Kali

Feral kids, mandalas and trophy skulls.  Kali is a comic several years in the making.

I began writing the script for Kali in 2011 and initially had a promising start working on rough panels and layouts with a local artist.  That working relationship deteriorated and I was forced to put Kali on the back burner while I worked on my first novel (it’s still in a drawer, where it will stay for awhile yet) Ten Being the Highest and my second novel, Chemicals.  I worked on other comic projects like Subterra: Go Underground and continued on with my literary shorts on the side.  I even dallied with some webseries scripts and began writing the first books in The Blood Zodiac series.  Still, the futuristic city of Dalaman, it’s youthful, but savage denizens and the tropes of spirituality, despotism and puberty stuck in my mind.  I knew that Kali would have to be revived but I wasn’t sure how it would happen or when.

Late in 2013, I decided to share my script with David Brown at Fifth Dimension Comics.   I was lucky enough to contribute to his fabulous graphic horror anthology Wisdom of Fools.  He loved the pages of Kali I sent over and he vowed to step in and find me an artist to bring Kali and the mandala-esque city of Dalaman to full, paneled glory.  He connected me with Jason Themm and now the feral, authoritarian kids of a futuristic Indian subcontinent are ready to come out to the world.  January of 2014 marked the release of the first page of Kali and now a page is slated for release each month on the Fifth Dimension Comics site and on ericacrockett.com as well.

Show David Brown some love by visiting his excellent site here.  He has ongoing comics from several fabulous creators, comic reviews and updates on future graphic anthologies.

Check out more of Jason Themm’s art here or link up with him on Twitter @jthemm

P.A. Nolte can be bugged on Twitter as well @PANolte

Below are the first completed pages of Kali.  Enjoy!