Spoileriffic!: Sky Pirates of Neo Terra
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Yes, I know, it’s the worst split screen ever. It’s the first time in a long time where I haven’t had lighting control. And, you know, trying to do it with the couch was a lot more difficult than I thought it would be.
But yeah. Sky Pirates. If it were a lot longer and fleshed out the characters rather than playing to their one trait, as well as given the universe a lot more grounding, it would have been a fabulous series. But well… yeah.
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Thanks for the review of the comics.
You are right the comic was originally supposed to launch at the same time as the video game. The video game had about 12 hours of story (with a lot more evil and death). The racing part of the video game launches in September on Facebook and the single player story launched in December and will address what you are talking about. The comic takes place about 60% of the way through the video game and expands on some story elements from that.
Check out http://www.skypiratesneo.com for more info on the world.
Glidewing races – It’s explained in the issue 0 that is at the back of the graphic novel that you didn’t review. Due to tradition if a racer wins 5 races in a row then they can appoint whomever they want to be in charge of the high council. In this case the Pirate King would appoint the Witch Queen as ruler over Neo Terra.
Glidewings are powered by fire crystals which when crushed can give them powers to hover and fly.
Light crystal, maybe not draw right since it seemed that all the crystals are about the same size but the crystal was bigger than the rest and would have enough power for someone holding it to not be influenced by the machine long enough for to rescue Racket and/or destroy the machine.
Pirate King being close to the light crystal made him really nice, hence saving the bunny and helping Suma.
The reason the kids aren’t affected by the machine when at first on the island is because they are close to Suma who has it in her bag. Once they are separated and pulled closer to the tower and only Ricket and Billy are close to the crystal the girls begin to fight.
Once in the control room the machine overpowers Ricket because he is no longer in contact with it.
Some crystals do have ambient powers, fire crystals for example will emit heat. But you can see the difference between a master user like Arra and a novice like Suma. I would have loved to have more Arra in this story but it just would have been too much with the other characters.
I’ll listen to it again and see if I can answer any of your other questions.
Thanks for watching and for the explanation!
I wasn’t aware that there even was a game, much less that the comic was intended to take place in the middle of it. I just saw it in the shop and got it because it was pretty and, well, sky pirates. I couldn’t resist.
Thank you for the answers to the questions I was left with and I’ll be sure to check out the game when it launches. I really did enjoy the idea of it and I would like to see the whole story unfold.
Also Suma and Pirate King are not brother/sister. They are both from the same tribe however (Bending Grasslands) so maybe a cousin or something.
The Sky Pirates attack the Anubis guys – Councillor Babaroun of Great Wastes Tribe to free Grash who is still in the cage.
Suma tries to cast a spell that would bring Marak’s glidewing to the ground “Be bound to the ground” but instead she get’s herself stuck to his glidewing.
People know where forgotten isle is – they just don’t go there. The tribe that settled there was warped by the dark energies of the isle into the monsters they now are. People normally come back from the Forgotten Isle.
Racket was kidnapped not just to fix glidewings but also to build the machine that amplifies the islands powers. In hindsight you are right I would have had billy smash the machine instead of the Pirate King.
Sorry – Do not come back from the Forgotten Isle
Before you spoil too much more of the story, I have to ask. Why release it as a comic? I understand the cross-platform aspect of it, and that the game probably suffered from schedule slip if the comic came out at least a year and a half before the launch of the game. Why not just wait until the game launched so that you could actually ask your audience if they read comics before putting the time and efforts into the comic that needed all of the backup narrative from the game to make sense?
As it is, you’ve filled in a lot of the plot holes, but these were not things that were actually in the comic. I’m not even sure where one would find the bonus back comic if they were following the issues. Playing the game seems to be essential to understanding the comic, so why not just release the comic as an in game cut scene? Or maybe even a bonus download once they hit 60% as a reward for getting that far?
I hope I’m not being rude for asking. I’m a bit of a transmedia junkie.
Acutally I disagree – the only thing that I explained that wasn’t in the comic was how the crystals and glidewings work – which we didn’t need to explain in the book because we could get away with saying “they’re magic”
. The rest I just answered your questions but all the detail is in the book. For example “why do the Sky Pirates do anything” – There is a scene where they are clearly breaking Grash out of his cage and helping their gang member.
I still think the comic stands well on it’s own without the game around it; it’s a good fun story with great art.
The game slip was not our doing but the publisher we had at the time. The way comics work as you know is that we have to solicit them far ahead of when they are released. We completed issue 1 in March – 6 months before it actually released and right up until the start of September we thought it would be releasing with the game.
I’m happy that Facebook and Iphone are easy platforms for us to release the game on instead of having it sit around collecting dust because Wii’s aren’t popular anymore
I simply love comics and the medium and having a book is more impactful then just a cut scene. Camilla makes pretty art and I wanted something else for all her fans to enjoy.
We will be doing a new series of web comics for http://www.skypiratesneo.com and releasing the existing comics through the site as well for everyone to enjoy (2012).