The Exclusion Zone : Rescue Mission Part 1

By panos

This story is dedicated with much love to my very dear friend @suga2309 (Note: It takes place some time after Amalia's Cousins' visit to Pripyat budgetpixel.com/blog/the-exclusion-zone-the-cousins) ...to be continued in Part 2 I want to thank the people who have created characters and let me use them in the Exclusion Zone. Here they are, by order of their appearance in the Rescue Mission story: Cobra by @suga2309 Dirty Biker (DB) by @dirty_biker Oksana by @EternaSky This has been a long journey from playing the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games to creating the Exclusion Zone series as images to making graphic novels. A wonderful journey. A big thank you to all the friends who like this series and have supported it in various ways. (I realize time is limited for every one and this is somewhat longer reading tine than the average blog posted here. At 18 pages it has the page-number count of a comic book you find at a newsstand or a comic-book store. No need to read it all at once. :):) ) Bonus Material Characters Reference Sheets A) STARGAZER Stalker Crew-Leader B) AMALIA Stalker Moonshadow Clan Princess C) DIRTY BIKER (DB) Stalker D) OKSANA Stalker Directorate Personnel. E) AMARANTHE MoonShadow Clan Princess F) TAKKIS OF HELIOPOLIS (A Very Clever, Very Wise, Very, VERY Handsome Wizard)

Comments (60)

TheBard

Great story and character sheets 👏👏👏 I love the beef between Amalia and Oksana 😁 I don't know, if leaving Oksana behind was a good idea ... after saying how much she is needed as stalker and medic on this expedition, only because insisting on the 4 man crew ? 🤔 Wait a minute ... did Takkis leave me with the demon queen, to go onto this mission ? 😳I will have to order another interdimensional pizza to get him back !😁

suga2309

MARVELLOUS ! 🤩👏✨I love the way you started the story and completed at a heroic scene. Very eagerly waiting for part 2. Good luck, my dear friend ! Thank you so much for adding me in your wonderful !

panos

The truth is that I never prompt for blood, wounds, gore etc. I don't care for that anyway, not because of restrictions. No, the problem is - I was forced to ask the AI about it - that in comics pages, even more than in single images, restrsitions are stronger because of a sort of 'cascade effect". Panel 1: Amalia shoots a feral with her shotgun. Panel 2. Feral is hurled back. Panel 3 Feral lies unmoving. etc. The model takes them consecutive and though no prompts like:' blood spurts, feral killed, feral lies dead' are used, it makes the deduction: Here is 'murderous violence'and the restrictioms algorithm is activated. A solution would be - perhaps - single images that are afterwards spliced into panels of a comics page, but my resources are restrsicted for such a thing. anyway - I'll have to do whatever I can, Blog will be - maybe - posted today. Sorry in advamce for combat pages that are not combat pages and you can barely understand what takes place in them....

panos

Thank you very much, Faerirealm! I have said it before: Everyone's time is limited and these stories are not a 2 minutes read. So, whenever a friend takes the time to read one, I feel very honored that they gave their time. I am very glad that you liked this! NormalyPart 2 would have been posted yesterday, but I hit some major problems. Apart from the limited resources - daily image? upload reference images in chatgpti, I reached the point in the story of ACTION. ACTION means violence. And here, the ludicrous restrictions of GPT reaered their uglu face. Page after page were rejected, until I was forced to alter the scripts so much that I ended up with 2-3 pages, horribly bad, absolutely nonsensical from an action viewpoint. I am shaemd to present them ... but I may do so, in order for the story to go on. i am very frustrated and disapointed.

CaylaCatz

Ok. Well, maybe bring a notebook and sketchbook to write ideas that pop into your head. Without writing, I think you would go into withdrawal. Although if it's also a romantic getaway too, then maybe you can go on complete vacation with no writing too? It'd drive me bonkers, lol, to be without my computer. I'm addicted now to AI art. ... and the way I can make a story image as soon as I think it. It's like all the pieces of myself that were scattered across different interests come together when I do this: art, writing, reading, stories, poetry, chatting with friends who are interested in the same things, etc. I don't think I could do like you and do without for a week. Maybe I should practice one day without...

panos

Thank you. I'm reading this, while a page is being created. (There is a very real pause-horizon approaching. The time is soon that we will go to the village for wrok-vacations, for about 2 and a half months. We have no internet there and it's aconcious decision. (No laptops or smartphones, either. Of course I never did such things I'm doing now in the 'net, but... So... after 10 days - but for unforeseeable events - we will have a LOMG separation, Cayla.

panos

Well, that's exactly it, Cayla! First time in my life I made AI images was November 2025 - so I haven't been away from it before! I will certainly scriblle stories, of course!. We will se. What is certain is that I will do a LOT or reading there - as always - which I bave SERIOUSLY neglected these past few months 😃So it will be work (some days0 reading and swimming and other summer stuff

faerierealm

Okay thanks for your patience, Panos! We generally read stuff on weekends, but we were so busy this past weekend that we didn't catch up until Sunday night. We both loved this story, from the inclusion of Suga's Cobra character to the surprise appearance of Takkis at the end, and look forward to the action and stealth of the next installment. Well done!

faerierealm

Oh... having never made even a single cartoon panel, we have no experience with the 'cascade effect' or what the model might infer from a sequence of otherwise tame images. Hmm that could be difficult to work around! Ironically, we could probably do a rom com or soap opera cartoon easier than you can make a fight scene!

CaylaCatz

It sounds like you will have a lovely time. You might have a bit of withdrawal tho. It sounds like the books will help with that. I know that feeling. I do feel like I don't keep up with my reading these days. I get some done but not like I used to.