Ninja Bill (series)

Ninja Bill is a series of comics written by Kaz Johnstone and Damon Murray. Although the storyline is complicated, the story revolves around a ninja named Bill and adventures he has to save his friends and sometimes enemies. To date, Ninja Bill and Ninja Bill II have been released, with plans for Ninja Bill III and Ninja Bill 4 to be made. The comics are entirely drawn in stick figure form and none have noses; only a few have mouths. Speech bubbles are not used; instead the text of what they are saying is written next to the character. The characters, however, do move and express emotion. What happens in the story is sometimes narrated by showing the front page of a newspaper called the Voodoo Daily, as well as some random comic headlines for the reader's enjoyment.

Plot
Ninja Bill

James Bond is killed by a bomb. Local authorities arrest Ninja Bill for the crime and sentence him to death. Just minutes before his execution, however, he escapes after fighting a bloody battle against twelve policemen with the help of his best friends Kyle and Mike, who are twins. The story then goes to a not-so-gangster named X-ity XXX along with his assistant, Ollie. The gang had recently captured a young girl and her attempts to talk her way out fail. Ninja Bill then recieves a letter, revealing that the girl they had captured was in fact Bill's sister Rebecca. Bill then goes to the gangsters' lair and kills most of the gangsters and kills X-ity XXX with a slap. The first installment ends with Bill and Kyle heading to a then-unknown location called Mt. Gandhi.

Ninja Bill II

The second book picks up where the first one left off. Bill and Kyle head to Mt. Gandhi and meet Gandhi for the first time, but his "wise workds" prove unhelpful and the two leave after Gandhi starts doing Gangnam Style. X-ity XXX, who remained alive, meets up with Ollie and discusses their next move. Bill walks along a street when Weeder attacks him. Weeder manages to kill Bill but his results prove worthless when Bill's corpse suddenly turns into Gandhi. Bill then witnesses Ollie getting shot and getting stabbed by his father that he had never met before, but then wakes up, realizing that it was a dream. A letter tells Bill that Mt. Gandhi would be exploded so he heads there, where X-ity XXX, Ollie, and Ryan are engaging in a few scenes of not-so-criminal activity. They take a shuttle bus to Mt. Gandhi, where X-ity threatens to explode it and all of the characters meet up for "the ending", which seemed to be planned the entire time. When the fuse is accidentally lit mayhem happens but Death arrives and puts out the fire. Ollie plays catch with X-ity with a bomb, when suddenly Ryan lights it with a flamethrower, saying "I wanted to see someone else die for a change", and the mountain explodes.

Structure
Ninja Bill is unlike other comics because all of the characters are stick figures and the spoken parts are passages written next to the characters instead of speech bubbles. There is no color in the world of Ninja Bill, and nobody has noses, only a few have mouths, and hair is rare. Some details are shaded in, such as Ninja Bill's ninja mask and Rebecca's hair. The world of Ninja Bill is the same as Earth, with the same technology and all of the music and movies are released there as well,

on the same day.

Production
Ninja Bill is an easily drawn comic that takes little effort but requires a good script to remain constantly amusing to the reader. Ninja Bill was drawn over a period of about a week and a half and Ninja Bill II, due to delays with winter break, took about three weeks. During production, first, a first draft is drawn, with script ideas and switching back and forth with the two authors, with occasional help from friends for an idea or two to be incorporated into the drawing. Then, when all of the ideas are set and the final storyline is decided, the final draft is drawn by Johnstone so that it does not look like two people drew it. Lastly, the front and back cover is drawn, it is stapled, and distributed among friends.