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Description
RESIDENT SLEUTHS
an original concept created in 2017 by Richard Mandel

Resident Evil ©® Capcom, Ltd., all rights reserved.

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COMMENTS

By this time back when I first produced Resident Sleuths, I knew beyond all doubt that the series was failing. I was averaging only two dozen hits or so at the most back then and despite my best efforts. I knew what the problem was too. Folks back then just weren't used to seeing their favorite Resident Evil franchise heroines doing other things instead of running around killing zombies and monsters and the like. People like their pigeonholes and stereotypes, in other words. They are now, of course, but that's years and the REMake reboot later. I never had any intention of bringing any of that into Sleuths; however, I thought a guest spot by another major Resident Evil franchise character might bring in a bigger audience. It did for as long as the episode lasted, and then it was right back to low numbers as usual, and that's when I made the decision to pull the plug.

That said, I still had a lot of fun doing this. I had already drafted an episode for Claire in which she got to go to Japan and explore possibly becoming a professional singer, so I used this as my starting point for "Hot Springs." Since I was basing this episode in Japan, I got to make it an informal tribute of sorts to my lifelong love of anime, or Japanimation as it used to be called, or Japanese cartoons to the great unwashed (wink). There's more than a few nods and good-hearted jabs at anime in general, as well as my use of some of my favorite songs from the Kimagure Orange Road soundtrack. If you're too young to know what that is, go look it up. It's an anime classic and well worth the look. I also got to touch a bit on Mickey's background in this episode, since up to this point you readers have learned very little about him, and to do so in a way that ties in with everything else going on. Finally there's the reunion of Chris and Jill in my alternate Sleuths reality, of course, and I get to both touch on their split and how it's affected each of them since their Raccoon City days.

As I recall, this was my most ambitious web comic production up to that point. I would do even more ambitious ones later, but this was pretty intensive for someone still honing their craft back then. I wound up using every single good piece of ported Japanese scenery that was available for the XPS community at the time. There wasn't much, and thankfully that's been rectified in the years since. Because of my shortage of sets back then I had to take my first major plunge into the deep resources of the Garry's Mod (GMOD) community to get the rest of what I needed. That experience in turn would eventually lead to my porting all of those hundreds of GMOD maps for XPS use that I had up for quite a while before I got out of the XPS porting business, but that's another story best told another time.

All that said I have a larger audience now, and perhaps you new folks can better appreciate what I was attempting to do back then. Oh, and if you want to key off of anything in this particular episode of Sleuths for your own projects and efforts, please feel free -- so long as it isn't an excuse for porn of any kind or flavor. Okay?

The Agency's aircraft is a reuse of the private jet from GTA4: The Ballad of Gay Tony, which included the full interior BTW. It was probably the nicest and most complete private jet model available back in the day. It was originally ported for XPS use by eddiehimselfstolemyu years ago but went away when he took down all of his XPS downloads and closed his dA account. There have been other private jet models posted since for XPS use but none yet as complete or as nice as that one. Perhaps someone else will be kind enough to repost it again for those of you looking for it. If someone does, please post a link below for everyone. Thanks!

Music link: "Summer Mirage" (KOR soundtrack)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnxRiu…

Description
RESIDENT SLEUTHS
an original concept created in 2017 by Richard Mandel

Resident Evil ©® Capcom, Ltd., all rights reserved.

PREV --> NEXT -->

--------------------

COMMENTS

By this time back when I first produced Resident Sleuths, I knew beyond all doubt that the series was failing. I was averaging only two dozen hits or so at the most back then and despite my best efforts. I knew what the problem was too. Folks back then just weren't used to seeing their favorite Resident Evil franchise heroines doing other things instead of running around killing zombies and monsters and the like. People like their pigeonholes and stereotypes, in other words. They are now, of course, but that's years and the REMake reboot later. I never had any intention of bringing any of that into Sleuths; however, I thought a guest spot by another major Resident Evil franchise character might bring in a bigger audience. It did for as long as the episode lasted, and then it was right back to low numbers as usual, and that's when I made the decision to pull the plug.

That said, I still had a lot of fun doing this. I had already drafted an episode for Claire in which she got to go to Japan and explore possibly becoming a professional singer, so I used this as my starting point for "Hot Springs." Since I was basing this episode in Japan, I got to make it an informal tribute of sorts to my lifelong love of anime, or Japanimation as it used to be called, or Japanese cartoons to the great unwashed (wink). There's more than a few nods and good-hearted jabs at anime in general, as well as my use of some of my favorite songs from the Kimagure Orange Road soundtrack. If you're too young to know what that is, go look it up. It's an anime classic and well worth the look. I also got to touch a bit on Mickey's background in this episode, since up to this point you readers have learned very little about him, and to do so in a way that ties in with everything else going on. Finally there's the reunion of Chris and Jill in my alternate Sleuths reality, of course, and I get to both touch on their split and how it's affected each of them since their Raccoon City days.

As I recall, this was my most ambitious web comic production up to that point. I would do even more ambitious ones later, but this was pretty intensive for someone still honing their craft back then. I wound up using every single good piece of ported Japanese scenery that was available for the XPS community at the time. There wasn't much, and thankfully that's been rectified in the years since. Because of my shortage of sets back then I had to take my first major plunge into the deep resources of the Garry's Mod (GMOD) community to get the rest of what I needed. That experience in turn would eventually lead to my porting all of those hundreds of GMOD maps for XPS use that I had up for quite a while before I got out of the XPS porting business, but that's another story best told another time.

All that said I have a larger audience now, and perhaps you new folks can better appreciate what I was attempting to do back then. Oh, and if you want to key off of anything in this particular episode of Sleuths for your own projects and efforts, please feel free -- so long as it isn't an excuse for porn of any kind or flavor. Okay?

The Agency's aircraft is a reuse of the private jet from GTA4: The Ballad of Gay Tony, which included the full interior BTW. It was probably the nicest and most complete private jet model available back in the day. It was originally ported for XPS use by eddiehimselfstolemyu years ago but went away when he took down all of his XPS downloads and closed his dA account. There have been other private jet models posted since for XPS use but none yet as complete or as nice as that one. Perhaps someone else will be kind enough to repost it again for those of you looking for it. If someone does, please post a link below for everyone. Thanks!

Music link: "Summer Mirage" (KOR soundtrack)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnxRiu…