ZetaMax

Author notes

Sita

Sariling Mundo

on May 30, 2010

I'm going to be posting pin-ups of the main characters, starting with our heroine, Sita. Also, I thought I'd talk about how I got the idea for this comic.

When I was taking up Digital Arts back in 2005, I helped out on a short film some of my classmates were making. It was this silly fairy tale-type story about a girl who becomes a tomato-powered superhero. I served as storyboard artist, character designer and cameraman. Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of the short. I wish I did, I didn't think much of it then, but I kinda miss seeing it now.

Anyway, sometime after, I got the idea of making drawings of my friends as fantasy characters and giving them away as Christmas gifts. The picture posted above is based on the lead actress of the film, and the costume is a heavily-modified version of the one she wore.

Later still, I thought I'd take it a bit further and actually make stories about these characters based on my friends. So far, I've only done two, one of which is this comic ZetaMax.

The actual plot though is an idea that I'd been thinking about for quite awhile. In Filipino folklore, we have this legend about a magical charm that drops from the heart of a banana tree at midnight on a specified date, and the person who catches the charm in his mouth would be endowed with extraordinary powers. Then some ogres would show up to challenge the person to see if he is worthy of the power.

So I thought I'd do a variation on that, but let's say we have the hero of the story, and then he has a sidekick. What if it was THE SIDEKICK who somehow gets the power?

I changed the source of the power from the banana tree's heart to the golden apple because the latter is a recurring motif in a lot of myths and legends (but the banana tree does make a cameo in page 5). Then I remembered that the tomato is also sometimes referred to as the "golden apple." I thought it was a good fit, so I decided to use this particular character for my story.

Next time, I'll post a pin-up of Sita's brother Mac, and I'll talk a bit about the guy who inspired him. Oh, and if anyone's curious, the original Filipino version can be seen at:

http://sarilingmundodotkomiks.blogspot.com/search/label/ZetaMax

It's pretty much the same though, just in a language you can't understand (unless you happen to be Filipino, that is).