Online Epic to Release Penultimate Episode

Brokensaint writes "The award-winning 3-year epic 'Broken Saints' is preparing to launch it's 23rd installment in its cult hit saga. Winner of the Sundance Online Film Festival Audience Award for Animation, 'Broken Saints' contains over 10 hours of original flash storytelling in 'cinematic literature' format (think animated comic). Having been seen by over 2 million people worldwide, this free web project will be launching the penultimate episode in the series next week, and will close out its run with a 1 hour finale in June. 'Broken Saints' follows the paths of four protagonists from different cultures that receive an ominous vision of the future - a vision that is somehow tied to the launching of a global telecommunications network. One of the main characters - the Muslim mercenary Oran - was created as a direct protest of the continued sanctions against the nation of Iraq. His role in the story chillingly mirrors the direction of current global events. The 3-person team from North Vancouver, Canada hopes to release a tradition graphic novel and DVD box set of the series by Christmas 2003. They are also in talks with production companies ranging from HBO to the Sci-Fi Network to do a mini-series adaptation of the epic. If you want to help the lads chip away at their mounting bandwidth bills, please consider dropping a dime in their kitty."

Comments

Broken Saints (First Post?!)

[Bodrius]

I love Broken Saints, it's one of the best WORKING examples of using the web to deliver dramatic media.

They're utterly deserving of whatever graphic Slashdot brings to the site.

However, I don't think "Penultimate Episode About to Be Release Soon, But Not Yet!" is "news", even in the Slashdot sense.

As a link, cool. The press-release feel of the post is kind of silly, though.

Re:Broken Saints (First Post?!)

[CyberWolf]

For those of you that do not live in North Vancouver, Broken Saints gets their funding for their site in two ways (that I am aware of).

1) Donations
2) Every three to four months, a benefit concert is held in the North Shore (aka North Vancouver) with some (if not all) the profits going to Broken Saints. Most of the bands are indies, but there have been a couple of bands that even I recognized (I mostly listen to country, so I am not up to date on metal/grunge/techno/etc).

BTW, I believe that another party is in the works, after /. gets thru with their site :)

Umm

[cethiesus]

If you want to help the lads chip away at their mounting bandwidth bills, please consider dropping a dime in their kitty.

humor

Also, please consider helping by not posting a link to their site on Slashdot for crying out loud. :)

/humor

Wazat?!

[foo fighter]

...this free web project will be launching the penultimate episode in the series next week [leading to its finale in June].

Holy shit, someone used the word "penultimate" properly! On /. no less.

NEVER DO THAT

[Doktor Memory]

You said his name three times! Are you insane?

I'd sleep in aluminum body armor tonight if I were you.

Benefits of Slashdotting

[AEton]

Since Brokensaint isn't a slashdot user, I guess the article author will remain anonymous. It's hard to tell whether their intentions were good or bad; I pulled down 131mb of zipped episodes (1-22, plus trailer) from http://bs.brokensaints.com/av/downloads/ just now, and so in a sense I guess that's a bit of bandwidth hurt.

It seems kind of odd that the second-to-last episode, and not any of the others (like, say, the first) would merit a Slashdotting, but really now is a good time since there's more to see--better late than never.

But if even nine other people do what I did then that's 1.31gigs of data transfer; someone's got to pay for that. With any luck there'll be a benevolent user somewhere among the mix who's willing to contribute. The benefits of willfully Slashdotting are thus mixed at best: greater exposure but probably a low click to pay ratio.

At any rate, the comic is good. Hooray for pseudo-animation.

Re:Bad Storytelling

[Bodrius]

In this case, this speaks more about the poster than about the artist.

I don't know if Oran was created as a "direct protest" (this thing has been running for about two years) or to exploit a great dramatic situation. To me, it seemed like the second case.

The artists are very much on the left, no doubt, but the characters are no simple strawmen for their political arguments.

I disagree with their political stance on Iraq, as with a lot of their politics in general (feels too Salon-ish for me), but Oran is one of my favorite characters. The Iraq situation provides him with a lot of background and a great hook to put him in the story, as compared to others whose plots feel more contrived.

Broken Saints is a drama with a political voice. You may or may not agree with it, but it's very well done. Like all political fictions, it manipulates its world to express a political message, to use it as an model of ideas.

Oran, like all other characters, "speaks" about the political argument idealized in the fictional world.

You may even agree with the argument within the context of the fictional world, but find there's no connection between the fictional world (and the argument) with reality.

Or you may not agree with the argument at all, but find the fictional world so well done it's deserving appreciation as fiction.

You don't have to fear Big Brother is about to take over the world to appreciate "1984", believe the banality of American consumerism is the end of civilization to like "Brave New World", or have an anachronistic appreciation for chivalric tradition to understand "Don Quixote".

Or, perhaps closer to the media, you don't have to believe the world is being taken over by the secret societies operating under the UN and corporations to bring a New World Order to think Deus Ex had a great plot.