Broken Frontier

Quite a few years ago I came across an ad at the back of an Image comic for a new book by the name of Victory. The Roger Cruz-penciled pin up of a cheeky, elvish imp with big …. ears drew me in and sent my imagination crazy. Soon enough I found myself on the message boards of Cold Fuzion Studios, the studio producing Victory, where something very special happened.

In the early days of Cold Fuzion, their message boards were a haven for fan boys and girls who were looking for something new. We were hungry for new stories and characters to enjoy, creativity and for a chance to make some magic of our own. All over the Cold Fuzion (affectionately known as CFZ) message boards, newbie writers and artists were taking part in challenges, eagerly trying to catch the eyes of the editors who prowled the boards.

One challenge was to write a short story recounting the first time that a character sees something … amazing. Never one to be afraid of new creative horizons, and eager to break into the comic book biz, I came up with a story all about the first time a little girl saw snow. The 10 year old character that I created was the daughter of the local mayor, a sometimes (but never very successful) magic user and a thief; I called her Tiki.

Over the course of 2 – 3 short pages (I wish I still had that Microsoft Word document!) Tiki was born. The young magical thief turned out to be a lot of fun to write, so eventually the time came when I decided Tiki and I were going to have quite a few more adventures together. 

Sticking with the short story format, I wrote a tale about Tiki’s ill-fated journey into the Crystal Spire, home to the very Mages she at once feared and admired. Tiki’s plan was to sneak in and steal something special; instead, she picked the wrong jar off the table and ends up with a shrieking demon that Tiki disposes of inside a spare portal that just happens to be kept in her cloak pocket!

That story itself was very short and although we only spent a handful of additional pages together, the cheeky, quirky thief had so grown on me that I decided to create a whole series in which Tiki is a key character. That series came into being way back in 2003, but I am not going to get into that now!

Skip forward a few years and I was back on another message board, this time at Ronin Studios (www.roninstudios.com) where I had discovered an exciting and vibrant creative community. They were putting together a new fantasy anthology named Fablewood and were on the lookout for short story submissions.

I very quickly seized on one page from that very first issue of my creator-owned series featuring Tiki and her phayrie Malinki; the page outlined the young mage’s daring raid into the Crystal Spire to steal a mystical mite. From that one page, I built a 10 page story; Tiki’s Phayrie.

The script wrote itself, and I will be honest to say that it isn’t that hard to write a 10 page story. I had a lot going on in a short number of pages; I had a little girl stealing a fairy, a leap from a 50 story tower, a chase involving a dragon and a seat-of-your-pants, skin of your teeth ending; all in 10 pages!

So, starting from that small germ on the ColdFuzion Studios message board, I had a story. But, this is comics, folks, and a script is a far cry from a finished comic book.

In many ways, the story’s journey from ColdFuzion to Ronin and beyond owes much to Rob Liefeld. That’s correct, I said R-O-B L-I-E-F-E-L-D. You see Rob had a message board on HeroRealm at the time. I posted a topic seeking an artist and soon found myself in contact with Michael Kasinger, better known on the net as Mek71 (http://artofmek.blogspot.com)… 

Let me back up as I have jumped ahead a little in the timeline. William Ward at Ronin liked my story and was keen to see more, so when Michael seemed interested in drawing the tale, I leapt (so much jumping going on, I must have had too much red cordial!) at the chance. After all, I had seen Mek71’s work and I knew he was the artist to bring my little story to life.

Once Michael was on board, he quickly started to turn in character designs and I was quickly jumping (again!) up and down and screaming at my monitor (in joy!) as the characters from my imagination came to life on the screen.

Remember earlier when I said that in some sort of cosmic connection kind of way Rob Liefeld, Image founder and gazillion selling mega 90s creator, had a hand in making Tiki’s Phayrie happen? Well, the entire creative team (there were nine people in Team Tiki), bar one, were sourced directly or indirectly from the Rob Liefeld message board.

So, the script was done, the team was in place; now all we had to was make the comic happen! From the start we were behind; a whole month behind the other creative teams whose work was going to be included in the anthology. The pressure was on, and unfortunately Mek and the rest of the team had to carry the load; I had already finished the script.

Being one month behind was bad enough. Another disadvantage was that the other teams already had finished pages when we had character designs. Worst of all was that we could see the fruits of their artistic labors; we knew the bar was going to be set high.

What we didn’t know was that all our work was going to be for naught …

Next: Phayrie Tales II.