So
you'd like to know a little bit about how this comic came about?
Well gather around, its a semi-interesting story. Shifters did
not start on keenspace. Indeed it existed several years as part
of my personal website before I discovered keenspace's services
as a comic host.
What attracted me to them was their updating utility and higher
profile. Shifters was, in fact, already 3 years old before I
ever came to keenspace. So the date of start in the achives
is quite wrong.I actually began drawings for shifters as early
as 1998, which was the year I graduated from College. It is
a hobby, and so it took second place to many other projects
and my job, so I didn't update reliably. In fact I would only
update maybe one panel a month if that. I realized in 2000 that
if I wanted to continue this I would have to find a way to get
through it. I was struggling for writing and drawing as I didn't
have time to do both, nor a very clear idea of anything beyond
the absolute main story of Shifters. Then I met James Strocel.
I found out he was a writer and invited him to try writing some
material for Shifters, as I admitted I was at something of an
impass. After some lengthy discussions about existing characters
and what I ultimately had in mind, he set about to writing his
first script " Tears of Blood". It was defiantely
a turning point for shifters as, for the first time, I had a
real direction to work in without worrying about writing it
myself. That freed me up to focus more on the artwork, character
design, and other aspects of artistic comic creation.After tackling
the first two issues that James had written, I felt that I was
getting to a point where I could more support a regular update
schedual if I had something to update automatically and I dropped
the full color I was doing at the time. When I found keenspace,
i saw the potential to not only keep my schedual, but expose
my work to a whole new community of comic readers as well as
be involved in a dynamic and seemingly friendly ( if somewhat
wacky ) web community. I uploaded all the comics I had since
the beginning on August 10th, 2001.
Some
people have commented that the comic art is very inconsistant
in the beginning and improves drastically. This is due in part
to the time between the panels in the beginning as well as the
state of my life at the time. Shifters is a sketchbook. A plaything
to try and improve my abilities. When you look at the entire
archives of shifters you are looking at a work spanning nearly
5 years. Indeed the first few issues did suck very badly and
suffer from horrible typography and other issues, I will revise
them when I have time. Every issue I continue to improve and
I will continue this quest, no doubt starting other comic projects
to strech my skills in other areas. Shifters has been very challenging
for me due to the technology level of the setting and the action
of the story. It has been tremendously hard to draw at times
for me. After three years of writing for Shifters, James found
he did not have time to continue, so I once again find myself
alone. However, he did a great service for Shifters and helped
tremendously when I most needed it. I thank him for everything
he did with a most sincere heart.Currently Shifters updates
three times a week, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, with a
periodic update on Sundays. Perhaps one day I will be able to
update more, but for now, this is how it will have to be as
I have a full time job and try to have something resembling
a social life on weekends.
