Hidden Details: Forthide

MAN the responses to this comic were nice! I must admit I was a bit scared of uploading a Fortnite comic since I had no idea if the fanbase is toxic or not. Turns out that the Fortnite community is super wholesome. Haven't felt this loved in weeks!

There aren't many hidden details in this comic (since I had to spent all my time animating that stupid dance), so this will be a short and sweet blog.

I wanted to portray my noobishness through the equipment of my character in this comic. So I gave him the default skin/outfit and a pickaxe. He was originally carrying a shotgun, but my brother pointed out a pickaxe would suit better since that'd mean he never picked up a single weapon.

The "Spirits of Previous Online Shooters" are iconic characters from iconic online shooters with little wings. The green guy in the top left corner is Master Chief, from the Halo franchise:

The motivational speaker in the top right is Captain Price, from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

The guy in the bottom left corner is a Heavy from Team Fortress 2. The amount of hats that have been added as customization options in that game have become a small meme (WAY before Fortnite even existed), so that's why he's wearing that huge stack of hats.

The guy in the bottom right corner is - apparently - an Elite Crew Terrorist. I'll be honest with you: I know virtually nothing about Counter Strike. I had to ask my friend and colleague Christiaan for an iconic Counter Strike character and he told me I had to use this guy.

The choice of using characters from Halo, Call of Duty, Team Fortress 2 and Counter Strike was a deliberate one, but I did have to cut a lot of other games/franchises. This was the full list of games I originally wanted to include in this comic (bold made it in):

- Halo
- Gears of War
- Unreal Tournament
- Call of Duty
- Team Fortress 2
- Overwatch
- Counter Strike
- Rainbow Six: Siege

I hope you all noticed the insta-beard, insta-muscles and insta-arm hair I gave myself in the third panel. That's what proper motivation does to a guy.

I was quite proud of the fact I remembered to make the little silhouette of the John Wick/Reaper jump in sync with the bigger one to the right.

If you're wondering why he's jumping, you're not alone. People just do that in Fortnite. I'm guessing it's so you're harder to hit.

There's another tiny reference in the kill feed in the final panel. "My" username is "a27yearoldguy" in this comic. My real username is just plain old AbelHagen (feel free to add me) but I wanted to really drive home the fact that old people are being humiliated by young kids in this game. That's why I called the John Wick "coolkidyeet2004". Yeet is something cool kids say. The 2004 is a reference to his birth year, making him 14 years old.

And lastly, in the final panel, you can make out my mangled corpse in the smoking crater if you look hard enough.

And that's it for this week. As always, thanks for reading and I'll be back next week!

Cheers!!

- Abel