Chamary / Comics / freakfighter!

Foreword

Freakfighter! (ff!) was set at Imperial, formerly known as the 'College of Science, Technology & Medicine', but popularly regarded by the other London universities as the 'College of Freaks, Geeks & Nerds'.

The protagonist is a chemistry student who, while studying for his A-levels, develops a super-potent caffeine pill to combat exam fatigue. Unfortunately, the substance drives him insane, causing him to believe that he's a superhero called 'Hyper-Man', whose mission is to torment and embarrass weird and annoying students.

The complete series is available to download for FREE.

Prior to producing this series, I hadn't drawn a comic in nearly 2 years, so I decided that someone other than myself should impose a deadline! Consequently, just before my final year as an undergraduate, I approached Felix, the student newspaper. They published a comic strip almost every week between autumn 2001 and spring 2002. I'd often deliver the strip 1 minute before the midnight deadlines ;)

Those who knew that I drew ff! would often comment on the fact that it wasn't "funny". To me, however, humour wasn't as important as drawing practise or trying to be astute. So, like any good DVD, the extras include a 'director's commentary' which provides background information and explains some of the in-jokes that can be seen in each strip...

Copyright 01.02.07 JVC | TXT commentary | ZIP of JPG images

Fresh[1]...

A re-applicant showed me to my room when I first arrived at student halls of residence. Although I came up with Hyper-Man's origin at the age of 21, the premise is no better than Breasts & Blades. I spent a few hours trying to nail the style before attempting the first strip. I also spent an hour finding the correct perspective for panels 2 and 3, only to find that the heavily simplified style made the background look like boxes! The pill is a reference to Capsule Corp. from Dragonball.

1st appearance: Hyper-Man, Sarcastic Re-app.

Fresh[2]...

My room at Southwell Hall was 5612, and I didn't see much of my own room-mate while I was there. Originally, I'd intended to have Hyper-Man transform on a regular basis, complete with the 'capsule explosion' backdrop, at least in the background. In the end, however, I felt that it would unbalance the delicate ratio of black to white and hence composition of the strip (not really, I just forgot).

1st: John the Room-mate.

Fresh[3]...

This strip is about one of the first questions that you're asked when meeting new people at University. Hyper-Man's real name is revealed to be Harry 'Henry' Henderson (H3, which sounded funnier in my head). I thought that repeating panels would save me time, but it ended-up taking almost as long to draw as three different ones. Gay Chinese Medic's appearance is modelled after my friend Wai-Wai, who I dressed in a tracksuit, like a chav, for my own amusement. The horizontal lines for the light areas of Hyper-Man's costume were a failed experiment (much like my life).

1st: Gay Chinese Medic.

Flirt...

Some students are overly-friendly (and promiscuous) during fresher's week. 'Swedish death metal' is a reference to my guitar-playing Swedish friend Henrik, who lived in the room opposite mine in halls and shared a house with me in the year that I did this comic.

1st: Cath the Mean Girl.

Fast...

University is a place to experiment (or so I've been told). Here we discover that Gay Chinese Medic likes the taste of pillows. As it's only revealed in a dream sequence, however, it probably does not count. The word "weird" was unsubtlely truncated to sound like "Wai". One of my friend Toby's catchphrases is "AAAIII---EEE". He inspired a number of strips because we were living together (as 100% heterosexual co-habitants) at the time.

1st: Penny the Conquest.

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Flu...

There's little privacy when you have to share a room with someone else. As in ff03, H3's proportions are out-of-whack here. He was originally going to reveal his alter-ego to Penny the Conquest, but I ultimately decided that it'd be more fun if everyone hated him.

Final frontier...

With all the geeks at Imperial, it wasn't uncommon to overhear rather disturbing discussions. Some readers found this strip mildly amusing (for me, incidentally, it's got to be Count Bakula). I don't know where the idea for the unconventional ammunition 'came' from. I like the details in panel 1, particularly the telephone-cord ear-piece. The sniper rifle is the one Léon uses to train Mathilda.

1st: Sci-fi Geek.

Fine fillies...

It's a small world, particularly in student social circles. The title of this strip was a missed opportunity, as I should've called it 'fondle'. After inadvertently making the previous strip mildly amusing, I went all-out to make this one un-funny, by purposefully using a punchline.

False flatulence...

The first few weeks at university involve hours of queueing for bits of paper. Although it'd take approxiamtely 4 hours to draw 5 panels, widescreen strips would only save me about an hour. Sarcastic Re-app. is based on my childhood friend, John Franklin. I thought his hairstyle would look good on a comic character (it certainly looks better than it did on him)! The gun is a Walther P-38, the "vehicle" mode for Megatron from Transformers.

1st: Korean Mullet, Eyebrow Boy.

Feel-up...

The friends you make during fresher's week are short-lived. Occasionally, I attempted some characterisation, so here we see that H3 is not a typically-polite Briton. Checkered-shirt Charlie has an outrageously long left arm in panel 1. The way the three guys are standing behind each other in panels 2 and 4 makes it look like they're about to do a Full Monty dance/strip, which looks extremely homoerotic (just the way I like it).

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Fair...

I promoted the kung fu club in my second and third years. For the last panel, I would've preferred doing a side-on view of people chasing after H3, ala Benny Hill, but that would've required a width of 2 or 3 panels. This has the best flow of any of the strips, actually giving the impression that H3 is accelerating left-to-right. The name of the university in which ff! is set is never explicitly stated, but in panel 4, Sci-fi Geek makes the most overt reference to it being Imperial.

1st: JVC.

Freebies...

There was a vending machine in the Sir Alexander Fleming building (SAF, the biomedical sciences building at Imperial) which was (almost) as temperamental as this one.

1st: Sentient Vending Machine.

Follow...

Wai-Wai almost got us kicked-out of a lecture once, by talking back to a professor during the lecture. The Professor is more-or-less Vegeta from Dragonball. I like his look and attitude so much that I'd like to use him as the basis for the main character in another comic.

1st: Prof. Terrorpin.

Frown...

Passing people in hall corridoors, without having first looked at yourself in the mirror, is a bad idea. Initially, I only wanted Hyper-Man to appear in panel 1, on his way out of Eyebrow Boy's room, but later realised that this didn't make it clear enough that the shaving was his doing. The background indicates that Eyebrow Boy lives in Southside Halls, which is where my then-girlfriend was staying.

File...

Queueing-up at lunchtime is especially annoying when there are time-wasting idiots in front of you. The simplifaction of the cashier's dreadlocks was a success, I think. The design that Spiky-haired Hypocrite has on his polo-neck is a Moebius strip.

1st: Spiky-haired Hypocrite.

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Fallus...

Many lecturers want you to treat them like a 'buddy', with some just doing it to get into students' pants. To complement his 'Z' t-shirt, Eyebrow Boy is wearing a Capsule Corp. baseball cap. There's some genuine history of chemistry on the whiteboard.

Frozen ferret...

When naked men are near cold water, there's always the fear of shrinkage. This strip was inspired by the "I know" scene from Scary Movie. Hyper-Man must be floating in panel 1, because his feet are too close to the wall to allow his arm to be holding the Polaroid camera. The water dripping off Spiky-haired Hypocrite makes it look like he's melting.

Fysicians...

The majority of students resent medics, but not for the reasons that medical students think they do. This was most readers' favourite ff! Additionally, it's my personal favourite because it's the most well-drawn, particularly the perspective in panels 1, 3 and 4.

Fabricate...

Don't plagiarise, however tempting it might be. Having learnt from the mistakes of ff03, I only drew parts that weren't going to change between panels. I put so much detail into the background, however, that it took almost as long to draw as five different panels. The computer room background is identical that in the SAF building at Imperial, which is where I drew this strip (while pretending to study).

Faeces...

For almost a year, lunch in the SAF was "paninis", although those familiar with Italian know that neither "paninis" nor "pizzas" exist. I was probably strapped for time here, as it looks like this strip took about 2 hours to draw. If I wasn't so anally-retentive about ensuring Hyper-Man was always precisely centred, it would've probably taken 30 minutes. On Toby's Scale of Turd Density, this particular effort would rate as a 'Conan the Barbarian'.

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Formulae...

Last-minute cramming is particularly stressful in the heat of summer. The equation on his arm is known by all, while the number on his leg is the Avogadro constant (6e+23), the number of molecules in one mole of a given substance.

1st: Cheating Chester.

Flip...

My own 'technique' for slotting coins into a vending machine is to apply slight backspin, like when throwing a basketball. This is my least favourite strip. The script and art indicate that I probably spent all of 1 hour on this on it.

Fluid...

Most men have urinated into a sink at least once, although not while someone else is around. This is the only strip for which I don't have the originals, hence the thicker lines. I think the backlighting in panel 1 worked well, but the figures and scenery are fairly poor.

Fail...

Upon reading an exam paper, the first instinct is to panic. The ceiling tiles draw the eye towards the figure in the background, so I should've used an outline instead of filling them with solid black. The exam invigilator looks like she's going to be entering the Olympics.

Focus...

Being a disorganised person, I tended to leave revision until the last minute. In panel 2, we get closure for Cheating Charlie, the last person that annoyed H3. Panel 5 is my third appearance in ff!, but the first time that it looks even remotely like me.

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