Tag: 30Characters

No9

| November 9, 2012 | 0 Comments

Day Six: Amorveous (Amy)

| November 9, 2012 | 0 Comments

Two minutes, that was quick, indeed — a new record. Where once piping hot pudding and melting mountains of ice cream slouched were now faint streaks of creamy, crumbly, residue of dessert and regret. Amy finished polishing the bowl with her tongue — don’t ask where the mouth is — until the, now cool, ceramic surface tasted more of object and less of desire.
This jaunt into flavour country would mean a lot of mirror-gazing but damn, the descent into self doubt was tasty.
~Tosche

No8

| November 8, 2012 | 0 Comments

#7 Bodil Lockhart.

| November 7, 2012 | 0 Comments

At the tender age of six Bodil Lockhart witnessed the murder of both her parents. They had not exactly been pillars of the community but they had loved Bodil more than anything. Her father, Danny was a small time player in the mob, a thug, a bodyguard but a loving dad. Her mother, Danny’s childhood sweetheart, loved him despite what everyone said about him.

Times were tough and Danny had been skimming some cash from his boss, Carver, who quickly found out. Carver was a small fish in a big pond, and so he wanted to make an example out of Danny, make a name for himself. He hired the best hitman around, the man only spoken about in whispers.

He hired Wolf Down.

On a warm autumn evening when everyone was asleep, Wolf Down broke in to the Lockhart home. Bodil woke up to hear the last cry of her mother. She snuck from her bed and crept towards her parents’ room; the door was ajar and the carpet was covered in blood. As she looked into the room, the large red eyes of a skeleton thin, albino white man in a suit met hers. His blood smeared mouth curled into a smile as he tilted his head to one side. He spoke to her once.

“I was only paid to kill two. And I am full now.”

That was all Bodil remembered of the man she later learnt to be Wolf Down. The police had never found him, or her parent’s bodies, and the case had gone cold years ago. Bodil hadn’t given up, just grown up. She spent the next twelve years of her life tracking this hitman. She learnt self-defense mixed martial arts, she learnt to fence and shoot. She trained for revenge.

During this time, Boss Carver had risen through the mob ranks and was now running the town. Word on the street said that Wolf Down was Carver’s right hand man, never seen with him publically but always taking care of the dirty work. Bodil decided she needed to become that dirty work. Causing trouble for Carver in any way that she could soon meant that she was the top of Wolf Down’s list.

He broke into her home like he had her parents’ – but this time, she was waiting for him. The gaunt white figure entered her room. Bodil shot him clear in the chest, clear through the heart. Wolf Down screamed as his face twisted and distorted. His eyes bulged and turned red as his jaw unlatched and dropped, his mouth growing and ripping, opening like a Venus fly trap.

He crumpled to the floor as a sickening screeching sound escaped his lips, accompanied by a cloud of billowing black smoke. His face turned human again.

Bodil approached him. His eyes looked sad now; all the red had drained from them. He opened his mouth and spoke.

“Pishacha. Run child!”

His warning was far too late. The black smoke poured over Bodil, into her mouth, ears and nostrils. The evil, demonic spirit of the Pishacha had a new host now. It had Bodil. The Pishacha needed human flesh and organs to survive, and Bodil needed to finish what she had started. She needed to kill Carver.

It was time to eat.

 

Day Three: Nanobot Lad

| November 4, 2012 | 0 Comments

This is what the singularity will bring, a thousand confused teenagers identifying as animals getting the chance to fulfill their animal desire by use of nanobot injections. Call now and get a bonus vial of zoological avatars and a nifty book-light free!
~Tosche

#4 – Belinda

| November 4, 2012 | 0 Comments

Not much is known about Belinda, but there are rumors that she’s a witch and that the notebook she always carries around contains a list of people she’s cursed.

Follow me on Tumblr!

#3 – Maddy

| November 3, 2012 | 0 Comments

Being the ukay* queen of the neigbourhood, Madelynne Mae has a particular knack for making the most out of 100 pesos-per-pound specials at the local thrift stores. A true DIY-er at heart, Maddy is often seen hanging out in Quiapo and Divisoria looking for materials to develop her handcrafted jewelry and cellphone charms. Sometimes Maddy’s outlandish fashion sense can get too much for the conservative sensibilities of the nuns (and her peers) at Holy Mary Academy. But hey, the opportunity to wear civvies to school only comes thrice a year, there’s no way she’s going to miss out.

___
(*-ukay, short for ukay-ukay, which literally translates to ‘dig-dig’, is the Filipino term for thrift stores. Connotes the jumble of clothing and items one has to literally dig through to find treasure)

#2 Alcatraz

| November 3, 2012 | 0 Comments

#2 Alcatraz

Character Back Story:
Like most fighters of the pit, nothing is known about Alcatraz’s past. What his real name is, where he was born, who his family is. He ended up in the pit like most fighters do. At some point he was abducted from his former life and injected to this dark underworld. The need is high for new recruits, since fights often end with a death. The life expectancy of a pit fighter is a little over a month. New recruits go through reconditions and rebuilding. First their minds are erased, they become blank slates ready to be programmed to fight. To only care about fighting and winning. There are several managers (big bosses) that recruit, train, and house these fighters. Alcatraz fights for Boss Holiday.

Unlike most fighters in the pit who only dream of fighting and winning, Alcatraz dreams of escaping. To escape this violent world he knows he needs to survive the fights. Which means he has to be smarter, tougher, stronger and more lethal then his opponents. For him winning is living. Living for the next day, living to be free. He’s heard rumors that if you survive long enough, the “Boss” will take you out of the fights. Give you another job as one of his enforcers. Enforcing what, he doesn’t know. But he believes it has to be better then fighting everyday to the death.

When Alcatraz first started in the pits there was a top fighter named “Concrete Stain”, an undefeated fighter who had survived over a year. Then one day he was gone, not dead from a fight just gone. That’s when Alcatraz first heard the rumor. That elite fighters work for Boss Holiday in the outside, not just fighting for him in the pits. It might only be a dream but Alcatraz will keep surviving until he’s chosen, until he’s free.

Behavior Traits:
Resortful, Determined, Creative

Powers / Abilities / Skills:
Hand to hand fighting, Weapons (blunt objects, knives)

Notes:
I mentioned Boss Holiday in Alcatraz’s back story. He’s a character I created for the first 30 Characters Challenge. A Rockabilly Crime lord who employs “Super-Villains”

Check out my other 2012 Challenge Characters

Let’s be friends: Connect with me on my Blog and other Social Media sites!

All rights reserved. All contents â„¢ and © 2012 to Rafael “Ralph” Contreras, unless otherwise noted herein to respective content owners.

#2 – Cielo

| November 2, 2012 | 1 Comment

Cielo Go hates you. Probably. Or you could just be a pet peeve, and goodness knows she has an entire list. It’s hard to know what makes her crack a smile, but she’s been known to enjoy putting weird (but delicious) things in her baking and will never miss an opportunity to put curse words in the icing. She also enjoys reading out bad poetry submissions at school paper staff meetings.

#1 – Adrian

| November 2, 2012 | 1 Comment

Adrian has been around for a long time now, way back when I was planning my senior thesis in art skool (wow that was more than a year ago omg). A bit about Adrian: She used to sing in the youth choir at church but got really lazy and ambivalent once high school rolled around. She and a neighbour have been trying to think of a name for their guitar-and-handclap band for years.

#1 Dra’Zun, Guardian Droid

| November 2, 2012 | 0 Comments

#1 Dra’Zun, Guardian Droid

Character Back Story:
A rouge asteroid hit and destroyed the planet Azari Prime, home of the Dra’Azari Royal Family. The Royal family and the planets inhabitants mounted a vast interstellar survival plan. Financed by the Royal family and all the resources of Azari, 20 ark space ships were created. The survivors would travel to Azari-3, a colony on the outskirts of their solar system. Azari-3 rich with natural resources would be their new home world. The Royal family created their own ship for the voyage, it was to carry their entire Dra’Azari Family. Guardian Droids were built and placed in all ark ships, also named GD-Units. Their primary functions and programming was to care for the needs of the ark passengers. These droids would maintain the ships, cook, clean, police, and educate. On the Royals ship there were 8 GD-Units.

Ezbeet Dra’Book (Ezbeet equaling to a Duke in Earth terms) sees this migration as a great opportunity to rise higher in the family court. He reprograms the Guardian Droids on the Royal’s Ark to turn on the family and kill them all. In the middle of the mayhem Dra’Book sabotages all the escape pods and uses the only functional one to escape. The GD-Units manage to slaughter almost everyone on the ship within hours. A few of the royalty manage to survive the attack in the children’s nursery, including Ezbeet Dra’Hexra. Dra’Hexra uses the ships computer to reset one of the Guardian Droids, GD-Unit 5.

As a result of the reset, GD-Unit 5 malfunctions merging both it’s origin programing with that of Dra’Book. It believes that it must educate and protect the Royal family by eliminating it. It quickly destroys the other Guardian Droids to protect the survivors. GD-Unit 5 then gathers the remaining Royalty including the children. GD-Unit 5 explains that in must protect the Dra’Azari Royal Family. It then attacks them, killing everyone except the 6 youngest. It has calculated that it must educate, train, and manipulate these six children to be the new leader of the Azari people.

In the chaos of the GD-Units attack, the Royalty’s ark ship was sent severely off course. Years pass by and the children become adults, they began calling the Guardian Droid, Dra’Zun. “Dra” for their family name and “Zun” meaning teacher. In the years that have passed Dra’Zun has taught his students to be ruthless, calculating and unforgiving in all matters. It has also manipulated their genetic code to enhance their strength, durability, speed and intelligence. Dra’Zun’s final lesson will be to have the his students fight and kill each other, until the strongest and most intelligent one survives. This “Winner” will be the rightful ruler of the Azari people. He or she will begin by conquering small worlds to build an army, then take back the kingdom. Dra’Zun plans to remain as this true ruler’s faithful servant.

Behavior Traits:
Patient, Calculating, Loyal, ruthless

Powers / Abilities / Skills:
Invulnerability, Strength, Records of all Azari knowledge

Check out my other 2012 Challenge Characters

Let’s be friends: Connect with me on my Blog and other Social Media sites!

All rights reserved. All contents â„¢ and © 2012 to Rafael “Ralph” Contreras, unless otherwise noted herein to respective content owners.

2012 Challenger: Ralph Contreras

| October 24, 2012 | 0 Comments


SHAZAM! Hey everyone!

My name’s Ralph Contreras, I’m a three year alumni of the 30 Character Challenge. This will be my 4th time around. The first year was the only challenge I was able to complete. I’m very excited and determined to finish all 30 this year. It’s a great challenge and I’m really looking forward to it. In past years I’ve made some great online friendships with fellow creators. I’m looking forward to seeing all the amazing characters everyone will create this year.

I’m a huge comic nerd with aspiration of working in the comic field professionally. Comics have always been a part of my life. I even owned and ran my own comic book shop. For the past few years I’ve really been trying to make the dream a reality. My day job is graphic design, but at night I work on sharpening my storytelling, drawing and inking skills. I setup a personal blog Comic Book Graphic Design where I combine my comic artwork with my graphic design skills. I post all my pencils, inks and character designs on the blog. I also post great comic book resources to help other aspiring comic artists in their journey too.

Plans for the future, I’ll be focusing on my personal comic projects in 2013. A quarterly print comic Hero Guard, and a weekly webcomic Amazing Hero Adventures (website under construction). Several characters in these projects were created during the past 30 Character Challenges.

Check out my characters from the last challenges: 2009 Challenge, 2010 Challenge, 2011 Challenge

Samples of some Character Designs.

 

Let’s be friends: Connect with me on my Blog and other Social Media sites!

All rights reserved. All contents â„¢ and © 2012 to Rafael “Ralph” Contreras, unless otherwise noted herein to respective content owners.

#2 DOC SIRIUS

| December 1, 2011 | 0 Comments

DOC SIRIUS!

This is a character for a book I’m working on with writer/creative partner Bill Woodcock, Jr called  BLACK MASKS. Doc Sirius is a re-visioning of public domain superhero, Power Nelson. In the dieselpunk-meets-superhero world of BLACK MASKS- Dr. Gene Nelson West; A science-wizard-criminal of the year 1986 from an alternate universe, escapes to our Earth  in an Interdimensional starship. Dr. West’s crimes- stealing and selling weapon and other high technology to international criminal “Emperor” Seng, Warlord of NYC. West always wanted power. Seng was more than willing to trade money and the benefits of his nefarious network to get whatever technology West could successfully steal, copy or make himself to aid Seng’s goals for global dominance. In the end, the allied Earth forces deposed Seng. In the last moments of his boss’s standoff, West betrayed Seng to the invading allies- buying him time to launch himself off-planet in an experimental spacecraft containing the contents of his laboratory as well as  precious metals/gems. Dr. West, predicting the demise of his despotic employer,  had been studying an alternate universe as a getaway- surmising that an alternate Earth, back in time enough, would give him an technological advantage that would make him powerful and rich beyond his dreams. Finding a universe whose Earth was 60 years younger than his own, West used a quantum-time-space drive to escape to our unsuspecting Earth. The drive was experimental and malfunctions- West arrives on June 30, 1908. He appears over the North Pole colliding with a massive electromagnetic force emitted by Nikola Tesla‘s Wardenclyffe Tower– during a secret testing of his infamous “Death Ray”. Crashing in Tunguska, Russia, West’s ship drives itself underground and causes the most mysterious explosion in Earth’s history. Eventually rescued by a team including Tesla, Admiral Byrd and expert pilot David Nelson I. Various others vie for the wrecked craft- a motley crew of disparate villains and mysterious agents- but to no avail.

West manipulates everyone around him easily. He weaves a tale of being the sole survivor of the planet Sirius-Prime; a planet of science-wizardry destroyed by the evil despot Emperor Seng. West claims to be the sole survivor- losing his family and friends- forever mourning his lost home. Operating at first in secret, West begins to amass a technological/financial empire with David Nelson and makes allies in other technocrats like Howard Hughes. As a result, he accelerates the technology of his new home- in very limited amounts, but it comes with a cost. Science villains appear, threatening the world, but ultimately, threatening West’s power. So Dr. West decides to become a science hero taking on the mantle of his heroic ruse- DOC SIRIUS, Man of the FUTURE!

 

 

 

 

 

30 Characters 2011 Raul Aguirre Jr.

| November 30, 2011 | 0 Comments

 

Below is a gallery containing all 30 of my  creations for the 30 Character Challenge.

          

          

          

          

          

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

#30 Dorko the Cartoonist

| November 30, 2011 | 0 Comments

30 Characters in 30 Days.

BOOOYAAH!

It’s been fun kiddos!

Raul.

Day 30 – Katarina the Dragon Slayer as a child

| November 30, 2011 | 0 Comments

Katarina at 9 years old

#29 Fabulas the World’s Manliest Elf!

| November 29, 2011 | 0 Comments

#28 Mayan Dragon

| November 29, 2011 | 0 Comments

 

I just felt like drawing a dragon.

#27 Jetpack Jack

| November 29, 2011 | 0 Comments

Jetpack Jack is a high flying costumed adventurer who as his name implies gets around with a cool ass jetpack! That’s right! A jetpack! He built the jetpack to win a bar bet and since then he dispenses juicy jetpack justice to evildoers as Jetpack Jack!

#26 The Young Republican

| November 29, 2011 | 0 Comments

The Young Republican has never had a job. His parents bought him a BMW when he was 16. After High School he went straight to college where he joined his father and older brother’s fraternity. He spent all of his time partying and cheated his way through classes. He then graduated with two degrees, one in political science the other in business. Daddy pulled a few strings and got The Young Republican a job as a Congressional Aide. He now makes six figures and has no patience for those that expect a free ride in life and are not Protestant.

The future of the GOP, Mr. Young Republican is sick and tired of footing the bill for society ”I’m not going to pay for you, I’m not going to carry everyone else on my back any more! Get get a job! Or better yet, get rich parents, like me!”

G. Brett Williams #27 – Stanford Faraday, The Librarian

| November 29, 2011 | 0 Comments

The Librarian, better known by the name Stanford Faraday, was a professor of English at a fairly well-to-do university.  But in his earlier days, when Stanford Faraday was just a lowly graduate assistant spending the majority of his time fetching coffee and hiding in the library, something quite magnificent happened to him.  While working on site at the library, shelving books and cataloguing titles, Stanford made his way into the deep, dark recesses of the library, into the bowels of the the beast where the university’s most esoteric volumes were stored.  Once down there, he was attracted to faint glow that seemed to be coming from one of the farthest corners of the collection.  When he reached the glow, he found a cloth covering a fairly plain piece of flat stone that glowed rather brightly, despite having no discernible light source.  Upon the stone were etched words in a language so lost to time that Stanford had never before encountered it.  Overwhelmed by a desire to experience the tactile sensation of holding the object, Stanford Faraday placed his fingertips on the cold, flat face of that stone and found his life inexorably changed.  He didn’t remember the next few moments.  All Stanford remembered was finding the stone, then finding himself seated at a desk where he’d previously been working.  It was as if no time had passed.  The stone, an ancient relic of unknown origin, was said to have written upon it all the knowledge of the world, from the beginning, to the end.

Stanford felt different after that day.  His mind was clearer, his thoughts crisper.  He found that he could predict with some accuracy the weather for the day, could sense moments just before they happened, could find the solution to a problem with more speed than before.  Pretty soon, he realized that it was the stone, that something must have happened to him when he touched that stone.  For a bit he used this new found brain power for fun and profit, doing things like making bets at the dog track and the like.  But Stanford Faraday was a good man and good will out.  After the campus was hit with a rash of nighttime assaults on female students, Stanford knew it was time to act.  He studied the patterns, found the pieces of the puzzle the police had missed out on, and soon managed to catch the criminal in the act.  Of course Stanford Faraday was no fighter, so the act of catching said criminal left something to be desired.  He would have to become a better weapon if he were going to continue to do this.

Utilizing the heightened powers of his new intellect, Stanford studied boxing, military tactics, the martial arts, survival skills, amazing himself at how quickly he was able to pick up the intricacies necessary to master these skills.  Before long, he found himself possessed of the necessary tools to fight crime, which he did with great aplomb.  Until one day something went terribly wrong, and Stanford Faraday, the crimefighter known as The Librarian, hung up his mask for good.

The villainous Dr. Night, the Surgeon of the Shadows, had landed in Stanford’s hometown and was painting his bloody scenes across the streets.  Never before had Stanford come up against a villain so cunning as Dr. Night, and the ease of his successes as a crimefighter had lulled him into a fall sense of security.  Stanford was ill-prepared for the Dr.  Dr. Night managed to confound Stanford at every turn.  A total of twelve people were killed by the Surgeon of the Shadows before he tired of his dirty business and moved on to warmer climes.  Stanford never recovered from this failure.  He retired from crimefighting, went back to his studies, and eventually became a professor of English at the university.   It was during this time he met his wife, Margaret.

Margaret and Stanford had a very stoic relationship, as the sadness he felt from his failure to save those people from Dr. Night permeated everything he did.  As their relationship grew longer, and his years as a professor collected, his abilities faded.  The trick to the stone’s power was the pursuit of knowledge.  Without a thirst for knowledge, no knowledge would come.  Sure, as a professor Stanford still sought knowledge, and when he did so he found it easier than most to retain it, but the vast computational power of his brain had waned.  He was a sad, complicated man.  So when a young student showed an increasing interest in him, he allowed himself a moment of weakness.  At 42, he was seventeen years the girl’s elder, but her fire and her passion for life, her zest for knowledge, reignited his own.  Suddenly the powers of the stone were evident again and all felt right with the world.  But with all things of this nature, the truth eventually crept out from the shadows and made itself known.  The girl discovered she was pregnant and Stanford came clean to Margaret, who immediately demanded a divorce.  The young student, heartbroken by the tragedy of the whole incident, left the school.  Before she left she told Stanford where she was going and, despite never again desiring to be with the man, always kept him abreast of her location so that he could money for the children; two twin boys she’d named Jackson and Jonathan.

The loss of her swelled inside him, made him ache.  From this loss, he never recovered.  His world was a dark place, void of true purpose, until the day she came to him, desperate for help.  One of his sons, Jackson, had inherited more than just a thirst for knowledge from his father;  he’d inherited the powers of the stone!

Day 29 – Twinkle

| November 29, 2011 | 0 Comments

Twinkle, an 8 year old vigilante

Day 28 – The Wood Reeves

| November 28, 2011 | 0 Comments

Rielle the Wood Reeve

 

 

G. Brett Williams #26 – The Bastard Sons: Incendiary

| November 27, 2011 | 0 Comments

The Bastard Sons are a super-powered group comprised of the illegitimate children of prominent superheroes (and one villain).  The group, made up of four members, only learned of their lineage when their powers developed as part of their coming of age.   The group was formed by Incendiary, the illegitimate son of Bertrand Blaze, England’s fire controlling hero better known as The Brazen Blazer.  The Brazen Blazer was something of a celebrity in his home country and took every chance he could to use that celebrity to woo the women of Albion.  Not every woman he slept with ended up carrying a child, but a few did, and of those few, one of them gave birth to his superpowered heir.  Superhero genetics are a tricky business.  The gene present in certain people that grants powers has to be “switched on” by some sort of event.  Sometimes that gene can lay dormant, never finding the specific set of circumstances needed to ignite it.  Other times, as with all newborns, a set of recessive genes can come to the forefront leaving the more dominant genes, like the super gene, dormant.  Of the three illegitimate children Bertrand Blaze fathered, only Franklin Tosh, later known as Incendiary, received powers.

When Franklin was fourteen years old, his mother threw him a birthday party.  One of the party guests was a fourteen year old girl from Franklin’s school by the name of Penny Entwhistle.  Franklin had a rather large crush on Miss Penny, a feeling which she happened to return.  As the party went on, Franklin and Penny escaped to his bedroom for a bit of privacy.  Franklin had her down to just her knickers and Penny had her hand on his bathing suit area when his mother burst into the room and found them.  Penny grabbed her clothes and ran out, sobbing, with Ms. Tosh shouting a great many things about defiling her son and telling her parents and the like after the poor young creature as she darted from the room.  Franklin was so embarrassed and angry at his mother that, as she turned to remonstrate the boy’s behavior, his gene kicked in and suddenly the bed he had previously been making it to second base upon was going up in flames.

The next few years were awkward for young Franklin.  With the emergence of his powers, his mother’s long term suspicions about his parental lineage were confirmed.  Franklin’s mother demanded paternity tests from Bertrand and eventually ended up taking the man to court for child support, damages (part of her house had burnt up after all) and what her lawyers dubbed, “the emotional hardship inherent to raising a superpowered teenager.”  It was widely thought that raising a superpowered teenager was more difficult than raising the regular old garden variety teenager.  Raging hormones is one thing, but raging hormones that cause raging fires, well that’s quite another.  In the end, Bertrand’s PR team thought it best to settle the matter out of court for an undisclosed sum and get on with the business of helping old ladies cross the street and rescuing cats from trees.  Anything that would help him repair his damaged image.  The amount of money was enough for Franklin and his mother to live in comfort.

Franklin went away to university at the age of eighteen, eager to remove himself from the life of flaunting her money and dating younger men that his mother had begun since winning her paternity suit, or, as she referred to it, “the day you finally paid off, boy.”  To tell the truth, in the time since winning that settlement, Franklin’s mother had paid little attention to the young man at all.  So when she was shuffled off this mortal coil in a fatal and logic-defying jet ski accident with one of the aforementioned younger men, Franklin wasn’t terribly shaken up.  I mean sure, it was a bummer to lose his mum, but it’s not like she’d ever been all that loving toward him anyway.  And there was the problem of that time she messed up his one chance to touch Penny Entwhistles breasts.  Penny had been so mortified by the experience that she never spoke to Franklin again.  So he was sad his mother was gone, but not that sad.  The one nice thing his mother had done though was to take out a life insurance policy on herself for Franklin, in case something such as a random act of jet ski tomfoolery were to ever steal away her life.  The life insurance, plus the money he inherited from the settlement, left Franklin with a sizable chunk of change.  He immediately got a financial planner and made some shrewd investments that quickly turned his large amounts of money into obscene amounts of money.  And with that money young Franklin Tosh did exactly what any superpowered son of a superhero would do…

He decided to fight crime.

Day 27 – Jessica Rabbit

| November 27, 2011 | 0 Comments

Jessica Rabbit - Not THAT one :P

 

 

Sam Medina – Day 26

| November 26, 2011 | 0 Comments

G. Brett Williams #25 – Stephen Strickland (Rumspringa)

| November 25, 2011 | 0 Comments
The first villain the group encounters is energy tycoon and COO of Jupiter Power, Stephen Strickland.  Strickland is a Texas businessman and all around shark of a man.  He has climbed to second in command of the Jupiter Power company, a subsidiary of the global corporate/military group, Obsidian.  Obsidian is a centuries old secret society that has hidden itself inside the structure of a global corporation with its fingers in many pies, similar to Blackwater in our own world.  Stephen Strickland is aware, to a certain extent, of the secret society behind Obsidian, but he doesn’t know the full extent of that society’s scope or structure.  He does want to be a part of the society and uses his position at the top of Jupiter, an Obsidian company, to impress them.  Strickland’s ability to govern and produce results has been called into question though, as an increase in public support for alternative energy sources and more environmental oversight have thrown a monkeywrench into the Jupiter Power works.  Strickland is seen as a hardline supporter of fossil fuel, mainly because he made millions as a Texas oil baron.  Obsidian begins to see Strickland as something of a dinosaur, a man not capable of adapting to the future.  Strickland, desperate to retain his relevancy, gets a gift when he discovers Sarah and her abilities.  He believes that if he can somehow capture the girl, he can spirit her away and use her to launch a renaissance of cheap, renewable energy.  Strickland becomes the villain of the first arc.  He aggressively pursues Sarah, using everything in his power to do so.  He even goes so far as to kidnap and kill Sarah’s brother to try and influence the girl.  Strickland is defeated by Sarah.  This defeat leads Obsidian to cut their losses with Strickland.  For his service to the cause, they allow him to live, but they bankrupt him and completely erase his identity.  Strickland is left homeless and broken.

Day 25 – Rusty Jones

| November 25, 2011 | 0 Comments

Rusty Jones, gamer extraordinaire

 

G. Brett Williams #24 – Miranda Gray

| November 24, 2011 | 0 Comments

Miranda Gray is a community organizer in the town of Gateway City.  Before she became an activist and advocate for the poor and disenfranchised in her community, Miranda was a nurse in the smaller town that bordered the Amish community in which Sarah was born.  She was actually present at Sarah’s birth as she was one of the nurses assigned to the ER that night.  Miranda is friends with Sarah’s brother Zach and is aware of the fact that Zach is helping his sister escape the Amish community.  She pledges to help in any way that she can, but she doesn’t know that this girl is the same girl who she helped deliver seventeen years before.

Miranda is a strong, kind woman who campaigns on behalf of anyone she believes suffers under the yoke of economic inequality or feigned moral superiority.  She works a great deal with LGBT organizations throughout Gateway City, which is how she knows Zach.  She becomes a sort of hybrid of Leslie Thompkins and Commissioner Gordon for Sarah.

G. Brett Williams #23 – Sarah Smith (Rumspringa)

| November 24, 2011 | 0 Comments

Sarah Smith is a young Amish girl with a quiet rebellious streak.  The night of her birth, her pregnant mother, her father, and her older brother Zach (nine years her elder) were traveling by carriage from a grocery shopping trip in a nearby town.  There was a terrible storm that night full of driving rain and big, cloud to ground lightning.  The storm created so much stress that the mother went into labor.  Too far from their village, the father knew the only way to save his wife and child was to return to the town, though he was hesitant to do so.  He wasn’t trustful of outsiders and their medicine.  But his wife’s condition was worsening, as were the conditions of the roads, and his young son implored with him to return to the town.  The father relented and headed toward the town’s hospital, rain beating against the buggy and lightning crackling in the air.  Despite the conditions, the family reached the hospital as the mother’s condition was worsening.  They rushed inside and explained their predicament and the orderlies rushed out to help the woman.  As they were loading her onto the gurnee, a great crack of thunder let out through the town and lightning ripped from the sky, finding the metal on the gurnee and churning through the body of the pregnant mother.  She died on that hospital bed, but the doctors were able to save and revive the baby, so not all was lost.  That baby, dubbed by papers as the “Lightning Child” was Sarah Smith.

In Amish culture there is the concept of rumpsringa.  Rumspringa says that any member of the sect is able to leave for a short time (usually around 16 or 17 years of age) and explore the outside world.  It is meant to strengthen their faith and help them realize that the world they’ve known is better than the outside world of which they’ve dreamed.  Many return, but those who do not are shunned from the sect and are never invited to return.  Sarah’s brother Zach, who knew from an early age that he was attracted to men and that the sect considered this evil, was one of those people.  At seventeen he escaped the community and made it to Gateway City where he managed to start a new life.  That life wasn’t easy, but he made it work.  Over the years, he always found ways to spirit books, magazines, art and other things to his baby sister, helping her to gain a knowledge of the beauty of the world outside her Amish community and a fervent desire to live in it.  So when it came time for Sarah’s rumspringa, she had a plan for escape, a plan she, her brother and her friend from town, Mary, had conspired on for years.  But the best laid plans, as they say, often go astray.

During Sarah’s escape to Gateway City, a series of events allows her to uncover her control over electricity.  Having never been exposed to electricity for prolonged amounts of time, her powers have only ever briefly manifested and usually in ways that would arise no suspicion.  Things like machines or certain instruments malfunctioning when she walks past them, etc.  Nothing that would ever clue her into her gift.  But when she gets to GC, things happen that inexorably change her life and unlock the potential inside of her.

Sarah is really the first superhero in this world.  Before her, there have been on people with special gifts.  She’s unique, which means there isn’t really anyone that can help her control her power.  She has the ability to direct bolts of energy in the form of arc lightning, has the ability to control the flow of electricity to and from things, can control things that run on electricity and could, at the height of her power, even act as something of a battery, a power source.  These powers make her a target, but luckily Sarah makes friends who help her fight and help her learn to control herself and utilize her new gift to help people.

In case you’re wondering, I describe Rumspringa thusly: Terminator meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Oh yeah.  Oh yeah.

Day 24 – Roland

| November 24, 2011 | 0 Comments

Roland