Made in January 2017, this project was a culmination of everything I'd learned at MCAD (My Senior Project). All through my MCAD experience, I had one goal and one goal only, Make "Howl", a werewolf horror-comedy graphic novel, and you can see some of the early concepts of the project on my deviantart https://www.deviantart.com/kzmaster/gallery/26504638/howl

This rendition of the comic is an ALPHA release, very early stages of what the finished product will end up being. The process of producing the comic was a ginormous learning exprience and slap in the face I needed to grow as a creator. I had the very naive mindset that, all by MYSELF, I could create a full color graphic novel that would be 200 pages long, at a rate of 20 full color finished pages a month for 10 months. I actually hauled ass on creating this comic and worked the most efficiently I'd ever worked. I ended up creating 24 full color pages (couldn't get to lettering though) in one month, but I was putting in 12-16 hour work days and by the end of the month I was already burnt out.

I honestly can't remember how I cranked pages out so quickly, I was really utilizing all the tricks and tools of photoshop at the time to accomplish tasks efficiently.

I took on much more than I could handle, but on the plus side, I managed to do what was supposed to take 5 months of work in 1. My Senior project was finished. BUT I became deathly ill with Guillian Barre Syndrome and had to go on medical leave from school for 3-4 months. Every. single. day. was pain. I was bed ridden, taking 12 pills a day (overdosed on medication one day), my mind was fogged from the medication, I couldn't stay awake for more than a few hours, and my condition only worsened- about month 3 I got depressed - until I got an IGA infusion. It was in this fog though that I conceptualized the early stages of what would become Zach Cooner however.

From there my health improved enough for me to return to school and finish my schoolwork to graduate, yay. I say this all because the red flag completely flew over my head in all this, I should have seen the warning signs earlier and studied on the average work production of a comic and what in entailed. It was through this project I learned making comics is A LOT of work, way more than I had anticipated. In order to tell the long and detailed stories I wanted to tell, it would take lots of time, time that could be spent making other stories.

I thought I could do it all by myself, and its possible with time, but for all the projects I wanted to do, I needed to set aside my fears and pride and admit that having or hiring a team is the way to go. (Something I realized a little too late with Zach Cooner vol 1, which is why I'm switching to a different media in the form of Visual Novels and Illustrated stories).

I hope you all enjoy this milestone in my life of Senior College Student. The story didn't exactly turn out the way I wanted it to, but future renditions of "Howl" will have a much more detailed story and the characters will be able to truly express themselves without the limit of a speech bubble or comic panel. Who knows, YOU might even get to interact with them and change how the story plays out ;)

Enjoy!

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