A special thank you comic for everyone who donated- Megos Assemble!

[Moxen]

[Moxen]

I hope you all enjoyed this special thank you for everyone who donated to the server fund, as much as i enjoyed making it! What started as a three or four page photo comic quickly ballooned into ten pages, so pretty much a full-length Twisted Toyfare Theatre. If you have any questions or comments about it, let me know!

[JDeRouen]

I love it!! Thanks for doing this!!

[rykerw1701]

Fun stuff! Well done.

[Bronxboykev]

Loved it!!!Absolutely Hilarious!!

[emeraldknight47]

That was more fun with MEGOs than I've had in years! Many thanks!! I suppose the NEXT installment will be DC/STAR WARS: PAYBACK TIME! LOL!

[supes]

That was awesome

[Earth 2 Chris]

Wow, very nice!!!

Chris

[JDeRouen]

I can't thank Moxen enough for doing this! This is WAY beyond what I expected!

[newlyknighted]

Brilliant!!!

[Moxen]

I could probably write an essay on everything going on in this comic, but I'll limit it to-

Ten fun facts about "Megos Assemble!"

1) THE CURIOUS CASE OF IRON MAN'S BUTTON
There is only one panel where you can see Iron Man's button. Why? My Iron Man doesn't actually have one! Well, he does, but it is currently misplaced and I couldn't find it in time for the comic. I tried playing around with digitally adding it in, but it took waaaaay too long and as a result, Iron Man's chest is strategically blocked for the rest of the strip.

2) BUTTON OF DOOM!
I tried keeping the missing button in mind while setting up my shots, but it slipped my mind during the sequence at Castle Doom. As a result, I had to reshoot every shot with Iron Man in it! D'oh!

3) HULK LIKE THIS POSE
Both of Hulk's lines came while I was working on the computer, putting everything together. When the Avengers met with the Fantastic Four, I looked at how I posed the Hulk and literally said, "Hey, I like that pose!" In the final panel, I noticed Hulk seemed to be staring creepily at the brawl in front of him. Tapping into that creepy vibe gave me the "Hulk REALLY like THIS pose!" line, which still makes me laugh.

4) FIRST DRAFT
I got the idea that became "Megos Assemble" while reading the Donations Needed thread. I typed up a quick script that was less than 200 words (already complete before I made first contact about doing the comic) that was approximately 3 comic-pages long. I seem to have added a bit to the final version!

5) FREE WRITING
Like many people, I suffer from writers block, where you can't think of a way to continue the story. In school, I learned a technique called Free Writing, where you don't stop to review anything you've written until you're done the section you're working on. It's very similar to improv, where you pretty much make up everything that happens. I had a 200 word skeleton of a script, but nearly all of everyone's lines, the jokes and much of the plot was improvised at the time of writing. The Castle Doom scene was originally 1 panel, Deadpool's quest for Spidey's chips was completely made up in post-production while I was working on the computer and Captain America calling his cowardly Avengers "Assholes" is probably my favourite lines, making me laugh the most. I'm currently free writing this post- I don't have a plan which 10 facts I want to share, I just picked the number ten and started writing!

6) PROP ME UP
There were a few props I needed to make- The "Mego Aid" song books were quickly made in paintbrush (along with all digital effects, including cleaning up some of the set pieces. I'm not photoshop savy), as were Spiderman's chips, which were a trademark of the character in Twisted Toyfare Theatre. Captain America's phone was a piece of black cardboard I cut in the shape of a smartphone. I even painted a little silver circle to make it look like my iphone, which is silver with a black case. All the backgrounds were either wallpaper patterned paper from Micheals or printed and taped up onto cardboard. Castle Doom was especially time consuming, as I had to abandon my first iteration and start over. Also, the recording studio was the inside of a Warhammer miniatures carrying case on its side, complete with foam, imitating the sound-absorbing walls of a real studio.

7) CHIP OFF THE OLD PROP
Instead of the plain Lays Spiderman ate in Twisted Toyfare Theatre, I just used my favourite chips instead, which were the original Old Dutch BBQ. You can't get original Old Dutch BBQ in bags anymore, since they fill those with Lays BBQ 'flavoured' chips now. You can only get the original Old Dutch BBQ in the boxes that come with the 2 little bags inside. That's right- they have two completely different flavours of straight up BBQ.

8) COUCH POTATO
I couldn't find anything that looked remotely couch-like, so I sat Spiderman on a little box and framed it so the TV in the foreground blocked where the couch should be. I also had to hold Spidey's feet so he sat up instead of leaning back, while taking the picture with the other hand. Things got complicated when Thor and Captain America joined the shot...

9) REAL LIFE REFERENCE
There are a few real life references in "Megos Assemble!" How many did you catch? The benefit Doom realized they were ripping off was 'Band Aid', which also inspired the 'Mego Aid' songbooks. The song from Band Aid was re-recorded in 2014 for an Ebola benefit. There was an individual line taken from each of Twisted Toyfare Theatre and Robot Chicken. You might need to be hardcore to find those ones, since they're pretty obscure! The lines from the TV show Spidey was watching were from one of my favourite episodes of Beast Wars, "The Agenda part 3". Best Megatron speech ever!

10) ASSEMBLY TIME
"Megos Assemble" took about 24 hours in total to complete, from initial script writing, to preproduction, production and post-production, over five days. I put it all together in a comic creator called 'Comic Life 3', which saved me a lot of time. It's the most ambitious piece of art I've ever created and it was worth every second!

[EMCE Hammer]

This is just all kinds of fun. I can't wait to show it to my kids.

[Confessional]

Superfun! Thanks for sharing and the laughs Mox!

[XXXPHOENIX]

Clap clap clap

[HardyGirl]

Thanks for the early morning laugh! Nice job!