It all started
in 1991...
Rediscovering
the original rollout photos of the Arrow in my father's collection prompted
me to make a few sketches of the aircraft, and the mystery surrounding
the fate of at least one of the prototypes was too tempting to resist weaving
a storyline around it. I wasn't the first to play at that game (Daniel
Wyatt beat me to it) and it wasn't the Arrow's first appearance in comics
(Tigers of Terra beat me to that!) but this would be the first fiction
that made the Arrow the star of the show rather than just a prop
or even the McGuffin; it deserves no less. In my interpretation, that meant
making it an actual character, with its own life, personality and motivations.
Anthropomorphizing of machines wasn't something I outgrew along with kindergarten;
it had just translated itself into more sophisticated manifestations. The
rationalization for this ended up carrying the basis for the story way
back into the distant past, to a clash of long-dead civilizations over
the power of mana, which occasionally vests itself in certain mineral deposits
and holds the potential for bringing life to whatever things are made out
of it.
That
made it easy to place the fracas over the Arrow as the publically-visible
element of yet another snarl-up between the remnants of those ancient cultures.
The first volume, which is now collected in The Maple and the Vine,
was originally published in three parts over a span of two and a half years
starting in 1992, and sold in local comic shops and at conventions in east
and central Canada. It was a ton of work, but the sales were enough to
cover its printing costs. That was followed by the next volume, The
Well and the Whaler's Cat, which was in two parts and marked a change
in format and stylistic approach, a little less manga-ish, more European.
I was also using a smaller original size to speed up art production and
it did help somewhat. However, for the upcoming He Crossed His Neck
with Thunder I reverted back to traditional 11" x 17" comic art because
I had a lot of Blue Line board on hand that I wanted to use up. The linework
is also more relaxed, even if the panel layouts are more clear-cut and
disciplined.
I
have also switched over to digest-sized books because, well, I can get
a product that looks a lot better for only a little more money per unit.
Making my publications look good and feel good in your hands has always
been my first priority in the composition and layout stage, and I shopped
this around to many different reproduction services before coming to Sir
Speedy, which did a stellar job with the A:tMatV compilation. |
