So as a practice run, I'm making a comic for Chibi-Pa (a local con in November) called Dream Waker. I'm still fleshing out the actual story line, since I'm still not sure if it should be a one-shot or a short series (more likely a short series). It's a fantasy, based on dreams. I've been working on it for about a week now; here's a general idea:
Imagine if instead of your body shutting itself off and your brain rearranging thoughts in your head when you dream, your spirit/subconscious actually sinks into a "dream plane", an area purely made up of people's dreams. "Dream Waker" (this is the title; it is also apparently an iPhone alarm clock app that wakes you up gently instead of an annoying blaring alarm) is about this group of kids(teenyboppers, 12-14yrs old) that don't actually lose consciousness like they're supposed to, so they can wander around and explore the Dream Plane and remember everything that happens. The Dream Plane moves along with the Earth, and can only be accessible during the evening hours(so if you sleep in the daytime, you do not enter the Dream Plane). A "Dream Waker" is a person that can maintain consciousness while traversing the Dream Plane.
The main character (who is currently nameless because I suck at names) always wears a sleeping mask because since he's virtually awake when he goes to sleep at night and ends up in the dream world, he's not getting the rest he would usually get if his body disconnected from his mind; he has a collection of them, ranging from plain solid colours to patterned and girly(the sleeping mask is his trademark item/look). He wears a stopwatch around his neck, one of the cool types with a clock, countdown, and alarm (I had to look it up to check if they actually exist, they do!) because he can only stay in the Dream Plane for a maximum of 8 hours, or else he'll be stuck in a comatose state in the real world (this increases to 12, the active hours of the Dream Plane, as he gets more and more used to traversing back and forth). He's also very much in love with apples.
Each of the kids that maintain consciousness in the Dream Plane have some sort of time keeper unique to them so that they can keep track of their time spent there as well, and have their own ways of coping with the lack of real sleep(ie: short naps/apples, digital watch/energy drink, mp3 player/candy, etc).
They have short adventure and shiz, but soon it becomes their goal in the Dream Plane to try and defeat the nightmares of little kids(little kids because they have the freest imagination, leading to really dangerous shit like dragons and boss monsters because they don't have a full grasp of "reality")
...or something like that. So, what do you guys think? Here's a sketch I did in history of the main character eating a shitload of apples, along with the title image:
I want to experiment a lot with this manga, especially with style. I'm actually going to transfer that sketch of him eating apples to a canvas today and paint it with acrylics to see how it turns out.
So, what do you guys think? Feedback, please!!
