What is life? Its meaning, its purpose, its values? Do we control what we do , or is it all preordained? How do the choices we make effect others, do they even effect us? I was thirteen years old the summer I read the Watchmen. In short, it blew me away.It asked questions that whenever asked before ( at least to me). I was a different person, from the one that started reading the book. I was already crazy in love with comics, as well as wanting to draw them, but what I didn’t realize was that that one graphic novel was the doorway that opened the universe of what to me made a great story. Although I wasn’t thinking about it then, it was teaching me how to write. Fast forward twenty-sometihing years later. When writing, those elements of storytelling have permeated into my thinking. In short, I want to create that masterpiece in my own way.
I KNOW … THAT’S CRAZY.I hear myself saying it, and I too say it’s too grandi…. But, as I’m saying that, I stop myself. Is it really? Is it too much to WANT to reach for that level if no exceed it? Is it wrong to want to give that feeling to others who read my stories,the same feeling I myself had when I read The Watchmen? Of course it’s not! That is why I love comics in the first place. Isn’t that why we read them? Isn’t that why those who create them do it?
Comics in general gave me that feeling. It inspired my creativity. I went from wanting to read them to wanting to draw them, to wanting to create them. It wasn’t just The Watchmen, it was The Amazing Spider-man, Uncanny X-men, Fantastic four, The Mighty Thor, and more. As a writer, now writing and drawing my own stories, that is the goal; to create stories not only fun to read, but interesting as well. To have stories that are tightly woven , and characters who the reader comes to care about as they travel with them through their their journey. In the end the reader is different from when they started. They are better. I hope to create that with Sons of Fate.
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).
Sons of Fate will be avail able in March of 2014. to see all that is Sons of Fate log on to www.blackberryjuice.net There you can preview the entire SOF saga, see, and purchase artwork ,as well as pre-order the book.
