Concept Art

Below, in the previous post, is a fancy slideshow with music depicting some artwork already produced over the last couple of years developing Starfish. Some of it was aimed to be published as a printed comic book, other stuff is just doodling. Some images may be reworked for the webcomic. You'll see glimpses of the supporting cast and maybe a villain or two, enjoy!

Starfish Teaser

Why Starfish? Part 1

I'm going to use a series of these posts to talk about how the character of Starfish came about, probably more for my own posterity, but it may be interesting trivia for those who want to know how ideas are often formed. It all pretty much started when I wanted to make a pitch to Marvel's now defunct Epic line for a Rogue solo series a few years back. I was getting a little frustrated at how her portrayal was shaping up ever since she and Gambit became an item over in X-Men. She went from being this southern rebel baddie fighting on a good guy team to this simpering lovestruck belle always bemoaning to touch her beau. I wanted to get her back to her namesake. WHY is she called Rogue? I constructed a story where she rescues a terminally ill child from a hospital fire. The girl turns out to be a mutant too, a once powerful mutant with Carol Danvers-like powers. The girl's last act is to touch Rogue before she dies, in a hope she will in some way live on. Because Rogue totally absorbs her powers and personality, it restores her flight, superstrength, etc... It also restores her sense of youth and she goes on a spree to right the wrongs she sees in the world around her. This is, after all, how a child sees the world, black and white, good and bad. It's why we like the idea of superheroes in the first place. The conflict comes in that it's not a black and white world. If there was someone flying around, and you know, stopping wars and such, you'd have a problem with The Powers That Be, those interested in keeping the status quo. A superhero would be besieged by governments, they might even be labelled a terrorist.
Alas, the pitch never came to be. But the idea of a rebellious teenager flying around upsetting "the way things are" kept buzzing around my head like the sound of a jet engine.

Starfish Rising

Welcome to the Starfish Lighthouse. In this blog I plan to document Starfish's journey from the initial sketch on lined notebook paper to what I hope will one day reach iconic status in the eyes and minds of people everywhere. It's been a lifelong pursuit of mine to tell a story complete of my own imagination. I've been doing it since I could first make marks on any flat surface. When I was five, my mama gave me a portable chalkboard. I would draw Superman (in stick-figure fashion) looking through a wall with his x-ray vision as a distressed Lois Lane sat tied up in a chair at the hands of the evil Lex Luthor, the just released Superman Movie's Main Title March pumping through my vocal chords rather amateurishly. When I finished rendering the scene, I'd erase it and start drawing Superman busting though the wall. At the time I wasn't aware I was constructing my first comic book panels. As I get ready to start this adventure with Starfish, I find myself humming along with those opening trumpets.