Writer's Blog - Issue 1 "To Bee or Not to Bee"

Foreword: Welcome to Writer's Blog, where main writer Ari describes his experience writing Mothorial and our collective process of creating the world, characters and plotlines. 

This issue is free for everyone to read! More issues will be coming out every month on the 15th for Tier Ackerley ($25) and above. 

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When I was a kid, I remember being really excited by Eragon, the fantasy book by Christopher Paolini. The idea that a teenager like me had not only written this entire story, but had gotten it published, lit a spark in me that had me fervently writing as many cheap fantasy knockoff stories as I could get down. Like Eragon, I tried to tell my own story, and also like Eragon (bless it) I ended up copying many of the stories that inspired me. While the Inheritance Cycle might not be the most critically acclaimed series of all time, the impact it had on me at a critical age in my life as a reader and writer is something I can never fully express.

Growing up as an artist can be a humbling experience. The realization that for every Eragon that gets published, there are thousands that don’t, can leave you feeling defeated. I gave up on writing my “epic fantasy novel” around early high school, deciding that I was better off figuring out my music career, which was faring slightly better, or just going to college for computer science, since that seemed like a way more stable career direction.

Mothorial was not something I was ever expecting to make. I’ve always been a big fan of webcomics like Rich Burlew’s The Order of the Stick and Caytlin Vilbrandt’s Tamberlane, but creating a comic of my own seemed like an impossible task. Not only am I not even remotely a visual artist, but coming up with a fantasy story of my own was already hard enough without releasing it weekly. When Izzy and I decided to create a story together, we weren’t even considering a webcomic. I sometimes wonder if we would have even followed through if we’d started with that in mind. The idea of working on a project for such a long time is daunting. Mothorial actually had its routes as an animated pilot.

We knew that to even remotely stand out in such a crowded creative marketplace, we would have to create some memorable characters who would be appealing in such a short pilot (we were aiming for a few minutes max). Izzy sketched out some character concepts. Here’s the original concept images:

All things considered, not too different! Ava’s more like an orc and Ackerley’s hat looked more like a dead skunk, and there was a bee for some reason, but Izzy already had a vision for the characters: 

Ava and Ackerley not only maintained their basic roles (Ackerley is still a goose-pheasant to this day) but these concepts ended up becoming the fertile ground from which we grew the entire story we’re telling now. Unfortunately for the bee, we ended up moving on without her, and so she's gone into that nameless void where all unused characters go. Maybe she’ll make a comeback someday! 

Characters in hand, I wrote a character study sheet, expanding on their personalities, goals, fears, and interests, as well as explored their dynamics as a team. Ackerley was originally more like Ava’s peer than her guardian, and the world of Mothorial was more akin to a D&D world, with monsters and goblins and even the occasional walking skeleton. I wrote a pilot script (which I may release one day) but when Izzy and I looked it over, we released that we’d grown quite attached to them, and endlessly shopping the pilot around meant that it would most likely be the only story these characters ever had... unless we tried something else.

 We were hooked, and began developing a proper story for the characters. The original world slowly developed into a much richer (and more original) one, and once we had a sense of the lore and rules of the universe we were playing in, we were off to the races.

Getting the chance to tell a fantasy story like I had always dreamed of as a kid has been, appropriately, a dream come true. It turns out, the passion had never really gone away; it was simply waiting for an opportunity to blossom. Caytlin, the creator of Tamberlane and fellow Foxglove member, has been working on her webcomic for years, and I think she put it best: webcomics are in many ways still an untapped resource. There are some successful, even famous, webcomics, but the mainstream have yet to fully recognize the medium's potential. 

When a comic is released independently, an artist (and a writer) can tell the story they dream of telling, without having to try to sell it to someone or adjust it to meet the interests of a publisher, website, or network. It is, in many ways, one of the most direct forms of visual storytelling delivery. We’ve been able not only to tell exactly the story we intended, but also to intimately explore the themes and concepts that have helped make Mothorial as personal as it is. 

By now, over four volumes of Mothorial have been scripted, and as Izzy and I begin to publish this story and share this adventure with you all, we hope that you will be not only entertained, but inspired to make your own art, or tell your own story. If even one person is inspired to create their own work after reading Mothorial the way I was after reading Eragon, it will all have been worth it.

May the Elder guide your path, and the Mother warm your den.