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I'm Making a book out of Obstinate Melon's FF7 comic

Odysseus

Ninja Potato
AKA
Ody
Hey all, I know many folks around here have read Obstinate Melon's hilarious and brilliant FF7 adaptation/parody web comic at some point.
With the remake coming, its an exciting time to look towards the future of FF7, but its also a time to look back on the past. Melon is someone
who grew up with the original, and has become bitter with Square and what they did with FF7 in the years that followed the original. That is
very much reflected in his comic, and the comic is drenched in 90's/early 2000's video game references and humor in general. It's very much a
look at what FF7 was to people back then, which is what really got me interested in this project.

I should say that:
1) I did get Melon's permission to make this book with his comic.
2) Nobody will be making any money off of this but the printing company, Melon and I won't see a penny of it. It's just for people who want it, not to make a profit.

The book will be self-print, made to order straight from the printing company.

Anyway, here's what the pages will look like:
Capture.JPG
(please ignore jpeg compression) Every page consists of 5 elements: The original comic page, the date it was originally posted on deviant art, Melon's description of the page, a corresponding image of the game to accompany the events portrayed on the given page, and an a e s t h e t i c ff7 page border on the bottom. All told the book will be around 500 pages (not sure on an exact number, I'm cutting it off at the end of disk 1 but his comic isn't quite there yet.)

I'm posting about this here both to see if anyone is interested and also because I could use some help. Most pages have that image of ff7 and a ps1 controller on them, but Melon references quite a few other games throughout the comic, so I change the picture to the corresponding referenced game. Thankfully I own most of the games Melon references, but not all of them. I was wondering if I could ask one of you guys to take some equivalent pictures for some of the games if you happen to own them? I need Silent Hill on ps1, Chrono Trigger on super nintendo, Ehrgiez on ps1, and Chocobo Racing on ps1. Here's the ff7 one for reference:
Midnight, 2001.jpg
(gets pretty cropped in the book huh) Don't worry about all the extraneous items, just the game and controller is fine (some set dressing could be fun though.) Any help would be most appreciated!
 

Odysseus

Ninja Potato
AKA
Ody
Alrighty, I got the bottom-of-the-page image for Chrono Trigger from a swell dude over on the Chrono Trigger reddit page, so that's one down. Still need one for Chocobo Racing, Silent Hill 1, and Ehrgiez if anybody here happens to own those games~ :3
 

Odysseus

Ninja Potato
AKA
Ody
Just a little update on this thing. I decided it's better to have two 250ish page books rather than one 500ish page book. That way it will be much cheaper to print, and I won't have to wait for melon to get to the end of disk one before I can start printing the volume. "Volume 1" will have the first 238 pages of the comic, ending right after the Dyne fight.

One thing I still need is a cover. Ideally Melon would draw a cover himself, but that poor man barely even has time for doing the comic anymore so I really don't want to bother him with anything else. I could draw something myself, but I feel like that would be stepping on Melon's toes a bit seeing as it isn't MY comic. My idea right now is to take a picture of disk one of ff7 in my ps1, surrounded by some other retro ff7 junk, but I'm open to suggestions!

If all goes well, I should have this available to print soon.
 

Odysseus

Ninja Potato
AKA
Ody
This book is still for your own personal use, right? If so, I don't see how you could possibly step on his toes by drawing a cover.
It's for my own use, and anybody else who wants to print one (nobody makes money there but the printing company) but I'm still trying to make it look "professional." Also, I'm nowhere near as good at drawing as he is so the cover might not look great if it was something I drew.
 

Odysseus

Ninja Potato
AKA
Ody
Sorry for all the spamming I've been doing lately. I got too many FF7 related irons in the fire... all that remake hype I guess. Anyway, here's the entire cover spread:
cover.JPG
(ignore the purple and red lines, that's just the UI of the book creation program.) With this, I just need to make the inner title page, the glossary page, and the Special thanks page (also still need some game pictures on three pages) and I'm done.
 

Odysseus

Ninja Potato
AKA
Ody
IT IS DONE!
You can check it out here!
I know $62 CAD (~$50 US) is pretty prohibitively expensive. It mostly comes down to the paper quality and ink quality I chose, if anybody her is interested in printing their own copy, I can upload a version with lower quality printing that will cost potentially less than half that (still in color, too.)
At the very least you can use the link to preview the layout of the book, I had it so it previews the entire thing cover to cover.

This book covers up to page 238 of the comic, once Melon reaches the end of disc one I will work on part 2.
 

Odysseus

Ninja Potato
AKA
Ody
Yo would anybody be interested in helping me solve a "TheLifestream.net Mystery™" ? I'm working on Volume 2 of the book, and as part of that I'm including a Gallery that has images related to the comic. It's mostly just Melon's other FF7 art, but there's also a piece of fan art that I want to include as well:

PJ-1.jpg

Look at that glorious image! It's based on a line from Elena panel 4 of this page. The reason I'm calling this a TLS Mystery™ is because, according to Melon, this picture was actually done as a commission for the Tseng fanclub here. I was wondering if anybody either A) knows who the artist is, or B) knows who commissioned it. I want one of their permission to use it in the book. I found the Artists DA page but its been dead for six years.
 

Odysseus

Ninja Potato
AKA
Ody
Ooooookay, so I've been sitting on this for a while now, but after I showed the comic to melon he was actually very impressed with it. He's worked with me to make some improvements to the thing over the past couple months, and I can now officially reveal that this stupid fan project I started is now the OFFICIAL book of Melon's comic!
https://www.deviantart.com/obstinatemelon/journal/Physical-Comic-Proof-of-concept-830721099
He's gauging interest in a wider release, as well as looking into his options for monetizing the thing. I'm still not sure on the legality of selling something like this, but seeing as Crimson Sun sells FF themed tarot cards, prints and such I think there's at least a possibility.
 

Odysseus

Ninja Potato
AKA
Ody
Thanks! This is the first time I've ever "gotten out there" so to speak. It's been a really fulfilling experience to work with Melon on this, he's a really nice guy. I only hope this encourages him to keep going with the comic, I can never get enough of it too!
 

Odysseus

Ninja Potato
AKA
Ody
Small update for the kids, I've got the "Official" version of the book uploaded now. I'll provide the appropriate links once Melon makes his own announcement (might still be a minute,) but in the mean time I want to break down the details of this thing.

The first volume of the book, "Disc One, part I" contains the first 238 pages of the comic. That's the beginning of the game right up to the end of the battle with Dyne at Corel Prison. Every page has a picture of the actual game corresponding to the events of the comic page, taken straight off my old CRT with my phone to capture that authentic crusty 90's strategy guide look. Beyond the comic pages, there's also seven additional full page drawings from Melon that were released along side the comic. There's a tribute to Johnny, four images celebrating his deviant art page view count, a tribute to AVALANCHE (which I funded lol) and a Tribute to Barret. The first page view image is kinda special since it wasn't on his DA page but buried in his long forgotten photobucket account, I had to do some archaeology for that one. Every single drawing by Melon in the book has an artists description from him, both the comic pages and the other drawings. Every image also has the date of original online publication, for the sake of giving some of the artist comments context. Also, Don't remember if I mentioned this, but all of the comic pages were upscaled using an AI program, since most of them only existed as jpegs and I needed them in high quality. It turned out pretty clean since this AI was made to work with "anime style" art.

There's also six pages of extras in the back of the book, just some other stuff I felt should be included. There's some of Melon's SUPER OLD FF7 art I also dug up from his Photobucket account (I'm talking from like 2004.) There's the poll he conducted that gave the comic its name, along with the percentage of votes towards each option, there's some variant versions of the Avalanche tribute, and there's a little Q&A I conducted with him.

The price of the book is solely the price of production, no additional profit margin for Melon or I because he decided it was too risky to sell. The only people making money are the book printers. The prices are:

Hard Cover: $54.31 + tax and shipping

Soft Cover: $15.89 + tax and shipping

You might be wondering why the hard cover is disgustingly more expensive. Well sonny Jim, that's because Capitalism is a bitch the ink quality on the hard back is the nicer option between the two, which adds additional price per page added. In a 262 page book, that adds up. Adding a hard cover to begin with is an extra $10 too. I made the hard cover for myself mostly, but it'll be available for anybody else that hates themselves too. The soft cover is the version that I would call the "real" version of the book.
 

Glaurung

Forgot the cutesy in my other pants. Sorry.
AKA
Mama Dragon
Yo would anybody be interested in helping me solve a "TheLifestream.net Mystery™" ? I'm working on Volume 2 of the book, and as part of that I'm including a Gallery that has images related to the comic. It's mostly just Melon's other FF7 art, but there's also a piece of fan art that I want to include as well:

View attachment 4645

Look at that glorious image! It's based on a line from Elena panel 4 of this page. The reason I'm calling this a TLS Mystery™ is because, according to Melon, this picture was actually done as a commission for the Tseng fanclub here. I was wondering if anybody either A) knows who the artist is, or B) knows who commissioned it. I want one of their permission to use it in the book. I found the Artists DA page but its been dead for six years.

Super late to the thread but I'm here!

I could recognize that style anywhere! She's @CrimblySun.
 

Odysseus

Ninja Potato
AKA
Ody
Super late to the thread but I'm here!

I could recognize that style anywhere! She's @CrimblySun.

Lic actually helped me figure that out over PM, turns out Lic was actually the one who commissioned that to begin with! Thanks for chiming in anyway though.

I guess speaking of that picture, I wasn't able to get into contact with Crim anyway. Tried asking on Tumblr but never got a response, and I'm not about to make a twitter now after all this time. Now that the book is official, I'm not sure I should be using anybody's art but Melon's anyway.
 
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