COMMISSIONED comic

Well, almost didn’t finish this one. Honestly, it was more because of poor planing on my part than the artwork taking to long to produce. I do feel, however, that I’m going about these a bit quicker – and that’s a good thing.

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago I received a lot of recommendations and ideas for stuff to draw, and Nintendo properties (A.K.A. Nintendo’s dead horses) got repeated over and over again. I really don’t care much for Zelda, and while I do have fun playing Mario games I don’t really like the whole concept of Mario on its own. It’s a fun game, but a fascinating and complex world it is not.

Metroid, on the other hand, I love with a passion. I remember the first time I played the original Metrod I was fascinated by how different the game was. Most Nintendo games I had seen were either cheerful and harmless or  felt like a campy action movie – but Metroid felt truly alien and it took itself seriously. The game was intimidating and the environment they tossed you into was simply oppressing, even bleak. Even the music was eerie, and the intro theme remains to this day one of my favorites of all time.

Super Metroid is still one of my favorite games, and while I missed the Gameboy incarnations (I don’t adapt well to handheld gaming) and the first two Primes (I didn’t own a Gamecube) I enjoyed Corruption to the fullest and still consider it to be one of the best Wii games ever made (not that there’s all that much competition).

“Other M” you say? I have no idea what you’re talking about. You must have gotten your franchises mixed up.

Anyway, I’ve drawn Samus Aran before so I decided that I wouldn’t focus on her as much this time. I’ve never been a big fan of showing the sexy side of Samus, either, because she’s easily one of the biggest bad-asses in the galaxy. In my book, that’s as sexy as it can get. So I focused on the scenery instead, more specifically Zebes. I played Super Metroid for a while, and even though I must’ve played it for the last time just a year ago (perhaps a bit more) I was shocked at how “bubbly” the terrain was. the first layer of Zebes is made of bluish/purple blocks, composed of bubbles. If Samus’ chozo suit had a needle gun she could’ve just popped the whole place and been outta there in ten minutes.

When I look at old platform games, I like to imagine what the world might’ve been like for real. Not like those (admittedly amusing) 3D versions of Mario you see around the web that are basically just the platforms floating around. I like to try and figure out what the original designers imagined the place to be like, and what decisions they might have made in order for the game to actually be possible with the technological limitations of back then. I’ve always imagined the environments in the original Metroid and Super Metroid to be huge caverns, with ancient Chozo ruins scattered all over the place.

I guess that’s pretty obvious, but still, this is more or less how I imagine it. Did I hit anybody’s nail, or did you all imagine it vastly different?

Good hunting;
O