More Northstars!

 Two new Northstars comics available on Amazon: Yule be Sorry and Little Adventures. Here's the announcement from the artist:

Winter Wyvern - Is the Tongue Too Long?

Here is a design sketch for NorthStars that I'm not too sure about. The tongue seems a bit distracting. (Click to enlarge)

What do you think?

- Jim

A Villain for NorthStars: The Krampus

When casting about for a villain for my NorthStars comic, I wanted a character with some ties to the holiday/Winter season. A few names came to mind (Old Man Winter, Burr, The Snow Queen, ect...) None of those characters really grabbed me until I stumbled on the legend of the Krampus, a horned creature originally from Germanic folklore who punishes children during Christmas.

Googling revealed that not only was this character ideologically perfect for a villain for my comic, he also seems to have a bit of a fan following. Haigen liked the idea of the character as well, but suggested (rightly) that we make him more kid friendly so he would fit in with the rest of the comic.

I drew up a rough idea for artists Anna Liisa using my limited skills...

...but I suggested she find a way to incorporate horns into the design. I felt like not including horns was a bit of a cheat on the concept which might get me pinged by fans of the character. Anna Liisa rose to the challenge and this is what she came up with:

She made some very nice changes in my design:

• She went with a sort of curvy Dr. Seuss like antlers which I think work great. 
• She also shorten the muzzle I came up with in a way that will allow for more comical expressiveness. 
• Interestingly, she drew his hair less thick than my original design, but I think that was a good call. The wisps of hair on the sides convey harriedness in a way that should work well in the script.

Next up, his minions!

- Jim

The Return of NorthStars

About this time last year, I mentioned that I was working on a new Project called NorthStars. This was going to be an all ages comic inspired by the Carl Barks Disney stories, Asterix and Obelix and the classic Rankin Bass animations from the 60's.

Unfortunately, the artist I was working with (Laurianne Uy) withdrew from the project so that she could  concentrate on her own manga series. (I also believe she found drawing Pierre's character The Artifact a bit daunting.)

Since this put the comic on hold, I used the time to retool the project a bit. I ditched Artifact (for now) and decided to add another character called Frostina, the daughter of  The Yeti, another Flashback Universe character. Here is the new character as designed and illustrated by our new artist Anna Liisa Jones

Anna Liisa also redesigned the primary character of the story, Holly Claus

Because I've replaced Artifact with Frostina, this makes my two primary characters female. While that was sort of a happy accident, the more I thought about having a comic where the central characters were both girls, the more I liked the idea. I may be wrong, but I don't think there are a lot of comics with female characters which really appeal to girls (especially as published by the Big Two companies.) There are comics which feature female characters, but most often those still feel like comics written for male comic book fans.

At their best they are homogenized superhero stories with a female character in form only (like Spider-girl or Supergirl)

At worst they are embarrassing adolescent fodder filled with little more than crude action scenes and clumsy titillation. 

Sometimes FBU scribe Trey Causey asked me this week why the big two don't really seem to target the female audience better (especially when movies like the Hunger Games and Young Adult fiction are proving what a lucrative market that is.) After a bit of wrangling over the subject we both decided that the primary reason is that the people writing for (and editing) DC and Marvel are mostly guys who are not really that interested in writing anything but comics similar to the ones they've read. Trey said (and I think he's right) comics are one of the few places where the people who run the companies are overwhelmingly drawn (hired) from fans.

And even when the companies try to start a imprint aimed at attracting more female readers, they still sort of get it wrong (as was the case with DC's Minx imprint.)

So is NorthStars a deliberate attempt to target girl readers?
Nope. It's more of an attempt to scratch a nostalgic milieu based itch for me.

Still, when I explained the concept to Anna Liisa, she said she love the old Donald Duck stories and was looking forward to being a part of the project. And based on conversations I've had with other female fans I've met recently, I wouldn't be surprised if girls enjoyed NorthStars more than your average Catwoman comic.

- Jim

A Robot fighting a Winter Troll

Here is a piece of art from a new project I'm working on. It's an all ages comic called NorthStars which will feature a favorite Flashback Universe character of mine, Artifact, as well a ton of new characters.

This illustration is by my partner on the project, the phenomenal Laurianne Uy, creator of Polterguys.

The story takes place in a world that is an extrapolation of the fantasy elements found in the old Rankin Bass holiday specials which have always intrigued me...

...with the lighthearted action of Asterix and Obelix...

...and the grand adventure you might occasionally see in classic Uncle Scrooge stories (where it seemed they were discovering lost cities and ancient civilizations every other issue.)

This has been a concept I've been wanting to work on for quite some time as the seeds for this story stretch far back into the original days of the Flashback Universe. As a matter of fact, if you were a keen reader of the Saturn Knight Christmas story, you would have noticed a rather odd Easter egg on one of the pages. Check it out here:

What that strange metal sarcophagus is will be explained in the story but let's just say, the adventures of Artifact span many worlds. ;)

- Jim