HELL HOTEL
Follow Fred the bounty hunter as he hunts hidden monsters.
THE CHALLENGE
After completing the Here Be Cryptids CYOA Game, I tasked myself with writing a fully-contained story within a one-shot. I had never done comic illustrations before, so I wanted to use this opportunity to gain experience with things like paneling and dynamic illustrations.
THE SOLUTION
I began this project with only the rough concept of Fred the bounty hunter. I wanted the main character of the comic to have a fun personality along with interesting abilities, so I thought of a zombie who uses his left arm and his spine as weapons to wrangle law-breaking monsters. To add another layer to the story, I decided to have all of these monsters exist undercover within a normal human city. I wanted the main plot to be relatively simple so I could focus on characters and create a vibrant world, so I had the story revolve around a new drug for monsters that Fred had to stop from reaching the streets. This way I had a story that was basic enough to flesh out characters while still putting a fun twist on it.
THE COMIC
The Hell Hotel One-Shot was born. The story starts out with Fred and Detective Rowan, a werewolf, facing off against the main villains of the story. The villains use Rowan to test their new drug and he hulks out, eventually knocking Fred unconscious. Upon waking up, Fred introduces us to Eternum City, where monsters live in disguise with humans. We learn that many monsters have no problems living among humans, but it's Fred's job to track down those that do. Readers follow Fred as he meets up with a sober Rowan to figure out what's happening. The two then travel throughout Eternum, meeting important figures and getting into fights as they attempt to stop this new drug from reaching the streets.
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You can find some pages of the rough draft of this comic here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/137aqsTlWi4-R1cICB5BFNz8PoxWpx8x1?usp=sharing