FransMensinkArtist
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Vamp (XL)
🕑 Added 2023-02-20 10:57:10 +0000 UTCYou may have seen, or even read, the 'Kristina Queen of Vampires', trilogy I had published in the US more than a decade ago.
Now I have the opportunity to publish it again in France (in french) as an Omnibus
(The three chapters in one book).
I like that idea a lot. However, I will definitely have to edit it all, to get it closer to my current standards. Especially Chapter 1, because that was the first in what, unexpectedly, became a row, and it does look too unrefined to me now.
I've never aspired to become a comic artist really, because I was always afraid of getting stuck on a character or two, instead of being able to do whatever else came to mind, whenever it did. The horror! 😊
Looks like this trilogy is haunting me anyway.
Honestly, I do feel like I am a comic artist. Even in single images I try to squeeze in a story or two and comic artists are basically story tellers.
So, I tried to avoid the label, but I still seem to be.
I did a lot of comics in commission (even the "Onliners" books were commissioned actually) but most never get published because they were just private and often pretty kinky personal fantasies of a client.
'Kristina' was a personal project of mine. My first serious attempt to write and paint a full size graphic novel. I experimented a lot before that, made a few comics in b/w, but it never really took of. I made a lot of comic pages that never made it to a full size comic and I also did a whole lot of comic covers, just to see how it would look if there were a story behind it.
I even made a couple of full size comics that I thought weren't good enough or that I got stuck on, and they ended up on some shelf or in the trash.
Kristina, Chapter 1 was the first story that I really finished, in colour and all, and I was pretty okay with it for longer. Even to this date. Lots to improve upon, but I still like it.
It's explicit and 3rotic, but it's actually a story with humor and not merely about showing body parts and their biological purpose 😁.
Once, a long time ago, it all started with a vampire comic called "Reisna". I posted 4 or 5 full-color pages on my website (websites were still relevant back then 😊) and someone from the US wrote me that she thought she looked exactly like Reisna.
I get that kind of comment rather frequently and it's rarely true, but this lady turned out to be actually quite right. Which I liked.
Her name was Kristina, which is a pretty good vampire name too, isn't it?
So, I decided to follow the signs and start a vampire comic with a Kristina as the main character. Kristina actually came over a couple of times and posed for the character, and it turned out that I liked it much better when I was not just working for myself, with experimental projects like this, but for someone else as well.
That motivated me to actually finish it. It took about 1.5 years though, because I made it in my scarce spare time and after page 15 I started all over, because it didn't go where I liked it to go.
I didn't plan ahead much, back then, and didn't have the entire story sketched out yet.
Also, I started very cautious, because it was a new project and the whole setup was new and unfamiliar to me too.
The new attempt went much better and the character became as wild as one can expect from a vampire.
No problems with Chapters 2 and 3 after that. They just came naturally and much quicker too, although it still took years to complete the series, because my regular commissions still demanded attention too.
Now I'll be thinking about picking up the series again, I have to admit. But first I have to do some serious editing!!
Ow, and of course, because I'm thinking about it a lot, new paintings about it will emerge, as if it were magic. 😊
By the way; I've searched for someone else to become the main character in a completely different but equally wild series, with monsters actually, but never found her. Too bad. The models, or potential models, I offered the option to, were flattered but not really interested in being in a wild comic story and the ones that asked me to be in one, were not suitable for various reasons. Where's that Bettie Page-like stunner when you need her? 😁
