Hey guys! Alex again! Shranks is a compilation of Universes. While at face value you may just see art styles with wacky designs and different “series names”, there is actually so much more at work here. There are 13 dynamic and moving worlds filled with hundreds of characters. Each character with their own story, personality, voice, thoughts. From comedy to drama, everything is covered. A world with talking birds holding handguns, to having dragons for parents, to a wasteland of fantasy characters, every place is something new and fantastic.
Every universe has its origin, not just in terms of fiction. I wanted to talk a little bit about how we actually came up with some of the crazy characters and universes you see in the game. For this article I wanted to talk about Beyond Average…
Beyond Average was very much a “spur of the moment” kind of thing. My brother and I had realized that we spent a lot of time watching TV, playing games, and really kind of just vegging out and blowing time. We ended up taking a day to purge our minds. Tony and I sat with our own individual pencils and notebooks. As we sat there, no TV, no music, no games, just the corners of our mind… we started doodling on the paper. Taking the ideas from our head and literally just drawing the first things that came to our minds.
The first official character created for this series was “Greg”. He starred in a hand drawn comic explaining the “True Meaning of Christmas”. After that I kept drawing, creating new strange characters and comics. With the ideas going straight from my imagination to the page.
“Dragon Dad” was next. A comic about a Dragon who was the father to other strange monsters. It was around this time that Tony actually came up with the general concepts for Simpletons as well. With some of his first concepts now being translated to our social media comic for that series.
At the time the characters I was creating weren’t necessarily all from the same world. A few weeks later, while watching some cheesy horror movies, I once again wanted to just draw and work on some fun concepts. It was then that I came up with some of the main characters. John and Anna had been created, and the foundation for the universe was formed. Focusing on a strange boy that can inexplicably do crazier and crazier things. Flying when he wanted to, shooting lasers if he wanted to, and fighting with swords, while those around him were…significantly more tame.
The characters I created prior easily found their footing into this crazy world. I continued to draw little comics and doodles featuring more characters and expanding the world while in my College courses. The more boring the day, the more fantastical the comic.
I can’t wait to share more of this universe with you guys! As time passes I hope I can show you more characters, tell you more stories, and keep expanding the worlds we create!