Jiran Adventures (series)

Jiran Adventures is a "neo-comic" series created by Donavan Smalley. The series follows Jiran Jinot- a human-like alien, from Planet Jinot, who fights to protect Earth from destruction.

Although it started out as serendipity, the series became popular amongst Smalley's peers. The original series began in late 2003 and ran into summer of 2004. There is a revised version of the series that began in fall 2010 that has 2 created volumes and another in the works. Jiran Adventures eventually crosses over with another of Smalley's works, Jack &amp; Jim Adventures, thus creating a long, expanded universe that serves as an ongoing story.

History
Jiran Adventures began in spring of 2003. Inspired by Dragonball Z, he decided to create his own type of comic, that he calls "neo-comics" based off of it. He drew the first picture of Jiran in order to create a character similar to those shown in the plot. Although not the best of artists, Donavan saw that what he created was good and he saved the picture.

Fall of 2003- when Donavan was in the 7th grade, he created a sketch that he called "Death Scene"- a drawing where Death is terrorizing a town. He felt that the sketch needed a hero to rescue the people and began drawing the first few pages of Jiran Adventures. After he saw that he liked what he had done, he continued to create a brand new story that created and introduced even more characters. Eventually it became a solid story line that continued on. Donavan envisioned the drawings to be like an actual television series and called each division "episodes"; each episode included narration as well as "to be continued" endings. The series became popular amongst a couple of peers and he created new episodes almost daily to share with and entertain them. Jiran Adventures had 2 whole "seasons" and a third that was in the works by summer of 2004. It was at that time that, due to writer's block, that he chose to discontinue the series. During the break, he created and worked on another neo-comic: Jack & Jim Adventures.

Jiran Adventures Revised
Finally, in fall of 2010- during the beginning of his sophomore year in college- Donavan decided to jump-start Jiran Adventures again after a nearly 6 year hiatus. Due to his ability to draw his story better, and seeing many confusing concepts and loopholes in the story, Donavan decided redo the series by revising it. The resulting outcome became known as "Jiran Adventures: Revised". This revised version has better quality drawings, a more solid and understandable storyline, easy-to-read and follow dialogue, and has new improvements to help the story move forward.



Instead of episodes and seasons, Jiran Adventures: Revised changed to volumes and chapters. There are two whole volumes, a third two-part volume in the works, a little over 30 chapters, nearly 600 pages, and has an entire arsenal of amazing characters. The series is still ongoing.

Plot Overview
Fourteen years before the beginning of the series, Jiran's homeworld, Planet Jinot, was destroyed during a vicious onslaught. Jiran's father, King Jinot, sent him to Earth to live and be trained with his master, Master Esol. One year before the main plot, a thirteen year old Jiran accidentally released Lord Zander, a comedic and evil demon unto the world. In his efforts to stop Lord Zander, Master Esol was killed in battle and Jiran achieved Super-Mode as a result. Since then, Jiran swore to kill Lord Zander and make him pay for his master's death.

Although the story started out as a simple super-hero story, it eventually turns into an ongoing story of epic sorts. The series originally focused on Jiran, his childhood friend, Christina Arin, and Lord Zander and his minions: Buckfaced and Wigi-Wigi. As the series progressed, it introduced a new villain, Cytozin and a new hero, Gohan Jono, who were imprisoned together 6,000 years before the beginning of the main storyline. Fusion from the DragonBall series is also incorporated in Jiran Adventures and the fusion between Jiran and Gohan introduce a new character- Jihan.

In the second volume, a new villain, Mew, and a group called Jouci monks were introduced as well as a notable Jouci monk and hero: Mirro. The third volume, which is still in the works, introduces the Terra Gods as well as other villains. This recent volume is devided into two different parts.

The following volumes are:
 * 1) King Cytozin Arc
 * 2) Evil Demon Mew Arc
 * 3) Rise of the Gods Arc
 * 4) Clash of the Gods Arc

World of Jiran Adventures


In Jiran Adventures, there are many things that are "unnatural". For starters, the planet Earth isn't the way it looks in the natural world. Instead of the usual continents, Earth's land is divided into four different regions named provinces. On the "center" of the planet- evenly between the four provinces- are two large islands. All of the major countries of the world are on these provinces. Another variation of Jiran's Earth is that majority of the population on the planet are stick figures. There are demonic creatures that once roamed the earth named Terra Gods, there is a society of monks named Jouci Monks, and there are several different Jins other than Jiran and Gohan. Some areas of the world are futuristic and others are from the 21st century and under.

Art Style
The art style used in Jiran Adventures is different from what most people see. Then, Donavan had no idea what a manga was but he wanted a comic book-style that wasn't typical. When he first began making the storylines, they were with a friend. Another thing that was different was that, instead of using boxes and squares to draw all of the characters and scenes, Donavan chose to draw everything out- using the entire page as a canvas. This was something that he never saw anyone else do and he loved the originality, so he kept it.

The characters, too, have a different look. Each character is made of basic shapes put together and are completely flat, 2D characters. When it started out, Donavan had no idea (and still doesn't) how to use different angles to represent 3d space. Because of that, when he started out all the characters remained face-forward and the only things that turned were their heads. Eventually, Donavan experimented with side views and used them to moderate the characters- still keeping them in full 2D. Not only this, but many characters' heads were altered. Originally, everyone had circular heads- with the exception of King Cytozin and Wigi-Wigi. Eventually, Jiran and Gohan were given triangular-shaped heads versus circular.

On purpose, all of the main characters and main supporting characters are fully drawn out because the focus is moreso on them. All of the other characters on Earth are stick figures and are all smaller than the main characters. This is done intentionally to represent the difference in the "relevance" of each character. Also, all of the characters, backgrounds, etc. are made, intentionally, to be simplistic.

Because of the vast space required to use an entire page, there aren't any backgrounds like those found in comics and manga. However, there are some small indications in order to show the reader where the characters are. If the characters are on the ground there is a ground, clouds are seen whenever they fly through the sky, the sun, clouds, and sky represent the time of day, etc. They aren't as large as an actual background, but they are effective enough to allow for the reader to recognize where they are.

Trivia
1. The amazing part, for Donavan, is that all of this resulted from serendipity.

2. The third arc is split into two parts because the focus of the main story shifts between the two. Part 1 serves as an introductory and Part 2 will finish out the series.

3. Eventually, there will be a prequel to the events that unfolded before "Jiran Adventures" and "Jack & Jim Adventures". The prequel will show the overall connection between the two series.

4. There will also be 2 crossovers between the two series, thus further linking them together.