Tag: Aedre’s Firefly

2011 Challenger: Jande Rowe

| October 19, 2011 | 5 Comments

Jande Rowe, Author of "Aedre's Firefly" Online Graphic NovelHi all. I’m the author of the online graphic novel Aedre’s Firefly. This will be my second year of doing this challenge.  On Twitter I’m @EccentricOrbits. Do say hello.

Of the thirty characters I created last year, I have only just introduced one of them to my storyline. But what the heck. The world always needs more characters, right?

Since having a medical problem with my eyes, I’ve started drawing in a more simplified style, sticking to black and white mostly except for covers. Also I won’t have time to do detailed storylines like last year.
Looking forward to seeing what everyone creates this year!

 

Colour Cover for "Aedre's Firefly Chapt. VI: Awakenings"

Colour Cover for "Aedre's Firefly Chapt. VI: Awakenings"

Day# 19 Sly Peter

| November 20, 2010 | 0 Comments
#19 SlyPeter for Aedre's Firefly by Jande Rowe

#19 SlyPeter for Aedre's Firefly by Jande Rowe

Sly Peter

Peter Vale (aka Sly Peter) was already established at Maple Public School when Aedre arrived on the scene, and was a couple of grades ahead of her. But since she was an outcast, basically friendless, she had time to notice things about people. And the things she noticed about Peter Vale was that he was a nasty sneaky boy who took pleasure in hurting things smaller than himself –specially if he didn’t get caught doing it.

He was the kind of boy who pulled the wings off live flies and watched them buzz around until either they died or he grew bored with the sport. But not only flies; butterflies too, and if he knew it bothered you (especially if you were a girl) he would follow you around with the poor wingless creatures, sticking them under your nose, so he could get double the enjoyment from the pain he was causing.

He was the kind of boy who tripped the weaker kids in the hall in such a way they didn’t see who it was, or who pinched the little ones he knew were afraid of him –pretty hard, too. Mean and mean-spirited, he was always on the lookout for nasty things he could do to the other kids and to small animals, and get away with it. And if he couldn’t find anything he would make up nasty stories and spread them around.

He would befriend any new kids until he found out everything he wanted to know about them and their family, find out their secrets, blackmail them, and gradually be meaner and meaner to them, until they finally broke away from him.

Aedre watched him, and seeing his methods determined to have nothing to do with him in spite of her need for friendship and the touch of another human being. Therefore when he got around to trying to befriend Aedre, who was as socially ungraceful as wild animal, she scorned him, telling him hotly that she was aware of his sneaky tricks. He denied this in the face of the truth, apparently hurt, for that was his last bastion of defense: no one could prove anything he did. Thus he swore that he would make her sorry for her accusations.

Day# 18 Agnes McBeale

| November 19, 2010 | 2 Comments
#18 Agnes McBeale for Aedre's Firefly by Jande Rowe

#18 Agnes McBeale for Aedre's Firefly by Jande Rowe

The Bitchy Sister

#18 – Agnes McBeale is one year younger than her sister, (#17)Paula but seems so much older–not to mention more irritable and just plain bitchy. With sparse red hair curly hair and being scrawny and tall she is the polar opposite of Paula. Compared to Paula’s flawless skin, Agnes is covered from head to toe in a mass of freckles that she loathes. She confides in no one, keeping herself to herself as much as possible. She has no real friends either, but doesn’t want them, clearing them off with her acid tongue.

The whole of Agnes’ energies is focused entirely on getting through school and away from that cramped, crowded, nasty house, and her so-called “family”. She practically spits when she uses that word. Her grades are very high, but no-one where she lives cares. Except Paula who is jealous of them.

Sometimes, when she deigns to walk to school with Paula and Paula’s dogsbody, Aedre, she spends the whole trip saying cutting things to both girls.
She confides in no one, keeping herself to herself as much as possible. So know one knows what causes her to lash out at everyone around her. One day people will know. But not for awhile yet.

Day# 10 Mad Maggot

| November 9, 2010 | 2 Comments
#10 Mad Maggot for Aedre's Firefly by Jande Rowe

#10 Mad Maggot for Aedre's Firefly by Jande Rowe

Mad Maggot! That’s what everyone calls him. The stories about him elicit responses from sympathy, to disgust, to outrage. He is crazy, but no one can catch him. The kids at school say he steals babies in the night and eats them for breakfast. But no-one believes that, or it would have been news on the television and he would be hunted down and arrested, instead of being left alone to rummage through people’s garbage.

He makes silly  trashy ornaments from things he finds in the garbage, too. paper and tinfoil pendents on greasy string. He tries to sell them to other people on the streets of small town Maple, Ontario, too. But no one wants to buy, because they stink of whence they came.  He never begs. Never. But when he offers his creative excesses while cursing and swearing loudly and waving his arms around frantically, then hugging himself and crying, people will sometimes  drop coins into his filth-blacked hands. He is a very large man, but sometimes he seems so small and pathetic you want to cry at the sorrows of the world right along with him.

Now and then he simply disappears for a month or so, and when he shows up again, he has usually had a hair cut and lost his beard, but it’s growing back in already, and he may have on a different, slightly cleaner overcoat, but he usually tears the sleeves off those within a week. He is more to be pitied than despised. Yet there are always those who go out of their way to further torture the tortured. Everyone knows that you should never push him too far. He carries a stick in his pocket that bears a sharpened  end and  larger blunt one.  Once when the kids had him circled down by the tracks at the back of the football field  down the hill behind the school, bear-baiting him, he pulled that nasty weapon out in a rage and brandishing it, began chasing them. He scared the hell out of them and they never went that far with him again. But they ran so fast they didn’t see him stop and fall to his knees, tears of rage and self-pity carving tracks in the grime on his weathered face. they didn’t hear his anguished lonely howl…

As Aedre continues her Escape to Freedom, she meets many strange and wonderful creatures. This one may be one of the strangest, and most certainly is one of the most dangerous. But Aedre has lived with danger all her life and has survived this far. Always before though, there were others around who could bear witness if the punishments and harassments of her family got out of hand. This time there was no-one else, just Aedre and the madman, everyone reviled and  called Mad Maggot. Somehow, being drawn near this creature, Aedre could see that in some ways they had much in common, both being chosen as one to be reviled. It is this meeting that makes Aedre wonder if she is being made to take the place of this despised and crazy thing that was once as human as she. Could there be another fate? If Aedre was to seek it out, could another, possibly better, more humane fate be hers? Stay tuned to Aedre’s long journey of discovery in Aedre’s Firefly, the online graphic novel (updates Wednesday morning at the stroke of midnight).

Day#01- Angus “Fergie” Fergus

| November 1, 2010 | 9 Comments

Angus will be showing up during the present arc of Aedre’s Firefly. It was a joy to flesh him out from vague words on a page (“here she meets a squatter”) to a full personality. I think having these sketches done beforehand in the storylines will make the stories themselves much richer as they evolve.

Thanks, Dan, for the lovely template! It really made the process painless.  :`)

Now to see what everyone is doing and to finish my “Webcomics: What’s Cooking?” contribution page.