The remains of the day...

If I am something about TV series, is a big 24 fan. 24 is like the example of a great TV series. Takes place in an enclosed period of time, carachters are easy to identify and plots are twisted enough to be simple.
So here goes my tribute to them, showing several characters in different situations, saying that what the story is about is over but that a lot more will happen, a refference to the famous split screen (which turns the series itself into a kind of watchable comic) and of course, The ticking clock!
I made the clock to not look like the one of 24, but just similar. The WTF would have looked better if I would put it like this, W:T:F too late to make changes.

Black for Blasted

The terrain after the battle is so smashed is full black. Yeah, I know, It's kinda sad to see that the remains of the battle are a few dragons in white and some smoky and smashed war machines.
Well, it's a low budget comic, sorry :P it's like trying make a 150 million bucks movie with just 150 bucks...I need to change this ambition complex I have.
Not over yet! One more page to see!

Commander in misschief

James throws up order like an asshole commander he sometimes is. First he fires Suikun, but then gives a couple of nicier commands. This gives the starter point for the next comic, when the Athena Group wants to close sealed Genetychs' labs and their mission goes to hell when a section of those labs breaks open and the monsters inside escape.
Another two pages more and the end comes!

Badaboom

Yeah, as that little dialogue square says, it wasn't a very spectacular Hollywood ending. Making explosions is a pain, and when you have only two colours to use, is worst. In my preivous comic, 14:30, the final explosion looked better, because of the colours. But here it looks like a bunch of trees. All after all, I keep making general views of the battlefield, I think it helps to get an idea of how messy the battle was, and where is all this happening.
Check the dialogue: Looks like Suikun is going to get his ass kicked out of his charge, check next page to see what will depart the future for him.

Missiles go...

I just loved to make this kind of shot.
And give James some dramatic light.
Will you see the explosion caused by those huge explosive devices? well, check next page.

airplanes shooting

Oh yeah! How cool is to see some airplanes firing missiles? a lot cool, we all saw it in ID4, and that was the coolest thing airplanes did in the movie, fire missiles. The code Deimos gives is Bomb, Leta, Watio, Partner. I have no idea of military codes so I came up with my own one. It basically spells "BLWP" which is like "BLOW UP" without the vocals and without spaces. Pretty explanatory.

F-18 1/2

Going back again to 24 so I can tell you my influences: If you know the series and had watched season 3 (the best one for me) you might remember that part where Jack summons two F-18 to destroy a helicopter which the bad guy of the show was going to use in order to escape. Since then I loved to have some air fighters in a comic, so here they are, ready to burst some monsters!

Silent one

Looks like here I decided to go a little bit more for the swearing than in previous comics. I don't like swearing so much, in fact, is an easy device when you have no idea of what to put in the screenplay (althought sometimes, swearing gets really funny :P). Here we enter in the final part of the comic, with those two big snakey monsters shooting deadly beams from the hole of the section.

Reminisence of Biohazzard

One of the greaest videogames of all time is "Resident evil" and it's sequels, especially the fourth one. That videogame features one of the best examples of evil corporations taking over the world with biological weapons. I bet it's influence from Alien, with the Weyland-Yutani evil corporation of course.
Here I introduce mine, Genetychs. Opossed to those other stories, Genetychs has little power compared to the Athena Group, and it will be a major character in the following comics that will be after this one. Fear Genetychs!

His first job for the Group

Commander Deimos is known for his previous role in "14:30". Here he is commander of the Army, at least in Washington. I had no idea how it worked, and actually have no idea of the military ranks. But I just wanted to keep it simplified, too difficult to explain in just a page of a little comic book. The building where the Army is placed is based on a building we have here in Spain, I just crossover everything XD like trying to keep Deimos in the shadows as if he is evil, but he is actually a nice guy.

Injured and smashed

As the helicopter has crashed, not Alex neither Tony are ok, they are pretty bad beaten. It's sad to have these characters suffering so much, but that's what happens when the s**t hits the fan, some people dies. Not in this case, they are half dead, unless the teams arrive quickly. Doing this in black and white simplifies the things a lot, I can't even imagine doing this in colour.

4 POV

Now this is pure Black Hawk Down influence. I loved that part of the movie when some characters saw the helicopter going down and crashing. It was a terrific moment, and was one of the most thrilling scenes I saw in a movie theatre. Now I made a comic featuring a helicopter going down with some characters seeing it, I feel happy and fullfilled.

Going down! Is going down!

That line, "Hold on there Tony!" always reminds me of 24. I think I named Tony one of my characters after that awesome TV series :P Who knows, this comic is also called Assault on section 24, and the codename of the helicopter is N24. Yepp, 24 is the most influential TV series of my life, and so it's demonstrated in this comic.

The Magma hits the fan

Yes, it finally blows up the helicopter starts going to hell. Now here is pretty much influential of Black Hawk Down. One of the reasons why I love that movie so much it's because of the helicopters. Helicopters are my favourite vehicle actually, and it hurts me to see them been taken down.

The storm beggins

Oh no, here we go.
The helicopter gets attacked by the Magma Monsters. This upcoming parts ar epretty much influenced by that awesome modern war movie is Black Hawk Down. If you haven't watched it, I recomend it, is really good.

The calm before the storm

So James and Suikun argue about the measures to take in the already lost assault. This page is interesting, since Suikun is taking off his tie, because he is so under pressure he feels the tie is strangling his throat. There's so much black here to.

Improvised serum!

Martin arrives to where Hazzard is waiting and mixes the lemons, the salt and the water to make improvised serum. Then he leaves to get some transport and get Hazzard to a hospital.

Yeah, you can make improvised serum if you mix lemon juice, salt and water. Well, short of improvised serum, something really similar to it. Of course, it's sci fi, you better don't go and make improvised serum when your friends are badly burn injured.

Infinite ammo!

We see Alex piloting the chopper, he wears googles and is sorrounded by equipment and the cockpit computers. Then we see Tony with a Gatling machinegun. The Gatling machinegun fires and in the battlefield some monsters get hit by the bullets.

I always thought that those Gatling machineguns are so huge and, well, awesome looking, that they look like they were included with an infinite ammo cheat. It's also really cool when you have infinite ammo cheat in a FPS. The final pannel is an homage to those games too. Ammunition counter, Health indicator and the aiming cross. Introducing Alex and Tony to the comic, welcome guys!

Aerial view of the battlefield in first pannel. Then we see James talking to Suikun, who tell him that there will be a chopper covering them pretty soon. Just one chopper wont make any effect on the battlefield, but then we learn that Alex and Anthony are flying on it.

Ok, I always found funny something about FPS's videogames. You by yourself can kill an entire army of armoured soldiers, very well trained and without problems. Then why wont a chopper make a huge effect by itself alone killing some little monsters in a battlefield? And also I wanted to introduce Alex Footpraft and Anthony "Tony" Riter in the comic.

Where are the lemons!?

Oh man, it's so silly. This is my 20th century Fox admirational page. I noticed that in every 20th Century Fox movie there's a silly little scene, maybe because studio chiefs want to have it. Sometimes the entire movie is silly, but it's compulsory in Fox movies, I am a fan of Fox, so I put it here.
Martin looks for the following: Lemons, Salt and water. Why? is he doing the shop listing now? No! It's something I had learned from the meds here in Spain. The reason? Keep reading, it's coming in two pages.

Find the medicines

Martin keeps wandering on the battlefield and he happens to find an ambulance. He gets everything he needs, but the serum. Without the serum he will never get the burns of Hazzard hydrated, and he must find an alternative idea. In the distance he sees a groceries shop.
The tank serial number is "021" for no particular reason. It means nothing at all, it was just easy to make. Looks like the ambulance looks like an ambulance, huh?

Yeah! More split screen!

Ha ha! You thought it was over? No, it's never over. More split screen, as you know I based it on 24 split screens which are fairly awesome and fantastic, because I love that TV series and I love it's style and rythm.
Here there are some of the characters shooting, Suikun tries to get re-inforcements for James to cover the sides the silver dragons can't protect, and Maritn keeps looking for an ambulance to get medicines for the dragon Hazzard. He has found one.

Ha ha! Split screen!

Yeah, the split screen is an awesome feature we now all of us know thanks to the awesome 24 TV series. I think the first time it was used was in "The andromeda strain", the movie based on Michael Chrichton's novel. Then later Paul Greengrass used it in Bloody Sunday, I think. But this split screen is directly based in 24.
I love 24, I am a fan of the series, and particularly of the 3rd season. That "Keechunk" sound effect is the one form the clock of the series XD as an homage of probably the most influential TV series of my life. And if you didn't noticed, the title of this comic is an homage too.

Stay awake!

Martin talks to the dragon Hazzard, who thinks he died and it's in hell. He says he wants to go back but Martin doubts he will ever fly again. Martin tells him that if he sleeps he dies, so better stay awake.

That's the screenplay explanation. It's so easy and so fun to make the bite injuries in the flesh of the dragon, that I started and didnt stopped until all his body was covered, or partially covered. The placement of the sound effects here is decissive, I was trying to mock up the dolby sorround, the smaller the letters are, the farther will feel the sound effect.

Anger is Jamesy

Here I used the shadows to portray James as a not veyr likeable character. When he gets angry he can be loathable. Here he goes mad at Victoria for not taking his orders without refuse or ironic responses.
The final line of the page came out by itself. Victoria behaves like a hooker sometimes (just watch her drawing section and you will see) so this line "Five men well armed" was compulsory.

Save the dragons

Martin is saving the life of a badly injured dragon, and he ducks behind a derelicted car, next to the edge of section 24 while the monsters enter in the city.
That was the description in the screenplay of the comic, I never knew it could enter all in one page. Martin here goes like a hero, while he is not, he is just a regular guy in an outstanding situation of peril.
The dragon will soon be revealed as Hazzard.

Page 021

Sooooo much text! I hate doing large texts but I wanted to pay tribute to the awesome spanish comic Fanhunter. There is so much text and barely no drawings, but the drawings are awesome. Which is what I don't have.
Here we see that James doesn't make much important effect on Martin, which means he has not a crap of authority over him.

Page 020

The contrast vision works much better ths way. The letters of the sound effects are much better appreciated and I feel the action a lot much than in other comic pages. The fourth panel was not supposed to be the gun. But now I feel the motion of the scene.
PTOM, always wanted to use that sound effect since I heard it in Minority Report. Yes is blood what spurts from the head of the Magma Monsters, but is black, I wanted to keep i contrasted and PG :D

Page 19

To continue with the story, I have three new pages to offer you. This one shows what Martin saw on his side, yeling for help. I bet there is something between this guy and helpess dragons. Here you see six Magma Monsters eating the poor guy. In the original idea they were throwing lava spits to him, but I never figured how to make it look good.
To this so full of text page will follow a not so full of text page.

This is my action packed escene, James takes one side and Martin takes another. Now without John and Vicky on the battle, it will became more diffult.

Martin, in last pannel, listens the yell of someone. Or something. The revelation in next big splash page.