About the Author and Artist
I am 28, female, and currently reside in British Columbia, Canada
in and about the Lower Mainland. I am a graphic designer by profession
and am currently gainfully employed at a university producing
all manner of things, such as posters, brochures, calendars and
such. I also teach photoshop in the evenings for Continuing Studies
at the same place. I am in a long term, happy relationship with
my significant other. We'll call him Ben. Ben is a very big and
very protective guy who loves me very much and is a huge support
in my life.
My hobbies include videogames (current obsessions
are City of Heroes/Villians and Secondlife), anime (and lots of
it), art (duh), watching movies, reading comics (online or off.
I have an extensive collection.), collecting anime figures, hiking,
and annoying my two kitties. I have had a long history of interest
in mythology, folklore, and fairytales. I also have an avid interest
in transformations (of all sorts), roleplaying, roleplaying games
(of the tabletop variety), and anthromorphics.
I started Shifters initially as a way to improve
my art and storywriting skills ( which I have.. a lot), and to
share a story with friends who enjoyed similar sorts of stories
as me. Particularly those with vampires, werewolves and all manner
of other beasty, lurking just under our noses.
A lot of my ideas came from Cyberpunk: Night's
Edge as I was really into it at the time I created the Shifters
'mythology'. A few old characters from that game even snuck their
way into the comic. My other influences included North American
Shamanism, european werewolf fables, Final Fantasy, Greek, Roman,
and Egyptian mythology, and a liberal smattering of my own twists
and giggles.
Its been a tough labour of love for this comic.
I've been bashed, smashed, reviewed, kicked in the teeth, and
generally abused by critic types (with a few notable exceptions),
but I've kept up with it because frankly, there isn't anything
else like it and I enjoy the story, even if it is a bit obscure
and really requires some effort to understand how deep it flows.
This is not a comic for the faint of heart or the lazy of mind.
There is so much subtle detail, so much floating just under the
surface that you have to really be perceptive to pick up on it.
There are some that have, but they are few and far between. If
you are at least enjoying the comic, I encourage you to participate
in its success. There are many ways to do so, such as voting at
Buzz or Topwebcomics ( just click the buttons to the right!),
posting in the forums, posting in the livejournal, commenting,
telling your friends online and off, donating, etc. I appreciate
all the emails I get and do try to reply to them all at least
once.
I personally never expected this comic to become
popular (even as popular as it is!). So I think its pretty successful
for what it is. The subject matter is kind of far from the mainstream
and the story is complex. Plus, I wasn't very good at the beginning
and that turns people off. Hopefully I will be able to find a
way to redo it so that the art and story jive a bit better. I
have plans to publish shifters, which requires redo anyway, so
hopefully with that will come a much stronger front to the story.
I think that will help get more people into the story easier and
clear up a lot of the misunderstandings that were generated from
the beginings being rather disjointed and incomplete.