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###### tags: `Gitcoin Graphic Novel` `Universe Guide`
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# Comic #4 + UG Progress Report: April 11-15, 2022

[Design Sprint Notes](https://hackmd.io/@TravisWyche/Comic4DesignSprint)
[Comic High-Level Storyboard](https://hackmd.io/@TravisWyche/Comic4-HighLevelStoryboard)

#### Storyline

- Pages 1-4: will start storyboarding the details this week
- Pages 5-13: getting closer to a clear idea, combining:
- All the previous lore elements (which I will be elaborating this week, described below).
- References to mainstream and avant-garde storytelling techniques that disorient the reader and question the threshold of reality.
- Identifying and moodboarding experimental visual languages to represent these ideas.
- Research postmodern narratives, decentralized storytelling. Compile a list of good/bad references:
- Station Eleven
- stupid new Matrix film
- Chris Ware comics (other comic examples?)
- Synecdoche, New York (and other Charlie Kaufman films)
- Cronenberg: Videodrome, eXistenZ
- Borges, Calvino (and other mid-century avant garde writers)
- open world games, MMORPGs, stupid crafting games, stupid metaverse references
- board games that people LARP: medeival fantasy and sci-fi themed?
- Ursula K LeGuin stories (some specific examples in mind)
- *Please comment and add more if you think of them!*
- Research PM sub-topics:
- hyper self-referentiality, infinite regress of reference: a story about a storyteller telling a story about a storyteller
- breaking the 4th wall
- fantasy/fiction co-existing with fact, blurring the lines
- PM reality fatigue: how literal is too literal?
- post-myth, revisionist historicism, archaic revivalism, using myth to cause harm (Jordan Peterson)
- Create a map of how the UG elements connect.
- Will provide the foundation for a clear storyboard from pages 5-13.
- Will help identify inflection points for auction structure.

#### UG Lore Elements

[Overview of Core Lore Elements](https://hackmd.io/8230E0QHTlSEG__wYhlEPA?view#Lore-Elements-from-the-Comics)
- Decide Horacio's compensation for each artwork.
- per element? for amount of time? It's up to him.
- Provide clear list and art direction for Horacio to begin illustrating these elements.
- ETH Bot: AI and the black stack to come.
- Quadratic Lands: futuring utopias while defuturing dystopias.
- Anon: cultural studies, fluid identity, intentional diversity.
- Metaverse-as-Interface: basically an allegory for painting LOL; mirror-window-portal.
- RaidGuild: the collective working as one, internal social tension.
- Omniscient Moloch: everything/nothing, everywhere/nowhere, breaks down all dichtomy tensions to infect the baseline of human desire.
- Elements will be captured in the UG, performed through the comic.

#### Diagrams of Lore Elements

- Illustrates the core lore elements (listed above).
- Explicates their futures and de-futures.
- Explores different kinds of branching (linear), overlaps, inflection points, etc.
- Represents details from the micro/local to the macro/global

#### Schedule

- Horacio can start illustrating immediately, until the end of April.
- TW will iterate on the storyboard now, until the end of April.
- Need to find a letterer immediately!
- Can plor or DAOjones help hunt on the Facebook group?
- Colton: recommendation from Gitcoin artists?