GRAPHIC CONTENT

There's been SL comic strips, SL magazines, and SL advertisements that use graphic novel stylings, but unless I didn't get the memo (and that's always possible), there hasn't yet been much in the way of actual graphic novels using Second Life as an illustration platform.

Enter Sidra Stern's "Reavinator", a witty (but not-worksafe) story of one madwoman scientist's quest to create Frankie, the perfect man. Sidra used a third party tool called Comic Book Creator to create templates and dialog balloons, incorporating those with screenshots featuring sets that she built and avatars in customized poses, to pantomime the action.

"That's my favorite picture," she tells me, "the one with the phone." Ralek Queso created the animation so Residents would know you were in Busy mode, and Sidra retrofitted it for the comic. Another expression was created with Siggy Romulus' mood chooser heads-up display.

Though she shares her name with the man-crazed heroine of her graphic novel, she says there's no autobiographical elements. "It's an archetype," she tells me, laughing. "I figured it would work well here, given the changes everyone can make to their avies and to their self."

She's already working on the next issue. "It won't be with Frankie," she says. "That will come after the next one. I have to figure out what kind of trouble Frankie will get into."