Boss Pei patted his butt and left, leaving the confused Cui Geng to flip through the comics of Hurricane Comics Company aimlessly.
To Pei Qian, the current situation of the entire "inspiration class" was completely in line with his expectations. He was following the script. He took special care of Cui Geng and asked the author who was most likely to have problems to write a theme with the lowest success rate. It could be said to be multiple insurance.
Pei Qian could consider letting more authors join the "inspiration class" as long as Cui Geng verified that this policy was feasible. It would have a drastic effect on the development of Zhongdian Chinese Network.
As for Cui Geng, he had sunk into deep confusion.
Cui Geng would definitely not choose this theme if he had to choose himself. That was because he was neither good nor interested.
As an author whose understanding of European and American superheroes was limited to a few super IPs and did not have a deep understanding of them, Cui Geng could not think of any reason why he could write a good superhero theme.
However, Boss Pei said that not understanding superheroes was an advantage. What's more, it would definitely not be a problem for him to read more information and polish.
Cui Geng thought about it. He had to take Boss Pei's opinion seriously.
That was because Boss Pei was the true master in terms of creation!
Be it Tengda's games or movies, Boss Pei was personally in charge of them and grasped the general direction. All of these had been verified and were very successful works.
Boss Pei's status in creation was much higher than that of web novel writers like them. Since Boss Pei said that Cui Geng was fine, it might really be fine.
"Could it be that I have some potential that I don't even know about?"
Cui Geng decided to follow Boss Pei's instructions and try his best on the superhero IP of Hurricane Comics Company with these doubts.
As an important part of Tengda Corporation's IP, the "inspiration class" had naturally prepared a large number of Hurricane Comics Company's comics.
Cui Geng picked a few high-selling ones and returned to his seat. He turned on the reading lamp and played light music on his earphones. Then, he sat on the single-seater sofa and flipped through them seriously.
…
In the afternoon …
Cui Geng put the last manga aside and rubbed his temples, feeling a headache coming on.
He read from morning to afternoon. He was also thinking about the plot of these superheroes when he was eating at noon. However, the more he read, the more he felt that it was hopeless.
The more he understood, the more he could feel the difficulty of this mission!
Because they were all comics, there was less text information, so he flipped through them very quickly. Cui Geng skimmed through a few comics that had higher sales. After understanding the general plot outline, his mind became even more confused.
"This Hurricane Comic Company only has a 5% market share in America. It's not without reason that they're being rubbed against by the top two comic companies."
"There's a huge gap between the standards of the first two comic companies, be it in terms of the superhero character or the storyline."
"One look and I can tell that these stories aren't good!"
"Moreover, these characters and plots do not suit the tastes of domestic readers. It can be said that they didn't learn the strengths of the top two comic companies, but kept all their weaknesses. "
"Writing this kind of IP character, isn't it suicide …"
Cui Geng sank into deep melancholy.
Like Multifaceted Man, Duke of Purgatory, Mutant, Robocop, and so on, they were already the most famous IPs of Hurricane Comics Company. Although these IPs left a certain impression, they were already outdated.
What's more, in Cui Geng's opinion, these IPs either did not have strong story extensibility, or the settings did not meet the current aesthetic standards. It was not easy to write derivative plots.
It would not be a problem if these IPs were brought into GOG as a game image. However, it would be extremely difficult to write a story that was attractive enough with them as the main character.
Needless to say, the other IPs were all for nothing.
There were even many superheroes that were targeted by the top two comic companies. For example, a hero called 'Captain World' could be seen at a glance. This kind of hero could not be used.
If he really wrote it, he would probably be laughed at.
All in all, Cui Geng had a headache.
"How about I just deal with it?"
"I'll choose an IP like Multifaceted Man or Robocop and make do with it to write a fanfic?"
"This kind of IP might be very old and outdated, but at least domestic readers still have some impression of it. Making do with it shouldn't be considered cheating, right?"
After thinking hard for a few hours to no avail, Cui Geng subconsciously wanted to choose easy.
way。
However, Boss Pei's face suddenly appeared in his mind, and he immediately dispelled this idea.
"No, absolutely not!"
"How can I have such an idea?"
"Boss Pei is taking special care of me. Obviously, he attaches great importance to the content I want to write and has high expectations!"
"How can I have the idea of fooling around? How sad would Boss Pei be! "
"Boss Pei already said that there is no requirement for word count. Slow work yields fine work. If I give up so quickly and start writing rashly, wouldn't I completely let Boss Pei down?"
"No, I have to think about it seriously!"
"I have to take out the drive that I used to analyze the Tengda spirit with Wu Bin, figure out the deeper meaning behind Boss Pei, and find the only correct answer!"
"I should interpret Boss Pei's true intentions according to Tengda's internal interpretation method!"
The Tengda spirit encouraged Cui Geng once again when he was about to give up.
Cui Geng had a deep understanding of 'Boss Pei's intention to answer standard thinking' when he analyzed the Tengda spirit with Wu Bin and wrote the Tengda spirit manual.
This was a set of methodology led by Bao Xu, Huang Sibo, Lin Wan, and the other veterans of the company. The heads of the other departments continued to perfect it to figure out Boss Pei's true intentions.
To be more specific, he deduced Boss Pei's true intentions through the content of the tasks that Boss Pei assigned. This trick had been tried and tested in the games department, the movie department, and the physical department. It had created many miracles.
Now, Cui Geng decided to apply what he had learned to his own creation!
"What's the first step? Oh, that's right. Find the most unreasonable point in Boss Pei's words and start analyzing … "
Cui Geng tried hard to recall the conversation he had with Boss Pei in the morning.
In fact, Boss Pei did not say much. He only said that "Superheroes can also be written for domestic readers", "We don't have to make domestic readers like these superheroes", and "It's okay to write these superheroes to death or half-dead".
"It sounds like Boss Pei is hinting to me not to use the traditional Western story structure to write superhero stories. Instead, I have to work hard to tell it in a way that domestic readers can accept …"
Cui Geng began to search for relevant information online.
Superhero-themed movies were considered part of the cultural export and had a huge market in the country. Cui Geng had not paid special attention to it but he still understood some basic concepts.
Superheroes might have different abilities, personalities, and identities but most of them had similar characteristics:
They had extraordinary strength, technical ability, or proficiency in related equipment in a certain aspect. It did not matter if it was strength, intelligence, special abilities, or money abilities, they could all be considered in this category.
They wanted to uphold justice and be responsible. They would choose to stand up in times of danger and not ask for anything in return.
To a certain extent, they represented Western morality. They generally did not kill people but would hand them over to the police and the law.
They usually had a secret identity to protect their friends and family. At the same time, they often had another identity in real life other than superheroes, such as reporters, students, rich second-generation heirs, and so on.
They usually had an iconic costume or prop.
Generally speaking, the stories of superheroes were basically stories where justice finally defeated evil: supervillains wanted to do bad things and were discovered by superheroes. After a series of twists and turns, superheroes defeated supervillains and maintained the peace of the world.
Of course, as the theme of superheroes developed, more and more patterns appeared in the story. There were even some "anti-hero" characters who were neither good nor evil.
However, there were still very few superhero stories that would deviate from the core of "justice defeats evil". That was because the audience might not buy it if it deviated from this core.
In a sense, superhero-themed comics or movies were the same as web novels. They were both a creative model that could be mass-produced. There would be many innovations in the details even though the basic routine was constantly repeated. What's more, readers liked this set and loved to read it no matter how many times it was repeated.
That was also the reason why Cui Geng felt that he could not start writing: it was precisely because this was a creative model that could be mass-produced and was deeply rooted in the Western cultural background. As a Chinese, there was a natural cultural barrier to this. Thus, according to this standard process, it would never surpass the superhero stories created by Westerners.
This was not belittling oneself, but a clear understanding of reality.
It was just like asking a native Westerner to write a traditional Chinese martial arts story. No matter how much preparation he made, the final product would definitely be 'lacking in depth'.
Cui Geng frowned. "In other words, it's impossible to sell the story I write to foreigners. I can only sell it to our countrymen."
"That's what Boss Pei said."
"But how can I sell it to our countrymen?"
"Boss Pei seems to have done a lot of Western-themed content before. It seems to be very popular among our countrymen. How did Boss Pei do it?"
Cui Geng could not help but think of the game 'Struggle'.
In fact, 'Struggle' was also a completely Western game. The characters and the story were all based on the Western background, but domestic players liked it very much.
Cui Geng carefully recalled the storyline of 'Struggle', and his eyes suddenly lit up.
"I understand!"
"The secret of Boss Pei's creation is to observe Western stories from the perspective of Chinese culture and deconstruct them. He would tear apart the exquisite outer garments of Western literary works and then completely reveal its inner nature!"
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