“When you swing of your sword will have the intent of cutting into the universe itself. Swing with your whole being, If true your will will carry through your swing, it will be a true cut. A cut that could pierce the universe itself. Only a swing like that can be a cut that carries ideals, a cut that reveals who you are.” That is is basic idea in Sons of Fate, a graphic novel now on Kickstarter. Far more importantly to me it is the lifelong lesson that I learned …through reading comics.
As a child growing up in NYC in the eighties, there were a lot of influences. Star wars alone paved the way for all the other sci-fi movies and shows during the eighties. Schwarzenegger and Stallone punched and kicked through multitudes of bad guys, in eighties action flicks. Saturday morning cartoons followed by kung-fu movies (don’t even get me started about Bruce Lee’s legacy then) rounded out the weekend, all giving the impressionable youth that I was something to always get into. With all that there was nothing more interesting than comic books.
To me, the comics then were the greatest comics ever made. Every artist was different, Every story had ongoing repercussions, and underlying themes. I read the stories told to me in this comics and felt like I was an adult. The content wasn’t watered down, or diluted. It elegantly walked the line of appropriateness, not over stepping things that could become objectionable and at the same time kept me interested and engaging.
What I didn’t realized then that I realize now was that they were setting up the foundations of how I was to write in setting up my own stories as an adult. They taught me juxtaposition, foreshadowing, as well as understanding that STORY should serve as the main character whereas everything else falls second. In doing so, you have character development and character growth, which in turn evolves and enhances the story. Not learned from, books, studying for tests, or even newspapers, COMICS TAUGHT ME THAT. I remember that summer, when my older cousin let me read his the Dark Knight Returns, and the Watchmen. those two books alone re-imagined a already imagined 13 year old’s mind. They changed my life (Thank you Dave).
SONS OF FATE is my tribute to those books that I have found to be so much more than the average comic book. it is my attempt to re-create the magic that I then and to this this day feel about some graphic novels. Sons of Fate is my contribution to the genre. My first ( and definitely not the last), effort as a complete creator to continue to move the comic genre forward. I find it my duty to do nothing but my best effort in doing so to the genre that I have to come to love form back as that child in the 80’s. My first contribution ( as a creator on a whole, (not just the illustrator) is Sons of Fate.
In writing the story of Sons of Fate I wanted to explore an idea. Are we bound by circumstance, or are we a victim to it? If so, why is it for some the outcome beneficial to the one going through while others the consequences are dire? Doesn’t that in fact imply that we can control out own circumstances,…. our own ” FATE”? It is the underlying ideology of the story wrapped in a east meets west samurai epic. In keeping in like about what I love best about my favorite stories, I tried to craft an inter-weaving tale in which you follow the growth of a Kamau ( the child in the book) and his journey. That journey not only encompassed the circumstances he is put in, the decisions he makes, as well as those who are affected around him, all tied together by the evolving circumstances ( the story).
In short, in my attempt in writing the story, the aim was to recreate ( in my own unique way) an original story that had the same elements that made me love comics in the first place. The cover layer of strife verses perseverance, good versus evil ( in the many forms it comes in), with underlying layers of consequence, with that effect on how the consequence plays into the story. When whatever happens to characters in Sons of Fate, not only will you understand how and why but hopefully ask yourself, ” what would I do in that position?”. The aim is for the reader to not only read Sons of Fate, but to EXPERIENCE it.
To close the book when it is over and have the same feeling that I once had after reading Watchmen, or The Dark Knight Returns those many years ago. In short, the aim of Sons of Fate is that the reader ENJOYS the graphic novel. I every sense of he word. In the end Sons of fate is not just my contribution to the field, it is simply like Kamau in the Viral video eyes of a child ( attached to this article), did what I was told to do.
SONS OF FATE…. NOW ON KICKSTARTER, GIVE A LOOK, SUPPORT, EARN FREE REWARDS, SPREAD THE WORD. Time is almost up.
Visit our Kickstarter campaign here!
