Oculama

In the wake of Death Games - a high-stakes Death Match comic tournament where characters are pitted against each other in brutal battles, with the losing character dying permanently - an unprecedented tie crowned two champions in a historic finale. Among the victors is ShamefulDisplay, a seasoned artist whose daring debut in the tournament captivated audiences with gripping narratives and raw, punk-inspired energy. We sat down with ShamefulDisplay to dive into their creative process, the birth of their standout character Cassidy, and the whirlwind experience of competing in one of the most thrilling comic showdowns online.

Comics were what got me drawing in the first place. I've been doodling them for nearly two decades now, though I've been off the comics horse for a while.

The short round length and high stakes were really appealing to me. I'm easily distracted, so side projects that I can sprint through work the best. I saw it as a good opportunity to get back in the swing of comics, too.

I'd been reading a ton of Kaiji at the time and thinking about how I'd like to draw more punk characters, so Cassidy evolved naturally from that. Her personality evolved as I drew her reference.

My first inclination was an action comic like Battle Royale, but I've done those before and wanted to branch out by focusing on the gambling theme. But beyond the basic set of rules for the game that I needed as a foundation, I did the rest of it off the cuff since I didn't know who I'd be facing. I used hindsight to try and retroactively make a coherent round-to-round narrative.

I do my writing, paneling, bubble placement, and sketching up front and all at once, page by page, which takes a while but means that I can just lock in and ink for the remainder of the drawing time. But most of the way I sped up inking was by cutting corners, haha. Stuff like skimping on backgrounds. I tried to rely on story and dialogue to make up for it. 90% of Kaiji is closeups of dudes sweating and crying so I felt like if any genre could pull it off, it'd be this one.

Given the short time constraint there wasn't much scrapped, though I did change the openings of the comics against both Emilio and Maggie. A lot of the stuff Emilio talked about was instead going to be in a conversation with his boss at the beginning of the comic, but I felt it'd be better if he said that stuff to Cassidy instead. That change made Emilio more of a slimy marketing guy than I initially intended, haha. The other change was that Maggie was going to have more of a back and forth with Eckert at the opening, but I realized that I was going to be strapped for pages for her and Cassidy since I only had a few days to draw, so I pivoted to it opening with her winning against him.

The two best places to find me are shamefuldisplay.bsky.social on BlueSky and shamefuldisplay on Newgrounds, though both have lots of 18+ content.

Note: Links to ShamefulDisplay's socials may contain 18+ content. Viewer discretion is advised.