Poll: My Idea For a Graphic Novel. Is it Shit or Pretty Good?

[Vesuvius Hetlan]

Sounds... interesting. The cat has certainly been used before but not (to my knowledge) as a protagonist (it is one right?).

My one problem is the guy. He sounds unlikable at best. Not a good trait to have for your main character. Ya know?

 

[Dingoman013]

While it sounds stable, you need to supply a constant supply of adventures, mis-haps with he cat and stuff like that, perhaps the cat is an experiment and the(hot gf) is an agent hunting for it, and the cat does stupid stuff to get her away from him. Its very hard to do stuff like this, you will need a few ppl working on it with you. But i would read it, hell i would take a free copy if your handing um out.

 

[AgDr_ODST]

If you could get afew pages up I'd definitely read it and giving you my honest opinion of your art. But as it stands the idea is pretty good

 

[Gilhelmi]

I'm just gonna do an overview. Okay, the idea goes like this:

The story is set in England, and the main protagonist is a guy in his early twenties. He works in a dead end retail job, where he's constantly harassed by customers. He is quite lazy and un-motivated, he's not that smart either. He hangs out with his best friend reguarly, and is into gaming and rock music.

One day, he decides to get a cat. Everything goes smoothly until a few strange occurrences happen around the apartment, and eventually, he starts to hear voices in his head. It turns out the cat is talking to him telepathically, because he is psychic (for reasons either of them don't know). The cat has gained a knowledge, but not an understanding, of human culture by reading every page on Wikipedia.

But as a dangerous threat looms, an unlikely hero and his kitten are thrust into an epic adventure. I have no idea who/what the threat is yet.

All the characters are based loosely on people I know, have met or know of. And I've done some concept art, but my scanner is broken (so I can't show you. but it is devoid of colour on the pages, much like a manga, but is read left-to-right. I'm a fairly decent artist, not amazing though). The genre is like, a blend of comedy, adventure and action. The shitty working title is: Psycat.

TL;DR: English nerdy, rocker dude gets cat that turns out to be psychic. Shit gets real as they go on a dangerous adventure. The crap as-of-now title of it is Psycat. It is an action/adventure/comedy graphic novel.

Anyway, I want to get to work on this as soon as possible! But first, I would like some opinions from you, Escapist. Good idea? Bad idea? Would you read this based on the concept?

EDIT: This is a very early concept, and lots of things are likely to change. Especially the generic protagonist.

My recommendation is this:

DAM THE TORPEDOES, FULL SPEED AHEAD

simply put, do it. Yes this is a very early concept but every thing started as a very early concept. Do it, try and sell it to Dark Horse, DC, or Marvel. If they do not buy it self-publish online. I know www.girlgeniusonline.com/ used to publish a real comic book but now they only publish online and every year they do an omnibus (I think this is the right word).

Life is to short, take your destiny in your own hands.

 

[Fraught]

The cat has gained a knowledge, but not an understanding, of human culture by reading every page on Wikipedia.

Every page on Wikipedia? Considering that a cat doesn't get access to a computer very often, it must be over 9000 years old to have had enough time to read through everything on Wikipedia. Not to mention that Wikipedia is ever-expanding.

But eh, let's leave that behind, and say that it has read "most" of the pages on Wikipedia. For an action/adventure/comedy, wacky kind of adventure, I like the idea.

But as said before, it wholly depends on how you pull it off.

 

[neoontime]

Well ya, it sounds interesting enough.

 

[SideburnsPuppy]

Not to sound rude, but I don't dig it.
I think there are too many graphic novels where the main character is some bored underachiever, but it turns out he has amazing powers...
Why not make the main character an ambitous overachiever with an awesome job, friends and a girlfriend? Maybe some is hunting down his friends and family, but he's the only one that knows about it? By daytime we could get attached to the characters, while killing them off one by one during the night?
Also a cat?! Dogs are the way of the future man!
Why don't you post an example of your artstyle?

Maybe the people are being killed off and totally erased from existence, like "John Dies at the End." And the cat knows more than he's telling...That would be crazy.

Yo, Monkey! You listening?

 

[Outright Villainy]

This could work, but really, it'd have to be completely over the top and comical. Particularly with the lead. Writing a talking cat as wacky isn't difficult, but your lead doesn't sound that interesting at all. If he's going to be in retail or whatever for the love of god don't make him depressed about it. Someone who doesn't take anything seriously and is a bit of a nutcase could work. I'm talking Deadpool levels here. You wouldn't know [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UnreliableNarrator] how true it is about the cat then too...

 

[p3t3r]

how about instead of a boring reatail dead end job you give him something more interesting to do maybe he is a foosball tester and he spends all day playing foosball by himself or something. this story doesn't seem to serious so don't be afraid to experiment a little. it is hard to say how good it is because right now all you have is a guy talking to a cat

 

[ThePantomimeThief]

I like the original premise a lot, it seems pretty damn fun and rather cool. I'd like to know a bit more about the overall story first though

My advice, before you get started, sit down and write the plot chapter by chapter from beginning to end (this doesn't mean write the story - a brief overview of who does what, why and when just to get it strait in your head). Identify the main elements and where you want them to lie within the story. What kind of personality does each character have? How do they play off against each other? Where will it end.

I know this sounds like a hard slog, but your initial idea could be successful if you really tackle these kinds of elements. The devil's in the detail.

Good Luck

I definitely agree with this. Before you properly start you need to have a synopsis of where it's going to go.

 

[quantumsoul]

The idea could work if you pull of the humor and use an art style that meshes well with the tone of the graphic novel.

Have you thought about making it so there was a whole secret society of people psychically bonded with their cats, that your protagonists would have to battle. Like a crazy cat lady, a Dr. Evil like mastermind, a gay dude, an Egyptian mummy, etc. All while trying to keep his day job.