Megalith, Art and Storytelling

Hey there, Germán here 🌞!

We missed each other last month and I really missed this moment of sharing some stuff with you. February was intense, I spent the whole month in Helsinki working at the Supercell offices (I started working in Clash of Clans last November! Hopefully I will share some cool stuff I’ve been working on with you here) and then got super sick x_x

Incredible experience, here we are now and I wanted to take this time to talk a bit and reflect about one of the projects I am working on, our comic book, Megalith.

Recently I was rewatching Akira Kurosawa’s speech from the 1990 Oscars, where he received an honorary award. At one point, he says:

“… I don’t feel that I understand cinema yet … but what I promise you is that from now on I will work as hard as I can at making movies and maybe by following this path I will achieve an understanding of the true essence of cinema and earn this award.”

Wtf, right? We live in a world where so many people act as if they know everything (and thanks to that attitude, they often get their way) and then you have Kurosawa, an actual legend, saying this with humility.

For a moment, I wondered if writing this newsletter was like claiming I do understand art. But then realized this is a way of trying to understand it one day, hopefully.

The only way to get closer to understanding art is to do the actual work. The work is how you show the world what you think about art and life.

A few drops back, I talked about public speaking and a presentation I gave at an entertainment event.

Today I want to talk about the project I was presenting.

Megalith, the comic book I’m co-developing with the writer Lizz Lunney. We worked together building the world of the video game OlliOlli World. After finishing working on the game we decided to join forces to create our own IP and tell a story that truly matters to us.

Megalith Islands: A Journey into a New Universe

This is a story that follows the adventure of two friends in a fantasy world.

Dji and Skit sail across the seven Megalith Islands in a tale of friendship, creativity, and overcoming challenges, told through this unusual and humorous world.

Little is known about the origins of the seven Megalith Islands, but these two reckless friends are about to uncover secrets hidden in the depths of the world as they embark on a journey that will change them forever.

These two best friends embark on a mission triggered by a family event. In the first chapter, Skit’s aunt passes away, and they have to travel in search of the inheritance, which is a family legacy.

From here, they decide to leave the capital island and travel through the archipelago.

On their journey, they encounter a constellation of unique characters and are swept into an adventure that, ultimately, strengthens their friendship and changes the way they view their own roles in the world.

An interesting detail we explore in the story is how the distant past can still affect us in ways we can’t expect (weird concept but can be interesting and fun).

Skit suffers from hallucinations and dissociation from reality. This is something the character discovers throughout the story. It’s a hereditary condition and appears as a reaction to their fear of the sea, probably inherited from an ancestor who had a maritime accident.

This will be developed throughout the comic.

Returning to a more global vision of the project:

This fantastic world is rooted in ancient Ireland and the Canary Islands. We’re taking some ideas from the culture and folklore of these places, where both of us are from, to inspire us in creating parts of this world.

There will be a lot of nautical themes starting in chapter two, so expect many designs of strange ships.

We’ve completed the first chapter, and we’re currently starting the second. The project will consist of 8 chapters with an approximate total of 160 pages.

The project is progressing while we both continue to work in the video game industry.

Creating the IP in comic form is the most accessible way to validate the story. But one of the next steps, as I mentioned earlier, will be to prepare a pitch deck and animation proposal for the project.

This is something we both have experience with.

I don’t believe much in simplifications when it’s about stories since there’s a lot of details, characters, moments, etc. which enrich this experience. But for now this is the best way to get the gist of this project.

One of the conclusions we reached after working together on OlliOlli World was that we could build a fun world with an interesting narrative. With Megalith, we want to apply those skills to our own world, with a slightly more serious backdrop, while maintaining that laid-back touch.

In the meantime, we’re sharing the process on our Patreon as we keep working on this project and developing the story. Chapter one is completely in there if you want to give it a read.

You can read the first chapter and access patron posts by subscribing for one month and then unsubscribing. No need to keep a longer subscription if you just want to check out the first chapter:

https://www.patreon.com/MegalithIslands

Now we are working on the second chapter after sending the first to a loooot of publishers and agents to get some feedback on it. We are making this story happen no matter what :)

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