What are good resources for creating fictional comic book/cartoon towns/cities & mapping them out?

Buy a copy of Sim City 4
http://www.amazon.com/SimCity-4-Deluxe-Pc/dp/B0000C0YW2

Thank you for you input. If I was going to do what you do, I would need TWO things, a LOT OF TIME AND A LOT OF MONEY.

This is the Information Age - I am ceratin there's a computer program out there that can help me.

In truth JGoldman10, you don't need either a lot of time or a lot of money. Planks of wood, old balls (for planets), sheets of blank paper, discarded doors, other items placed out as trash are plentiful, at times you can get lucky and find an entire notebook which hasn't been used. Consider using these as a contribution to recycling. Additionally, many times mailings come with blanks...only 1 side of a sheet of paper has been printed on, you can use the other side to either make a rough sketch of a town, village or country or you can jot down some character ideas or plot lines. Leave no sheet of paper or cardboard unused. Pens, pencils and markers are also often discarded when there's still plenty of life to them. (the same is true of batteries, it's amazing how many are thrown away before their time is up)

As to time, all you need is a willingness and a few minutes here and there throughout the day, take 10 minutes of a meal break, replace 10 minutes of television, Internet, radio or other current activity with your creative endeavor. Reserve a part of your daily schedule for your book creations.

The lack of time excuse has been offered up plenty over the centuries, it's rarely if ever legitimate. How many times did I contend with a student claiming they were just 'too busy Mr. W.' to even analyze the simplest of experiments. They weren't however too busy to not be cruising around with friends checking out the girls or fellows. They weren't too busy to not be sitting around making crude comments at people driving down Lincoln Avenue or throwing stones in Muddy Pond while their homework accumulated dust. They weren't so busy that they missed watching 5 or 6 hours of television (really, 3 hours would be more than sufficient, especially during the school week).

You see, we can always have excuses for why something can't be done, how many are legitimate reasons for not doing something? Check your own excuses about time, you'll find there are pockets of time available.

Mind you, the simpleton's method of using a computer program might make your task easier (or it might not); but, at the end of it all, wouldn't it be nicer and more rewarding to do it the Asimov way or the Jules Verne way or the way so many science fiction writers and mystery writers and other writers and artists have over the years by tapping into the resources of the mind? The computer may be an assistant, don't rely on it to do your job.

He's relying on A2K posters for that.

This kid is an example of Approach AVoidance Syndrome. If he keeps up these bogus bacdkground hunts, he keeps from doing any meaningful writing.

JK Rowling managed to pen an entire franchise while almost homeless and she did it on backs of waste paper and tablet paper until she could afford even a typewriter.When you are creative and gifted, you MAKE UP your world and people it with residents of your imagination. You draw from esperience and use the vocbulary of your everyday life. You WRite(and draw) what you know. Ever hear that before?

I have heard that. Goldie has yet to post a single frame of his work. If I had written a novel, I wouldn't be going on about it until I had a release date from my publisher. An ISBN number isn't enough on its own unless it's active. Get an ISBN number before a release date and you get nothing when you query it. I was amazed to find that LOC are prepared to copyright a load of hot air.

Agreed...yes. Just thinking of the intricacy of Isaac Asimov and what he wrote about and Tolkein...with languages, etc. in the trilogy. Look what they thought out and mapped out without assistance from a computer or another being.

This person seems destined to keep asking the same questions over and over and not publish a single panel as he's been doing this same thing for years here and elsewhere. It's aking to listening to a Latin declension (Amo, amas, amat, amamus). With creative efforts like writing or cartooning you need SOME sort of life experience. If you spend 10 yrs of a young adult life behind a computer and not interact with others in the outside world, you can't write ANYTHING..not even comics as there's no life experience upon which to draw.

In fairness though, nothing that they were doing was anyway near as complicated as a crime fighting cartoon cat, inspired by a tacky cartoon, a computer game and a 1970's exploitation film.

Imagine how much better Lord of the Rings would be if Pacman was in it.

ahahaha!

Thank you. The one quality Goldie seems to be completely lacking is a sense of humour. Either that or he's the master of the deadpan.

Ive worried about that at some l;ength also. He seems so impressed with himself that he doesnt even see the irony.

As far as getting his legal prints on fole and having a secure "deal" locked up before revealing his story lines and his cartoon world, its a chance he takes.
I have a friend who is a well known writer of dramatizd non fiction and he guards his stories until well after he gets his publishers copy. In the case of a well known writer, the minor outlet of some mere detail will give NYT book review reporters a big time advantage to research up front. Many authors have had their works trashed by skeevy reporters who think of themselves as undicovered Steinbecks.

Irony is another concept he seems unfamiliar with. His posts do give me such pleasure though, every new one makes me smile. (Apart from the blasphemy bollocks)

I am writing a MULTICULTURAL COMIC BOOK ABOUT STREETFIGHTING CATS AND DOGS WHO FIGHT CRIME.

IT IS MORE THAN ONE.

I could take the time to draw and map out a fictional city or town but why would I want to do that if I can just get a computer program that can help me do that?

If you are creating a fictional city or town you need a map of it to use as reference.

My characters live in cat- and dog-themed cities and towns. I was trying to decide if they should co-exist alongside of real towns and cities.

More than one crime, or more than one cat?

SIGH - MORE THAN ONE CAT AND DOG.

GOOD CATS AND DOGS Vs. BAD CATS AND DOGS.

But just the one crime then?

The good guys fight a whole bunch of baddies.

Why? Because then it is yours. If you take what a computer spits at you then it belongs to the computer and you are both a plagiarist of sorts and a lazybones. You've already taken ideas and suggestions; which, as far as anybody can tell you haven't used, instead returning with more asinine queries, which will net more responses that you won't heed.

To put it bluntly, if you are unable to create these things...the towns, the villages, the animals, the situations, the maps, the plot, then you have selected the wrong career path and would be better served on a toasted roll with just a hint of singe, coated with a delicate remoulade and served with freshly sliced red onions for a little bite.


You lack imagination kid, so get out of the cartoonery before the olives are plucked from your eye sockets and fed to ravenous...ravenous....

...ravenous raccoons? Naw, ravenous squid? Nope. I know! Ravenous ravens.


Now create or get into a field more suited to you.