One of the most exciting things about creating Variables is the myriad of stories from every corner of the globe. I’ve written so many summaries that I often lose track of when, where, and how things occur and how they fit into other events happening on the other side of the world. As I get further into the series, there are dozens of subjects that I won’t have the time to touch on in detail but are also too complicated to tell in a short story. For some of these tales, I will try to drop hints or tell snippets of the things happening around the Variables world. One of the main vessels for telling these stories is the character of Hank Foster. You have yet to meet him in the actual comic (though that is coming relatively soon) but his influence in the Variables universe comes via his position as an editor of the fictional Weekly American magazine. He specializes in writing about the Sui Generis and over time, gains public confidence through his articles on the subject of metahumans and their influence.

Why does this matter? Because in the page I’m working on, a Hank Foster article is highlighted for the first time and it’s about one of my favorite events in the series. I don’t want to spoil the surprise but I find the situation both comical and, given this cultural group’s propensity to live outside of reality, more than likely to happen given enough time. Initially, I considered writing this story into Variables itself but given the rather tragic ending, in the end I didn’t feel like it warranted 6-12 months of my time to draw it just to wipe out all the characters involved during the grand finale. I think reading A Song of Ice and Fire has altered my tolerance for authorial masturbation; leading a reader along with characters for months or years at a time just to kill them off for self-gratification doesn’t make for a pleasant reading experience. I try to stay away from it. There will be plenty of deaths in Variables but when I kill someone, I’m going to try to make it matter.

Anyway, to the preview. In this page, we jump to Karter and his stately abode. I wanted the audience to see how this character lives and how he’s pretty much a one-track guy. He’s not much for creature comforts and everything in his flat is geared for one thing: his career as Nemesis. He’s not crazy like Rorschach but he’s not a shining example of moderation, either. This page was also really tricky to color. I kept fighting with the palette, trying to get the blue/purple glow the emanates from a television in a dark room correct but I just couldn’t do it. So I ended up coloring the entire page normally and then put a filter over the entire page. It worked out far better than I ever expected it to and I’m really happy with how it turned out. Be sure to check back on Tuesday to see the entire page with words and all that jazz.

If you’d like to read the current issue of Variables, be sure to click here.

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