Jump to content
Nmenth

Cartoon and Conquer: Pathfinder (dead project)

Recommended Posts

After finishing the original Cartoon and Conquer series, I had planned to write a new series set in the Generals universe.

This project was called Cartoon and Conquer: Pathfinder.

There were several differences between it and the first series: it was much more dark and serious instead of being comedic, each strip was a direct continuation of a single storyline, it was heavily researched for game and real world accuracy, and it had a much higher quality art style.

Unfortunately, the artwork is what doomed the project. Each panel in Pathfinder took as long to draw as an entire issue of the first series. The simplistic art style of the original was an intentional choice to reduce the amount of time it required to draw, but it was often an embarrassment for me to look at, knowing that I could draw far better than that.

Pathfinder was planned to take 20 pages to finish its story, but it quickly proved to be far too time consuming before I finished even one page. With about 6 panels per page, the 20-page story would have taken as long to draw as 120 issues of Cartoon and Conquer.

Here is what was completed on Cartoon and Conquer: Pathfinder before I ceased work on it:

dZKxRPZ.png

This is actually intended to be the second page, but I started on page 2 instead of page 1 because page 1 was meant to be a preview of what was yet to come and I wanted to draw it in chronological order instead of story-telling order.

The story was going to follow Sergeant Edmund, a USA special forces sniper (or Pathfinder) who was sent to assist China in the beginning of the GLA conflict before the USA officially entered the war. The exact timeline was during the fifth Chinese mission, Scorched Earth, but in different locations.

Here is the Pathfinder storyline, it was not fully scripted yet, but the story for each page was pre-planned.

Page 1: Opens with Edmund stranded alone in a spruce forest in the Tian Shan Mountains in Kyrgyzstan where he would contemplate how it all came to that, which would lead to the next several pages being a flashback.

Page 2: (above) Was how everything started with him being assigned the mission by Captain Bergstrom in the Pentagon.

Page 3: Edmund meets the rest of his team, Sergeant Alex was another sniper and corporals Theodor and Henri were their spotters. They would meet Captain William, who would fly them to South Korea then cross China from the East to reach the Aksu Wensu airbase near the hot zone on the western border in a small Shaanxi Y-8F-600 so the GLA wouldn't know they were coming.

Page 4: The GLA shoot them down anyway. Edmund's companion sniper team, Alex and Henri are killed, but William, Edmund, and Theodor survive.

Page 5: William, Edmund, and Theodor have to head to their Chinese liaison by foot. William would be frustrated as to why the GLA would have been set up that deeply into China and bother shooting down a small cargo plane.

Page 6: They meet Colonel Burton and a CIA agent who tell them that their Chinese contact, Lin Zhong, who was supposed to coordinate their mission, was abducted by the GLA and they would need to rescue her first.

Page 7: All of them meet Black Lotus and another hacker who join them to attack the GLA base that is supposed to be holding Lin Zhong captive.

Page 8: Burton, Edmund, and Theodor assault the GLA base, but the attack goes horribly wrong as the GLA seem to be expecting them and Theodor is killed.

Page 9: Burton is also wounded, and there was no sign of Lin Zhong at all, so they quickly decide the mission is a complete failure and retreat.

Page 10: They return to Black Lotus and Burton decides Edmund should continue the mission without Lin Zhong. The GLA are mining uranium in the Tian Shan Mountains and must be stopped before they can use it to build dirty bombs, or possibly even nuclear weapons.

Page 11: Black Lotus helps Edmund and William steal a GLA cargo plane to fly into Aldastan so the GLA won't shoot them down again.

Page 12: It is revealed that the CIA agent was working for the GLA and told them about the Shaanxi Y-8F-600, lied about Lin Zhong's capture to lead the team into an ambush (in reality, Lin Zhong is coordinating Scorched Earth), and now betrays Black Lotus to inform the GLA about the stolen cargo plane as well.

Page 13: Edmund and William are shot down over the Tian Shan Mountains. Both survive, but Edmund will need to complete his mission alone while William tries to make his way back to China to arrange new transport to get Edmund out.

Page 14: The GLA know Edmund is in the Tian Shan Mountains now and Jarmen Kell, who is present at the secret uranium mine, heads out to kill him.

Page 15: Edmund is able to find the uranium mine, which is protected by a full GLA military base, including Scorpion Tanks.

Page 16: Edmund infiltrates the mine and sabotages it, but is found by Jarmen Kell and the two shoot at each other.

Page 17: Edmund escapes from Jarmen Kell as the GLA soldiers begin chasing him with Technicals and Scorpion Tanks.

Page 18: A Chinese Helix, along with a USA Comanche, arrive. Captain William is piloting the Comanche and begins raining missiles down on the GLA vehicles. Colonel Burton mans a minigun from the side of the Helix and shoots the GLA soldiers. Black Lotus is also on board.

Page 19: As the Helix picks Edmund up, Black Lotus informs him that they brought something special from General Tsing Shi Tao. The Helix drops a nuclear bomb on the uranium mining base. From the distance, Jarmen Kell quietly watches the rising mushroom cloud.

Page 20: The GLA are angry that their uranium mining operation has been destroyed and blame the CIA agent for not giving them enough information. Since Black Lotus knows he was the one leaking intelligence to the GLA, he is no longer useful and they murder him.

Share this post


Link to post

You were aiming for the CGI (or animated) rather than drawing manually.

However....

3 hours ago, Nmenth said:

The simplistic art style of the original was an intentional choice to reduce the amount of time it required to draw, but it was often an embarrassment for me to look at, knowing that I could draw far better than that.

At least I like the drawing of the original Cartoon & Conquer.

Share this post


Link to post
7 hours ago, PurpleGaga27 said:

You were aiming for the CGI (or animated) rather than drawing manually.

Um... no.

Share this post


Link to post

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    No registered users viewing this page.

×