"Will it or won't it?" Thursday April 3rd, 2008

Here we go again guys! Chapter Six is officially open for business with the Chapter 6 Splash page. Though it's not much of a comic, it will count as Spirit 398 and that means we have two weeks to go till the big 400. Before I get into the state of the comic I'll talk about the splash page. As you can see the characters have gone through their usual hair style changes. I think this batch of changes are my best yet and I can't wait to draw the characters with their new looks. The most difficult change was, as you might have guessed, Dave. He's pretty much had the least changed hair out of all 5 protagonist ninjas and this is obviously a radical change for him. The look was inspired by the real Dave's very short foray into longer hair. I thought he looked pretty cool, but Dave quickly cut his hair and never looked back. It was probably a 90's thing. Anyway that's why I went with the long hair for Dave. Everyone else is pretty much par for the course though I did also have difficulty with Key's hair. I ended up really turning down the volume of the hair and it's very straight and streamlined for this chapter. I also altered some of the other character's hair and I ended up really liking what I did there as well. One last thing before I move on. I created a wallpaper of the Chapter 6 Splash page so if you want to check out a bigger version or use it as a snazzy wallpaper on your computer just head to the bonus section where all the rest of the NS Wallpapers are located.

Now let's talk about the comic story in general. I had mentioned that I was trying to decide whether or not I would go ahead with my 7 Chapter story or shorten Ninja Spirit to a 6 Chapter story. I thought I would make a decision by now, but instead I wrote two different versions of Chapter 6. Which means I gave myself some leeway in terms of deciding whether or not this will be it. I then thought it would be completely evil of me to NOT tell you if this will be it once I did make that decision. After looking at both versions I realized that even the one that would lead to Chapter 7 seemed like it could be an ending till almost the end. So... what I mean to say is that I want to keep you on your toes. I won't just end Ninja Spirit out of the blue like the Sopranos though so rest assured that once it hits a certain point past cliffhanger-ville, I will let you all know so if it does end up being close to the end you can all enjoy the final few comics with the proper mindset.

What can you expect from Chapter 6? I think like what happened to the writers of Lost once I got past the troublesome Chapter 4, I was able to focus in and really shore up the details in the story. As a result, I think Chapter 5 worked very well from a storytelling standpoint. You can expect that same cohesiveness in Chapter 6. You will also start getting some if not all the answers for the open questions that the previous chapters introduced.

So now is the moment where I talk about the fun stuff. As you probably have noticed and probably already clicked your eager little mouse on is the Battle of Spirit link between this post and the comic proper. It will of course take you to the main Battle of Spirit 400 page where you can find the online bracket as well as links to Spirit 400 Battle of Spirit Contest Entry Form, the official contest rules, printable bracket, scoreboard, as well as profile links for all the characters involved. The field has been expanded from 20 to 22 characters this time around and as a result two groups will feature an additional 3 Seed versus 6 Seed battle. It was fun filling out the field to see who would battle who. I pretty much averaged the percentage of votes won for each characters from the last Battle of Spirit and balanced that with how many comics they ended up appearing in for the last 100 comics. I think a lot of characters were fleshed out in the last 100 comics so it should lead to much tighter battles this time around. I always have fun with this contest and I think a lot of you do as well. Even if you don't want to enter the contest, you can definitely participate in the daily vote once the tournament begins to help your favorite characters vie to become the most popular NS character among the readers. The actual contest will begin ahead of the Spirit 400 Friday comic on Monday April 14th.

However if you do have the time and want to make the small amount of effort, you can enter the Battle of Spirit 400 Contest. It's absolutely FREE and if you win, the grand prize is an autographed Spirit 400 Limited Edition poster. It's a huge 34x28 inches and the actual drawing this year is by far my favorite. it'll be revealed once the tournament begins, but I really think whoever wins the poster will be very pleased with their prize. Also new for the Spirit 400 contest are prizes for player in second place. Though it might not be as cool as the first place prize, you will win signed Otakon and NY Animefest 2007 print as well as a V2.0 5 Spot sticker.

What do you have to do to enter the contest? Just go to the Battle of Spirit page and first check out the Official Rules for the BoS contest and after that click on the Official Entry form link and it will take you to an online form. Just fill everything out and click enter. All personal information will only be used to send prizes to the winners of the contest. Once the Battle of Spirit 400 prizes have been given out, all information gets deleted. You should also be aware that all the information is stored on Ninja Spirit's own paid server database and not a third party one. So definitely sign up and try to score some nice prizes in this years contest. Just be aware that the deadline to enter is by the end of Sunday April 13th.

One last thing before I go, I updated the cast page with two new profiles for both Dawson VanBrocklin and Masamune. You will also note that Caine's pictures have been changed to Rob Roy's.

Anyway I suppose it's time I shut up and let you go about your Friday and the rest of your weekend in peace. Enjoy browsing through the Battle of Spirit stuff and I will see you back here next week with Spirit 399 and a bit of a rainy day beginning for "Chapter 6: In Which All Good Things Must Come To An End". Have a great weekend everyone!!

River's Favorite 5 New York City Destinations
1. Museum of Natural Science and History
2. Bronx Zoo
3. South Street Seaport
4. The Met
5. Yankee Stadium/Shea Stadium