I haven’t posted too much here recently because I’ve been very busy with other project. I just put various interview videos up on the Cloudscape Comics site and am currently working on a comic strip history of the organization with veteran cartoonist Colin Upton. I’m also working on various graphic novels with talent artists of my acquaintance, including a pirate story with the multi-talented Reetta Linjama.

Reetta and I just completed a short comic strip that’s an advertisement for STUD underwear. The comic can be read here. It was a fun and engaging exercise to boil down STUD’s history and purpose into a single-page strip.

More projects are in the works.

There was so much energy, so much connection. I’m proud to be a part of it. Now we get ready for the next step….

My various writing projects continue apace. I’m working on numerous scripts for Cloudscape Comics, as well as continuing to develop their website. I wrote an short analysis of British comics that was put up on the Broken Frontier blog.

However, the project right now I’m most engaged in is the Name Game, where I create new characters based class old comic book names and then have artists provide illustrations for the characters. About the one thing I enjoy more than character and world-building is to see talented artists bring those characters to life.

The ever-talented Reetta Linjama and Ksenia Kozhevnikova have both created a lot of great stuff, and I recently recruited Jayleen Weaver, Guru of Gurukitty. My circle ever widens.

So what direction could I go based on their appearance and their name, which sounds like it’s being spoken by someone with his mouth full of marshmallows? Just to make things extra difficult, how about I keep the “Lawful Good” alignment. Whatever kind of creature my flumph is, it’s benevolent.

Well, what do I think of when I see a bizarre tentacled creature with a peculiar name? Aliens. Now fantasy fiction is not generally big about visitors from another planet, but what about visitors from another universe? Some extraplanar entities who have phased into our reality for some special purpose. What if the flumph is like those benevolent “star-brother” aliens you often get in stories? The ones who show-up to deliver some message of peace to humanity or perhaps to supply use with knowledge that will improve our lot as a species. The flumph look so strange because they are inhabitants of a higher plane of existence, one where our heavy, clumsy bodies would not function. They’re not angels, not servants of a divine power, but simply a more self-aware kind of being than us who has watched us for a long time and sometimes given a helping tentacle. They almost treat us like we were their little siblings to be taught and protected, though they are aware that us mere four-dimensional beings often respond to the strange with fear and hate, so the flumph generally keep their appearance known to only a deserving few.

What’s interesting about them being extra-dimensional beings is that then their strange appearance and goofy name makes sense. Their universe is different from ours, and their views of what’s beautiful are different as well. To each other, the flumph appear handsome and heroic, and their species name is grand and noble. It shows the jarring contrast of the two universes that we have a hard time taking the flumph seriously.

“Do not be afraid, young one. We come in peace. We have much to teach you.”

So in my continuing quest to do many, many things, I have started blogging at Broken Frontier, a comic book news site. Basically, I can write about anything I want as long as it involves comics, and as I have a lot to say about comics, it works out pretty well. So far four of my articles have been posted on the site:

1. Beatrix Potter: Proto-Cartoonist, which discusses whether Beatrix Potter’s stories use the same artistic language as comic books do

2. Snippets of Life, which analyzes Alison Bechdel’s Dykes to Watch Out For

3. The Prankster, which shows how to reinterpret one of the worst villains of all in order to make him cool

4. Superman vs the Tyrant Sun, where I discuss one of my favourite villains of all time, who was created by one of my favourite authors all time.

There’s a few more articles that are currently being processed and some more that are taking form in my brain. It is good to keep busy with various activities, especially when it is in a field you love so much, and one of the lovely things about comics is that there’s so much you can say about them and so many directions to go.

image by Ksenia Kozhevnikova

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have started the Name Game at Cloudscape Comics, which was in turn inspired by DC’s Tangent line. Basically, you take the names of characters, groups, etc. from the existing fictional world, and apply them to totally new individuals (DC’s Joker is a psychopathic clown, Tangent’s Joker is a prankster superhero, Name Game’s Joker is a stoic Man in Black).

It’s been a lot of fun to take iconic names and go off in all sorts of fun directions (“What if Dr. Occult was a real doctor?” “What if Joker’s name was ironic and he was super-serious?” “What if Kal-El was an Atlantean name?”) and been an absolute delight to see my talented artist friends bring my ideas to life.

Both of my Name Games, Universe-D (DC) and Universe-M (Marvel), continue to develop at Cloudscape. In Universe-D, both the enigmatic Immortal Man and the manipulative government organization Shade prepare to face the Sun Emperor, ravager of solar systems, while in Universe-M, the world’s greatest superhero, the Human Torch, confronts her greatest enemy, Nox the Dweller in Darkness, while the espionage organization Cloak & Dagger fights its own shadow war. Waiting in the shadows are the sinister Spider-Man and his Six, the mad psychic Zatanna, Dr. Strange and his Ex-Men, the Liberators of WWII, the government-grown superteam Team Titans, the demonic realm of Oa, and countless more….

As I get more and more artists interested in playing in these two realms, they grow in breadth and depth. I find few exercises of the imagination as enjoyable as this, to see what new forms can be spun from old words. It’s so much fun to play the Name Game….

Flyaway

In the last few months, much of what I’ve been doing has revolved around Cloudscape Comics. It’s a Vancouver-based group of comic creators that I stumbled into one day, overheard them chatting while I was working on a school assignment at a coffee house, and immediately felt a strong connection.

I had a story, “Flyaway” published in their most recent book, 21 Journeys. Illustrated by the brilliant Reetta Linjama,”Flyaway” tells of a young woman trapped in a cold, repetitive life juxtaposed with a bird who didn’t fly south for the winter and so is stuck in a freezing environment. As the bird finally leaves for warmer climes, the woman decides it is time for her to burst free of her rut.

I’m currently working on a serial for Cloudscape’s new digital magazine and also on some stories for their next anthology, a collection of fantasy fiction, which is a topic always dear to my heart. And, of course, I’m also spending a lot of time working on the Cloudscape website.

It is amazing how the organization, in numerous ways, has helped to move my life forward. I count many Cloudscape members as among my dearest friends, and the group has given new scope for my ideas and many talented individuals who can collaborate with on projects. It has been an honour to be involved with it, and it is incredibly exciting to be a part of Cloudscape as it continues to expand its horizons.

Sketch by Reetta Linjama

A return to a world inhabited by unfamiliar superbeings with very familiar names. Last time we met the Human Torch, greatest hero of Universe-M. Now we encounter Nox, the Dweller in Darkness, the Torch’s arch-nemesis.

Marvel Comics' Nox

Every great hero needs a great nemesis, and as I made the Human Torch an optimistic light-based heroine, it seemed reasonable to make her enemy tied with despair and darkness. The more I developed the Human Torch, the more she became a tragic figure, a person able to save everyone except her own family, who were taken into Auschwitz. It would increase that level of tragedy if the Torch’s enemy claimed to be one of her family, someone who the Torch had failed to save. So now I had the central premises of the villain, and needed some names to go with it. Nox is the Greek goddess of the night, and she showed-up a couple of times in Marvel, and there was also an individual called the Dweller in Darkness, a shadowy being with an octopus head who fought Dr. Strange. Calling my villain “Nox, the Dweller in Darkness,” seemed to tell the story well enough. I’d given Human Torch the real name “Katherine Pryde,” as I wanted to use a Jewish character’s name, and so I checked my trusty friend the Internet to see what relatives of Marvel’s Kitty Pryde had been named. Her mother’s name was Theresa, so “Theresa Pryde” became the alleged real name of Nox, though in this case the twin sister, not the mother.

Nox, the Dweller in Darkness

Real Name: At different times, she has claimed to be Katherine Pryde, twin sister Theresa Pryde, or the demon Lilith.

Background

Of all the “master men” recruited by the Nazis during World War II, perhaps none became as feared as Nox, the Dweller in Darkness, mistress of shadows. At first she appeared as a mysterious assassin, striking from the darkness to murder various individuals singled-out by her Nazi commanders. An attempt on the life of Franklin Delano Roosevelt brought Nox in conflict with the Human Torch, and began a long feud between the two.

Eventually Nox captured the Human Torch and revealed her awareness of the Torch’s secret identity as Jewish immigrant Katherine Pryde. Then Nox claimed that she herself was Theresa, Katherine’s twin sister who had been taken to Auschwitz along with the rest of Katherine’s family who were still in Germany. Nox claimed that the Pryde family had been turned over to Nazi scientists who had experimented on them as part of the infamous Master Man project. All the rest of the Prydes had died horribly, but Theresa had bonded with a magic black crystal known as the Darkstar, that had granted her power over all forms of darkness, turning her into Nox. The Darkstar had also filled Theresa with rage over the Human Torch failing to rescue her or her family and thus causing her to seek vengeance against her twin sister.

The Human Torch escaped, though Nox’s words haunted her. The Torch has not found any other evidence of Theresa, and it is possible that Nox is her lost twin sister. However, at certain times, Nox has instead claimed to be the manifestation of Katherine Pryde’s dark side, her repressed self-loathing and rage somehow given life by Nazi science, and sometimes Nox has even claimed to be Lilith, the Jewish demon who rules the night. The Torch isn’t sure what to believe, but knows one thing for certain: Nox hates her and wants her dead, after first seeing her suffer horribly.

Nox vanished after World War II around the same time as the Human Torch did, and returned to the public view the same time the Torch did as well. Whatever her true nature, Nox is haunted by depression and self-loathing, someone who would be worthy of pity if she wasn’t so murderous. Utterly insane, she is motivated by two things: a desire to snuff out the hope and joy in bothers and to gain revenge against the Human Torch.

Powers

She is the mistress of darkness and shadow, with total mastery over it in all its forms. Nox can control shadows and cause them to change shape and grow, and more dramatically, she can produce a strange “uber-darkness” that actually extinguishes light and heat, chilling any being it passes over and making them unable to see anything. Nox can surround herself with a shadow aura to protect her from harm and the darkness can be made solid enough to affect other objects in numerous ways, such as superstrong tentacles that can entrap, crush, or suffocate her enemies. Naturally, Nox is not harmed by her own shadows, and as she can see perfectly in any darkness, her shadows do not impair her in any way.

Nox can also transform herself into either a regular shadow (allowing her to be almost invisible and untouchable) or a “solid shadow” that increases her strength and power, and allows her total control over her body’s shape, such as the ability to stretch long distances. She can even use shadows as portals, stepping through one shadow and coming out through another shadow in another part of the world. She can drag other people through these portals, which is not a pleasant experience for them.

As dangerous as her shadows are physically, they perhaps are even more so mentally. When people are surrounded by Nox’s uber-darkness or touched by her solid shadows, they feel chilled and often anxious. Prolonged contact can increase this anxiousness to fear, depression, and even paranoia. After an hour (or shorter for more nervous individuals), they start to hallucinate, seeing their greatest fears manifest before them. If the person is trapped for too long, they could be driven insane or become suicidal. Nox often enjoys blanketing the whole area in darkness, forcing her opponents to wander around, unable to see, while their panic increases.

In addition to her shadow powers, Nox is also able to fly and to change her appearance to look like any humanoid, either male or female. No matter what form she takes, her hair is always black, as are her eyes (so she often wears sunglasses to hide them).

Limitations

Nox’s shadows are vulnerable to light. Though she can extinguish regular lights, a particular bright presence (such as a laser or high intensity spotlight) could overcome her. Bright light can also cause her physical pain, but it has to be really bright light. Regular sunlight is too diffuse to hurt her, though Nox does find it distasteful.

Her shadows are the opposite of the Human Torch’s light and they often are evenly matched, so that neither can overcome the other. Both their powers are powered by their willpower, so if one of the two women’s concentrate weakens, the other other will triumph.

Written for Cloudscape Comics.

Fairy Dragon

That’s fun. Let’s try it. Flipping through my Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1^st edition Monster Manual II, I come to the Faerie Dragon, a grinning little reptile who unlike other dragons has butterfly instead of bat wings. The normal D&D version is a precocious little pixy who bobs along some sylvan forest, playing magical pranks on any mortals who stumble through and breathing out a fog that knocks people into a euphoric stupor. Certainly that’s one way to interpret a dragon of the fay world, but right now I’d prefer to go a little darker.

Depending upon how you interpret the term, giants can be classified as fairies: they’re nonhuman beings, often with supernatural powers, who inhabit lands away from human civilization. And if so, then the greatest “fairy” dragon was Fafnir from Norse mythology, a giant who murdered his family for their treasure and then turned himself into a huge dragon to be better guard it. In some versions of the story, his transformation was on purpose, but in others it was that the treasure’s curse twisted his own greed and made him into a monster against his will.

So what if that’s a fairy dragon? An ancient fairy lord, some elf king or giant chief or satyr elder whose power, greed, and wickedness become so great that he degenerates into a ravenous monster. He still keeps court in his castle, but now his subjects have to contend with an impatient monster who will swallow them whole if displeased and who desires more and more: more food, more gold, more playthings.

Fafnir breathed fire, but for our fairy dragon, let’s pick something a little more unusual. Fairy powers are frequently illusions, so perhaps the fairy dragon breathes out a gas that causes hallucinations that dance before a person’s eyes so that they believe themselves to be beset by monsters and cannot tell friend from foe. A sadistic trickster, the fairy dragon giggles in glee as its enemies murder each other, each believing themselves to be defeating one of the dragon’s slaves.

The fairy dragon maintains all its power from before its transfiguration: the elf king’s magic, the giant chief’s strength, and as well is a master shape-shifter. It can change its size, become different creatures, even take on the fey form it had before it became a monster. Subtle and manipulative, the dragon often uses its shape-shifting to infiltrate groups, spreading discord and dividing its enemies. However, taking on such forms requires a lot of focus. The moment the monster’s concentration slips, such as when it loses its temper, it becomes a raging dragon again.

The fairy dragon looks more or less the same as how D&D depicted it, except much bigger. Its smile, while originally gentle, is now mocking and sardonic, while its butterfly wings create a hypnotic whirring as it flies through the sky. People look up and can’t take their gaze off the wings’ patterns as the creature descends upon them.

Beware of fairies who become dragons….

It’s fascinating to watch art be produced by a variety of artists, to see each one ponder their creations, choose an image, cross that image out, find a new one, move on to part 2 they’re satisfied with part 1. Each artist has his or her own particular style: there’s the Canadian manga artists, the more realistic ones, the graduates of animation school with their simple vibrant designs, the underground artist, the guy who’s style was influenced by Mayan art…. So many styles, so many creations.

I’ve worked with many of them myself, collaborating on various projects. There’s a joy in seeing one’s ideas given form and body thanks to the work of another. Something magical happens, a transmutation, an alchemical marriage, where the combined result is better than the some of its parts.