JohnGresham

I'm sure that was the situation in Vietnam and yes and it would have been a different movie if Stachel and the Jasta had made more of an effoirt to get on with each other, but that's not what happens in the film. It dramatizes something very different. It's drama comes from the class conflict and Stachel's ambition (to get the medal), take that away and you have no drama. Stachel is ruthlessly ambitious to progress. His ambition is fuelled by resentment when Heidermann enquires about his parents background the first time they meet. It's clear at this point that Stachel is not going to fit in here. His sense of dislocation is emphasized by the scene in the truck when he enquires how many aircraft Von Klugermann has downed, and is informed that gentlemen do not make such enquiries. Therefater he effectively cuts himself off from the other members of the Jasta, he exists as a loner, he's not part of the group. It's clear he's treated as an outacst by the rest of the Jasta when no-one wants to fly on patrol with him. The film creates an extreme situation and derives its drama and tension from this. Seducing General Klugermann's wife, who is also Willie's mistress, is one of the ways Stachel tries to demonstrate that he is both the equal and better (in bed) of those who are socially superior to him and try to exclude him. Is he acting like a jerk? Well, he's certianly an anti-hero in many respects, but the film really makes it difficult to sympathize with or like anyone. For all his ambition, skill and ruthlessness Stachel never achieves the acceptance he seeks and his death is manufactuered and manipulated by the officer class to ensure he does not disgrace them, while rejecting him one the one hand, they also hypocritically celebrate him as a German hero. One final point worth remembering was just how deeply those class divisions existed at the time. 80 squadron (I think) refused to accept James McCudden as their CO because he didn't have a public school background...and then Mick Mannock was appointed their CO some time afterwards...odd coincidence that.

It's a good start, so don't give up on it, or be discouraged by what I said. I was nowhere near that proficient in Photohsop after two months. You've obviously got talent, you just have to nurture it...like a little kitten.

The Blue Max is far from perfect, but I think your criticism really misses the point of the film. Stachel is from the very outset treated as an outsider. His humble background seems to stand in sharp contrast with the middle class and aristocratic nature of the rest of the Jasta and they privately mock him for it. His fierce determination to prove himself their equal by his ruthless pursuit of the blue max is seen as distatseful and ungentlemanly by his colleagues. This is reflected in the film's decision to portray Stachel as a loner who does not mix socially with the rest of the Jasta, with the excepion of the aristocratic Willie, but this is not friendship, this is class warfare.

It's good. I think the one thing that needs more work are the shadows and the colour temprature of the aircraft. The intensity, quality and direction of the light in the background is not really reflected in the light, shadow and colours on the planes. It's a good composition though, so I'd work on it some more if I were you.

While Aces High suffers due to the quality of its effects and the decision (no doubt enforced by budget limitations) to use more contemporary aircraft, the writing and performances have a maturity and honesty about them which puts juvenile, silly efforts like Flyboys to shame. In case anyone is interested Aces High is basically an RFC reworking of R. C Sheriff's WWI play 'Journey's End' and it was adapted for the screen by English playwright Howard Barker.

Flyboys was utter crap!

Well, at the risk of stating the obvious, staying alive in the skies of WWI was 'bloody difficult'. If you want to rack up the flying hours you probably need to be a little less gung-ho and stick with your flight when out on patrol. Going over the 'dicta Boelcke' and Mannock's rules for engagement is always a useful exercise. Then try to put them into practice when out on patrol.

Busy with work and have only dropped in quickly, so apologies if I'm just repeating what's already said. I think the fonts issue has been addressed. The layout and composition of the panels is quite weak. You need to maximize your page space, maximize the dramatic impact of the panels and at the same time, keep the narrative clear. It's quite a trick to pull off, but I'd suggest you need to look at more examples of graphic novesl and draw inspiration from them. The photoshopped images of the characters really makes it impossible to identify them and you need to be able to distinguish between them, so this also needs thinking about. Try to think of this a little like a movie and vary the scale of the images more. So think about close-ups, medium shots, not only to show us who's who, but also to foreground expressions, emotions, reactions, this will really bring the action to life. Got to get back to work, so...good luck with it.

Where's the Brooke-Bond book of the air? Surely that should be on the cover, or the card for the 'twenty minuters'

This is a good idea, but I can only really echo what's already been said about the speech bubbles and the layout/compositions. It really needs to be more character based and driven to become gripping and that means constructing histories and personalities for your pilots as well as finding images of them that you can manipulate in photoshop. You could try using framegrabs from existing films like The Blue Max and Aces High to consturct some of the images of the characters/situations involved I suppose, but you'll need to be careful about copyright infringement.

Can't disagree with that. Stick Von Richtofen in a DH2 over enemy lines with the wind against him and Hawker in a DII and there's a very good chance that Manfred is toast!

Epic struggles??? It would be a one-sided slaughter! This is not even a different direction, this is a completely different game.

Don't forget that the RFC's attitude was overtly aggressive, with the majority of missions taking place on the German side of the lines and they flew far more observation and recon missions than the Germans. By contrast the Germans were much more defensive in their operations. It's difficult to generalize, but in my opinion I think it's doubtful Richtofen would have reached the tally that he did flying for the RFC.

I chose ok, no signifcant issues with the game for me. Simply staying airborne in WWI and staying alive was hard enough, never mind the added difficulty of engaing in combat, that's why the average life expectancy of a pilot was so short. In my opinion the game gets it just right. I'd hate to see it degenerate into an arcade shooter.

Can't say I've the found the Camel particularly difficult to fly in OFF, in fact, she's very forgiving, probably too forgiving. She's absolutley lethal in a turning dogfight and at the moment she is definitely my crate of choice.

The game does model wind/turbulence, you have the option to turn this off in the workshop.

9 victories in thirteen days...wow!

Targeting cone? Do you mean the aldis sight?

Well, no surprise there really. There should only ever be one winner in a dogfight between a bunch of DIII's and DH2's

My other favourite is 'New Zealand rocks!!!'.

Interesting point. I'm pretty sure the Germans were more prone to use incendiaries in WWI than the allies, (there's one particular story of how Mannock [i think] had to dissuade a young pilot in his squadron from loading up with incendiaries because it would make him no better than a Hun) it would be great if it was possible to reflect that in the type and amount of damage inflicted as well as the look of the tracers.

Tut, tut. Manfred was flying a DII when he came up against Hawker. Poor Lanoe stands even less chance if he's up against a DIII.

These were posted a while ago, I know I posted some links to the Voss dogfight myself. It's interesting to see an animated interpretation of it, it gves you some idea of the DRI's deadly agility in the hands of a skilled pilot.