Jan 10 | Sunray: Book 1 and done!

Almost four years ago I decided to realize a dream I had had since I was a teenager and write a comic book.

I found a hosting site (comicfury.com) and decided to post it online for free, knowing that my skills were minimal in terms of digital art and even comic book design, writing, and structure. Although I’ve been a writer and artist since childhood, I did my creative writing undergraduate in drama, a dialogue driven medium, which is extremely different from a visual medium like graphic novels, and I have never taken any real formal training in art aside from plain old doodling. I’ve been drawing in the manga style for over twenty years, and I wrote a few stories in old spiral bound notebooks when I was a pre-teen, but I didn’t have a scanner until I was an adult and so I never learned how to play with it or any digital art/colouring software until the last few years.

Despite all of this, I have always had thousands of story ideas, and when I was 15 or 16, I set out to write a magical girl story. They’ve always been my favourites – I’m a diehard fan of Sailor Moon. Devil Hunter Yohko was the first “adult” anime that ever saw (and man I was WAY too young to see it, which I realize now!!!), and it got me hooked on powerful girls in sexy outfits kicking ass. My own story was a little different – like Sailor Moon it focused just as much on the relationships between the characters as it did on the action. But it never actually got past the synopsis stage. I drew lots of “splash pages” of the characters, but never had the energy to really lay it down, and even if I had there wasn’t really anyone to share it with.

I kept drawing these girls and their adversaries for years afterward, and the story in my head changed, became more gritty and realistic, eventually influenced by more dramatic stories like the work of Sophie Campbell and newer anime series like Full Metal Alchemist, She the Ultimate Weapon, and Puella Magi Madoka Magica. But again, nothing materialized beyond piles of sketchbooks and outlines in my computer’s “writing” folder.

Fast forward to 2015 when I finally decide I want to lay down Book 1. I started with simple black and white pictures, and over time became more comfortable with the Gimp editing software which my spouse introduced me to. I posted the first few pages, and a few friends were reading and that was rad, and then a few people from the ComicFury community got into it and that was even more fun. It was still only for me, really, but that was enough. I was learning a new skill, and having so much fun watching this story which had germinated in my head so long come to life.

Now, January 10th 2019, I’ve just finished colouring and posting the very last page of Book 1, which is set to autopost at the end of April.

Looking at those first few pages and comparing them with the last few is amazing. I had it in my head that I might re-post all of the old pages with updated versions, not only to make the art consistent but to edit the story, which turned out too long, as you might imagine. Now, I think I’ve decided that I may consider self-publishing in the future, and if I do I will make sure the book looks like a cohesive unit.

I’m leaving the free online version as is, though, I think.

Not only for the simple reason that many other artists on ComicFury have this kind of explicit transition from less skilled to more skilled over time, but because I want to be able to look back and remember that this was a skill I built myself, and just because I wanted to.

The story is a magical girl/superhero/teen drama which explores theological issues, the concept of fate/destiny, the ramifications of what it would actually be like to be a teen superhero, and a whole host of other stuff that I’m interested in. I’ve done my best to represent a variety of ethnicities, sexualities, and body types. :)

If you’d like to read the story, you can start here. I have actually updated the first couple of pages, but you’ll see it quickly go back to a less skilled presentation!

Hope you like! I’ve already started work on Book 2.