About the comic
Shifters was born in early 1998 when I decided
I wanted to try to do a comic. Being a long time comic and cartoon
fan, I'd always wanted to do one. I wasn't a particularly good
storyteller or author, but I wanted to do a story about stuff
I liked and was passionate about, namely werewolves, vampires,
cyberpunk, magic, and some other stuff thrown into the mix. I
felt that through doing a comic I could improve my art and my
storytelling skills. At the time I created it, I was a student
at college and didn't exactly have a lot of money to have it published
traditionally. But I had a website, a fairly active one, and a
scanner. I was websavvy enough to make a site for it and put it
up to share with my friends who also enjoyed the same subjects
could see what I had done. This was quite a bit prior to the 'webcomic
boom' we have now, so Shifters, all told, is fairly old.
I didn't really get 'serious' about it until I moved to keenspace
in 2001, where the comic would update automatically. I also got
a writer at the time and commited to update several times a week.
As the years have passed I have improved vastly both in terms
of art and storytelling. The first two issues were my lame ducks,
but the third issue, " Tears of Blood" was the debut
of my writer, James Strocel. James wrote up to "Wolf's Clothing"
under my creative direction and is largely responsible for the
early feel of Shifters. While I had input and directed the story,
he still ultimately wrote it. This allowed me to focus on the
art without the story overhanging my head. However, James and
I did share some creative differences which caused a certain degree
of tension and he was also a very busy guy. Eventually it turned
out he was too busy to really continue and I wasn't very happy
with where things were going. They were getting to far away from
my original vision, so we amicably parted ways.
When James Strocel left I took over the writing
chores once again. I try to put out as much as I can, but it seems
life is always getting harder and not easier and my time dwindles
more than I would like. Shifters is not an infinate story. It
will end one day. I have other stories to tell in the same world,
" The Beast Within " being only one of them. I will
hopefully be able to finish this story, and hopefully you, the
reader, will still be with me at the end.
Some people have pointed out that the story has elements of White
Wolf's Werewolf the Apocalypse in it. However, Shifters is NOT,
I repeat, NOT based on WW:tA. It is in fact based on Cyberpunk
2020's Alternate Reality Sourcebook:Night's Edge. There is use
of traditional werewolf mythos, of which White wolf also uses
heavily, thus there are some commonalities, however, they are
coincidental from the same mythology sources. Yes, both have vampires,
yes both have werewolves and other werecreatures, yes, both worlds
have fantasyish beings, mages, and humans in a modernish setting.
However, if you actually look at the two, beyond that, that is
where the similarities end. I have not actually read any whitewolf
source in detail and am only passingly familiar with it.
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