Hi folks!

As we fire up the first stage rocket engines and begin our ascent into the story of Follower, I wanted to don my Captain Obvious costume and command your attention for an announcement: The story starts off slow.

Those of you who have some background in comics or writing know that setting and characterization are important qualities–qualities that can make or break your story–and I wanted to make sure I could hammer out the setting and the initial characters in as few pages as possible without “breaking” and “cheating” y’all out of a good story. Let me explain:

I wanted characters to act naturally in how they played their role–not as a tourist guides giving expositions to other characters where they would clearly know what the other was talking about. Imagine if, upon identifying an enemy submarine, a crewman decided to explain how to fire a torpedo to a rookie fresh out of sub school. It looks like he’s explaining it to the new guy, but he’s really doing it for the reader.

I hate crap like that. I really do. It’s lame and its stupid and it’s insulting. Why? Because if you graduated sub school–or any technical school for that matter, especially on a submarine!–you would know how to do the simplest of things. That rookie getting the lesson already knows this stuff, and the other guy is more or less wasting time, space and effort.

Stuff like that drives me nuts. Ok, rant over.

The only exhibition I want from Follower characters would be something you could pick up if you were listening in on their conversation or just snooping around their desk. And though this means the story starts off slow because we have to have a gradual introduction to people and places, the questions of “what does this mean” will have that much more heft. Everything you see on the page in this comic is a window to another world; everything has meaning and merit. This goes for setting just as much as it does characters.

These are all hints and puzzle pieces to a bigger game. Don’t rush and throw useless things aside. Take your time. And above all, enjoy!

_D