And something snapped. I had that moment. The shock of the new. And, here's the thing, it completely altered the trajectory of my life.
I had never really been a fantasy guy before that moment. I'd read
The Hobbit, and that was as far as I'd ever gotten into the genre. I didn't know what
Dungeons & Dragons was (ironic, since that would end up becoming my other major pastime), though I'd seen the ads in the 80s comic books with the pretty art. I'd never heard of Robert Howard or Robert Jordan or Tad Williams or George Martin.
Magic changed that; in almost an instant, I fell in love with the idea of worlds of legend and myth, world alien and wondrous, but weirdly familiar all the same.
Over the next several years, my proximity to the Magical cards brought me nothing but good things. Friendships formed or solidified because of this game... indeed, I was the best man at my best friend's wedding, and we hit it off because we gave each other some really, really good games of
Magic.
Along the way, I became more of a fantasy guy, the influence of those sorts of sources subtly changing and altering what I sought to do in creative expression, be that expression pictures or words. All of it can be traced back to thinking that whatever a Moor Fiend was, it was probably really awesome. Slowly the superheroes dropped out of my pictures, replaced by knights, wizards (and never, ever the pointy-hat variety), samurai, dragons... a place where I could find, or create, my own voice and my own style.
Art is often referred to as the expression of self. I didn't really realize it at the time, but I was creating art entirely new to my way of thinking... essentially, expressing a self that had never existed before. As I made the art (crappy as it was in those days... and still is, but I digress), the art was making me. Guess Neil Gaiman was right.
So, about a year ago, I get the thought in my head that if I'm ever going to be a comic book artist (a dream that even
Magic couldn't change too much), I really should stop trying to get published and just make some comics. The paycheck is less important than the work, yeah?
I'd tried to make webcomics before. Specifically, I refer to an ill-advised wannabe version of what R.K. Milholland does over at Something*Positive. I don't recommend trying to find it, if even it still exists somewhere on the web. I burned out, fast. Too much of it was designed to try and make the strip popular, and it became too much of slog just to put strips out.
So, I threw the notion that anything I did was going to be popular to the side. This was going to be something for me, first and foremost. And it seemed only fitting that whatever I made should be a tribute, a love letter in some sense, to a game that I loved and had so much positive influence in my life.
I put pencil to paper, and started sketching, inspiration beckoning.
********
It's a little late, but Chapter 3 has been finished for about a week. The updates are on a slight hiatus while I try to get ahead a little bit; I'd expect updates to resume early next week.
Thanks to everyone who reads, everyone who continues reading, and everybody who will read
Nascent in the future. That even a few fellow gamers out there think that the comic is worthwhile means that I've managed to give a little something, no matter how minor, back, and that's worth more than treasures.
Mercer
www.slavewagestudios.com/comic.html
www.slavewagestudios.com/podcast.html