The Takashima Extraction is my passion project.
It is a photo graphic novel, set in the Shadowrun world of futuristic Seattle. With elements of film noir and cyberpunk, it tells the story of Aloysius Keaton, who is compelled to follow the data trail, no matter the cost.
The idea started around 2010, when I began collecting ball jointed dolls. One part of the hobby I love is creating photo stories. But I didn’t want to just create the same photo stories everyone else tells on the doll forums. Don’t get me wrong: I love the photostories on the forums, but I wanted to do something new.
It began as a simple story of three high school students, all technomancers. I took one haunting photo that served as the jumping off point. I wrote the outline in a weekend but the scope of the story grew and I kept adding characters. I realized I didn’t have the skill to do what I wanted, so I saved the outline and worked on other projects. Every couple of years, I’d re-read the outline, revise the story, add dialog.
In the course of revising the outline, I made a vague reference to “The Takashima Extraction” an “unfortunate incident” well known in the Seattle ‘runner culture. Details were sketchy but everyone knew the target and most of the ‘runners involved were killed and 4 people survived the extraction.
This page features the conceptual imagery and test layout for the graphic novel.
The first 3 images are character portraits for the technomancer story. I was sort of happy with them but what held me back was how to show the difference between the real world, the magical world and the matrix (yes, that matrix. It came from a Shadowrun short story, “Happy Fun Ball,” I believe).
Takashima became the proof of concept for the technomancer story. I’ve become so engrossed in Takashima, that like Keaton, I have to work on this until the end.
Steve Smith 
