politics - Bullshit/ Propaganda to garner votes. War - The only outcome of real politics. What Matsuken hasn't realized up to that point, is that the real political world is no different from before the roman empire, or even before that. You want it, you conquer it. That's still what happens today, and it's the only way to get things done. Wishing doesn't get you anywhere. You can have all the reason in the world, that doesn't mean shit. What counts is that I've got a loaded gun and you don't, therefore I'm right. It's just that today a smokescreen is used to convince people that they're living in a civilized world in which everything must be done taking laws and rules and all that good sounding crap into account, oblivious to what's really going on, which is savagery that has been at the hearts of everything since the dawn of mankind. Nothing's changed. That Rising Wind crap and Toru Fukushima/god in the comic is ridiculous. It's not even funny. This quote above shows that you know exacty what you're doing. I heard that the person who wrote K7 is a good writer, but he obviously has no idea what he's doing when it comes to politics. What I hated was how he portrayed the president as making all the decisions. The politics that was used in the comic resembled 3rd world country politics more than anything, but as far as I recall, both US & Japan are supposedly 1st world countries so their system of operations should've been far more complex than the bullshit that was shown in the comic. Do any of the remnant psyches appear at all in the official comic? I haven't read much of it, so I don't know for sure. Iwazaru was in the comic. http://killer7.3dactionplanet.gamespy.com/1-017.jpg http://killer7.3dactionplanet.gamespy.com/1-018.jpg It was retarded. The comic portrayed Iwazaru as if he were standing in front of Garcian.

I forgot to ask. Are Kun Lan & Harman Smith still playing chess games in your HIK 7 comic? For Daydream cafe, I'm thinking about adding in a couple of 2 min. intermission scenes depicting Mika Kishi dying while playing a game of hop scotch. Mika will never get the chance to finish her game of hop scotch. At first it'll start with implausible looney toon deaths like a piano falling on her head, or the ground crumbling beneath her feet. The intermissions will eventually escalate to Mika getting shot dead by a death squad, Japan being nuked, Mika dying from a plague, and Mika being kidnapped by government officials who will detain her inside a penitentiary stronghold meant for terrorists, who will in turn crucify her, & strip her naked, or what not. (It won't be as graphic as it sounds. They're only two minute intermission cutscenes.) Basically the underlying message for the Mika hop scotch intermission scenes is that we live life day by day thinking everything is all fun & games.(Peachy keen) We tune out all the disasters & catastrophes around us, because they occur outside of our social circle & the disasters have nothing to do with us. (It'll never happen to us. Or so we think.) However one day, when we least expect it. We might become the new statistics (victims) of the current disasters of today, and it will most likely penetrate our bubble when we least expect it. During our fun & games. (leisure time.) That, and I just want to portray a hot chick getting her ass killed over & over, lol.

Ah man, I get sick of hearing Paris Hilton, it's like anything that even mentions her name loses credibility. I don't want to hear Harman Smith mentioning her, I'd be traumatized by finding he's wasted a single brain cell on knowing who she is, and she doesn't deserve to be mentioned in a Killer 7 story. Hell, she doesn't deserve to be mentioned by anyone short of her brothel's madame explaining their selection to clients. I used the word 'mentioned' 4 times :o

I forgot to ask. Are Kun Lan & Harman Smith still playing chess games in your HIK 7 comic? Yes. And their game ends pretty much the same way as in K7. That is, for now. I'm also pulling a Dead or Alive ending right at the very very end of the whole thing. The chess game continues after 500 years and it never fucking ends. Overdrive Mask deSmith (which is like a giant flying mecha that gets launched from a giant launch elevator like in Evangelion. The Killer7 is now 7 robots that combine and transform like power rangers or someshit. The Killer7 is now the world hero instead of a shady underground hitman) versus zillions of Final Smiles. At this point I'm aiming for over-the-top antics to show how ridiculous and pointless the whole thing was. OMdS launches his thousands of nuclear missiles towards the massive cloud of Final Smiles, and... The Earth explodes in a million pieces. Travis drinks a soda on a piece of debris in the middle of space with some bitch. Maybe I'll have him saying something like "Straight up, can't wait to see what happens next". Like a neverending Shiva dance, existence is absurd. Travis is there 'cause he's out of existence. If you want to rationalize it. For Daydream cafe, I'm thinking about adding in a couple of 2 min. intermission scenes depicting Mika Kishi dying while playing a game of hop scotch. Mika will never get the chance to finish her game of hop scotch. At first it'll start with implausible looney toon deaths like a piano falling on her head, or the ground crumbling beneath her feet. The intermissions will eventually escalate to Mika getting shot dead by a death squad, Japan being nuked, Mika dying from a plague, and Mika being kidnapped by government officials who will detain her inside a penitentiary stronghold meant for terrorists, who will in turn crucify her, & strip her naked, or what not. (It won't be as graphic as it sounds. They're only two minute intermission cutscenes.) Basically the underlying message for the Mika hop scotch intermission scenes is that we live life day by day thinking everything is all fun & games.(Peachy keen) We tune out all the disasters & catastrophes around us, because they occur outside of our social circle & the disasters have nothing to do with us. (It'll never happen to us. Or so we think.) However one day, when we least expect it. We might become the new statistics (victims) of the current disasters of today, and it will most likely penetrate our bubble when we least expect it. During our fun & games. (leisure time.) Well, it's true that we're de-sensitized to all the brutal violence all around us, but then again, modern society cultivates nihilism (each one for himself). Since we're theoretically social beings, this will naturally also create a sense of otherworldly fantasy going on if what's going on it's not strictly with "I". If we get a toothache, for instance, it automatically becomes the worst thing happening in the world. Who cares if people are getting drilled someplace else, my tooth fuckin' hurts. Something like this.

Just a quick post (I'm actually working kind of hard on this one as I'm typing) to show a bit of "economic shading". It's a lot less painful and it actually looks better than that fancy mismatch of gradients and all those shades of gray. The secret to this revolutionary technique passed on for generations is: Step#1: Hit Paint bucket. Step#2: HIt it again. Just a couple a panels from page three showing Sylvia at gunpoint from a Red Gunner who would very much like the S-2 safe to be opened. Only problem is...

Looks cool, Kitano, awesome work.