DB Multiverse

★ Bonus (from year 2008) ★

Read here the bonus created at the start of DBMultiverse. The pages showing them were broken for years, so we gathered them here.

Thanks to the team who worked on copy-pasting the text in all languages!

Working drafts

Architecture and site design

Start with something simple. When I design a site, I make a quick quick to see what it could be

Something I didn't use. I'd had a hard time creating an infinite border from an image of the cartoon. But on the other hand I did not know precisely how... I'd finish it. And I favored a design based entirely on our own creations.

Turning to the comics. The central location of the beginning of story (which will still take a long time) is the arena of the tournament.

I had a clear idea of what it might look, so I did pseudo-blueprints.

Note that we see 24 spaces here, but ultimately there has been only 20.

Gogéta Jr has made its interpretation, specifically deciding how towers and such would look like.

I did a confirmation, with one addition: I realized that if you want spectators to see the fight, it would be better that fighters aren't 100 meters above their heads... So I moved the ring lower, but for the other challengers, it was too late.

Non-DBZ characters

Vargas

These are the most obvious.

I didn't use the Tuffles/Tsufuls or another known race because that will add useless implications. And then Vargas will be a small thing that only DB Multiverse will have, differentiating it from DBZ (note the icon of the site!).

I'm always bad at inventing names, here I took... the family name of a detective novel writer! (No, I never read detective novels, why do you ask?)

All I had in my head were sparrows. I made various drawings that I find very sympathetic, but it's true, which are not adapted to the universe of Dragonball. I think I was a little inspired by Bergs from L'Incal.

Then Gogeta Jr. sent me his wonderful draft which gave life to the characters and perfectly adapted them to the style of DBZ.

"Psychic" Aliens (abandoned)

Characters that were replaced by enemies from the movies, we have as usual my personal interpretation and the one of Gogeta Jr. for the characters.

They would be a powerful psychic race which can crush their adversaries by their thoughts, not something our heroes are used to fight!

Girls!!!

Yeah, why not?

In fact several characters remain in doubt (I don't know yet if one of them will be seen, if they will have a role). It's characters parodies.

First, the Mary Sue character. Mary Sue is a brilliant concept that we finds in lot's of fan-fictions, particularly if the author is young. It is (approximately) a fantasmée version of the author who arrives in the universe of the story (thus DBZ, Star Trek, or Buffy) who is stronger than the others, more intelligent than the others, very very cool and everyone likes it.

This is why it is possible that you see in this comic: Salagir, Gogeta Jr, and a named girl Mary Sue. Of course there is no way they could get any important role.

Second, the fan-service girls. Yes, you guessed it, these fighting girls only will be there for figuration, for the pleasure of the fans.

What is usually unknown, is that fan-service gives as much pleasure for the author, who begins to be bored at drawing masses of muscles.

Here thus, without any interest except the pleasure of the eyes, some drawings of girls, just because.

I'k'l 's mom

I stole the idea of I'k'l to Yuyu Hakusho. At the end of this manga, there is a tournament, one challenger has a son a few days before, and he is a challenger too.

I added this character in order to show some diversity and that other universes could be very different. I wanted to add others, like beings with no physical body, some magical incarnations, etc... but there were too many characters already.

For the letters of his name, I chose them at random. For the idea of putting many apostrophes, I stole it from Sluggy Freelance, the best webcomic in the world.

DBZ characters from other universes

Saiyans in armour

A test drawing of our Saiyans Masters of the world.

Vegeta is the ultimate class and Kakarotto is a good bad guy :)

Note: In the background you can see King Vegeta and Bardock but they won't be in the universe after all.

Colored version by BK-81.

Super Namek

This hasn't anything to do with Lord Slug, the boss from the 4th movie.

This one is going to honor the Nameks, for sure!

South Kaioshin

South Kaioshin is drawn a little differently than the one Akira Toriyama drew. The chin was too enormous. But he is the strongest of the Kaioshins.

My personal opinion is that the muscled Buu that is seen for a short moment is the first transformation of Original Buu, that he had after absorbing South Kaioshin, the first person ever absorbed.

At this time Buu became insanely powerful even more powerful than the Buu Gohan and Gotenks fought.

Is he stronger than Buu absorbing Gotenks, or Buu absorbing Gohan? I can't tell.

But for me it logic that Buu-Muscles is stronger than the fat-Buu and the Buu that came after.

In short. For me South Kaioshin was absorbed because he was a good match for Buu and thus making him stronger than Goku SSJ3 who lost to the Original Buu.

I think that South Kaioshin was really strong and deserves his place among the strongest fighters of the universe of Dragonball Z.

Edit: After some talks, seems like it's not such a good idea, because it adds inconsistencies. Why didn't he take out the Z-sword (a SSJ3 can easily do so), why East Kaioshin is so astonished by SSJ3 if his old friend was as strong... I don't know what I will decide for his powerlevel yet.

DBZ chars with a design neither DBZ, nor DBGT

(DB Super did not exist when this article was written!)

Note that the images you see here are just drafts, the characters may look different in the comics. And just because you see a character in Super Saiyan form here doesn't mean he'll transform in Multiverse...

Goten and Trunks

Teens at the end of DBZ, they gain a weird face by the time their reach DBGT. One of them got a tuft making Tintin spin inside his grave. The other one thinks he's a cowboy.

Trunks won't be different from Mirai Trunks or his DBGT version, except for the clothes.

As for Goten, Gogeta Jr gave him a haircut that is closer to his father's, still taking into account the growth of the hair.

While writing them, I often forget they're now 27 and 28. Well, my bad.

Videl

I don't like Videl's DBGT face either. Just like the other women, she becomes uninteresting, yet she was originally a character with a strong temper (like every girls with Toriyama).

On this drawing, you've got Gogeta Jr's first draft, followed by all the haircuts I tried, daring everything during my tests. In the end, we use a version only slightly modified from her last DBZ appearance.

Bra

Here is a first version of Bra. This is Bra from universe #16, so she's Vegetto's daughter, not Vegeta's.

Why was the 18 version left out? Because I didn't like her design ;) Actually it's more than that...

Bra from universe 18, Vegeta's daughter, does not fight. We see her, but she certainly can't fly (does she fly in DBGT? Does it even matter?) and it's clear that fighting is not her hobby.

Deduction: Since I'm not the kind of guy who makes characters ultra-powerful for no reason, can Vegeta's daughter turn into a Super Saiyan? Nope.

We favored a Bra with this design. Especially because of the lock on her forehead :) The lock is cool.

Here's the final design. Pure awesomeness!! And an SSJ lock that totally rocks. For this reason, even though they don't share the same DNA, Bra#18 and Bra#16 will have a similar face, the one with the lock.

Working on Bra's hair.

Pan

Taking a modified version of DBGT Pan, here are our different tests for the girl who, along with Uub, carries all hopes for the Earth, something the creators of DBGT never understood.

Direct heir to Goku (he's seen training her at the end of DBZ), I thought she could use everybody's favourite Power Pole, at least when the fight is not at a Super-Saiyanish level.

There also are 2 Pan, one from universe 16 and another from universe 18, you'll see the differences for yourself...

Steps in creating a page

Page 33 (usual process)

I'll use this space to tell you a bit about our collaboration with me, Salagir, and Gogéta Jr, for the creation of our fanmanga on Dragon Ball's universe.

So here is revealed, to everyone, how goes the creation of a page, with each of its steps !

Step 1 : scenario

When I write the scenario, I make it with the dialogues, and an idea of the layout. I write this last strongly in advance compared to the drawings to be able modify it modify it again depending of the need.

I send to Gogeta Jr many pages of the scenario at a time, and the ugliest drawing possible of the layout that I imagine (cf step 2).

The scenario looks like this :

---- p33

(guys team dbz)- Look, the performers from space 19 already arrived !

(team 19 "knights in armor" arrive in their space.

they have huge weapons, cannons and stuff like that)

(goku)- Hi !

(a suspicious knight)- Hi, yeah...

(guys team dbz)- Look !

---- p 34

Step 2 : layout

I scribble as ugly as possible the idea that I have of the corresponding layout. A picture is worth a thousand discourses and it helps me also to see if it would makes good.

In this drawing, it can happen to a chiader box to show the angle of view that I have in mind.

This won't prevent the drawer not to go his own head and to change according to his desire, often for the best, too!

Step 3 : draft

Then I get the sketch of Gogeta Jr. Very accurate, it already gives the final appearance of the page.

Step 4 : retouching & texts

I put the text in the bubbles, checking by the way if they are the right size. It's been a while since the bubbles are now every time the right size. ;)

I also include my proposals for alterations. There rarely.

Here, I proposed to ascend the bubble that unnecessarily hid Pan's hair.

I also asked in my answering email to make bigger weapons for the knights. I also said that the plan for the third frame did not need to be from the top, and that I would like to see better Goku's head and the reaction of the knight.

Finally, since I know that in the manga Dragon Ball, the gentiles' bubbles are round and those of evils have angles (a reader has pointed this out to me, and it's true), I corrected in our version.

Step 5 : inking

Finally, he inks, with its changes. Play the game of differences for frame 2, and a little more for the entire page. ;)

Step 6 : finalization

After, I add the texts in both languages (the French version was already up in step 4, I just had to refocus a bit in the bubbles).

I add the small copyright, and other elements if necessary, like here the number of the universe written at the top of the entrance.

Step 7 : online

I upload the final files on the website, in a magic folder, where my automatic script will find it on Sunday or Wednesday at 8 p.m., to make it visible.

Page 35 (detail of a panel)

Here is an other extract, from page 35, which shows the kind of retouch that I can make. This is the frame at the bottom left. I specified a Goku in cons-diving with vortices behind, as there are some time in DB, well I can't explain it I'll draw it".

Viewing the draft, I retouched to add the vortices in question, and I also changed the position of the arm, because I thought it made the character too static. Finally, the expression wasn't exactly what I wanted, so drawing, long speeches, all that.

The final is of course perfect :)

Page 19 (a big change)

After I have explained to you how we do our pages, I wanted to show a particular case in which there's a lot of changes.

For you, I chose a page quite complicated, which has been done in many steps.

Step 1 : scenario and layout

You already know that.

Note that I went directly from the Sanctuary to space, which seemed to quick for Gogeta Jr (he's not wrong)

Step 2 : draft

So he sent, in a draft, some frames added to show with more details the action. Note that in the previous page we see the heroes in the small ship.

Step 3 : retouching

It really seemed to me that the two first frames didn't bring anything new. However, on the following double page, we had graph one or two frames with the ship teleporting itself in the other universe, and it still didn't fit at all. I wanted that we could only see the big frame with the combat field.

So I skipped the upper frames and shifted the others. At the bottom, I copied the frame that he put on the draft of the following page.

I also left instructions to be able to do the teleportation on computer myself.

The resulting draft is perfect.

Step 4 : inking

As asked, Gogeta Jr drew the ship and space separately, which permits me to easily paste one on the other and make it disappear slowly. Viewing the different possibilities, an idea came out of my brain: Why only two frames?

Step 5 : finitions

And here it is :)

Page 120 (choices and colors)

It's time for a new sequence of steps.

For the cover of page 120, just as usual in fact, I had no idea, so Gogeta Jr. made me three proposals.

Note that these proposals just as real covers indicate nothing about the reality of the past of other worlds, because G. Jr does not know more than you;)

As we were during the fight Cell-Dabra, he thought to show their universe. The first shows the universe 17 with the final victory of Kameha between Cell and Gohan. The second one Babidi who gets his way. The third ... delirium.

I loved it. Despite the interest of the first two, it was clearly this one we needed :) :)

This cover is one of the first inked on computer. Gogeta Jr. had the good idea to make different layers for each plan, which I separate here by color.

Faye has gone to work. There was a very large number of layers of course, but here are some of them.

To have fun, here is the version without ink, and a few layers combined, then the beautiful final version.

Delirium

The fake page 104

I posted this with this page, before showing the real one by Gogeta Jr:

Hello! I must inform you that Gogeta Jr decided not to draw Dragon Ball Multiverse any more. From now on, Salagir will take on the cartoonist job. No worries, I promise you won't see any difference at all!

Thanks for your comprehension.