As the publishing industry is facing many challenges (just like the rest of the world), I decided to do things a bit differently.
A few months ago, my friend Xavier Fournier sends me a French public domain short story called “Vega la Magicienne”, written in 1911 for a newspaper. Said I should take a look and maybe find interesting things there. At the time, I didn’t really pay attention. No bandwidth. But with quarantine and the lack of professional opportunities, I took a second look at Vega. The potential was there. A great one. After thinking about it for a few hours, I started sketching. As I was sketching, the story was being created in my mind. A day later, all the moving pieces were in place. I extracted the most interesting elements from Vega and infused my new story with it.
Lady-Bird was born. I’m not going to give everything away just now but the creation process has been fascinating so far. It’s only the second time that I create characters both in visual and written form (three of you count Spider-Man Noir’s White Widow and Shocker, co-created with Dave Hine). So it’s still kinda new to me. And it’s the first time EVER that I open the door to the public during the creation of anything.
I don’t know what crossed my mind, but I was so happy with Lady-Bird’s first designs that I immediately posted them on social media. Then again the next day. Then the logo. And so on.
There was a time when I was afraid that someone would copy or steal my concepts. But Lady-Bird is different. It’s an original project, but based on an existing property. It’s like creating a remake of a classic. I absolutely love the process and the feedback I get from people in real time. We’ll see where this road leads us, but so far so good, Lady-Bird will soon be ready to fly!
To Be Continued…