Exploring The World Of Jericho - Part One

    

     If you have followed me on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/OfficialFwahStorm) or even seen my old Youtube video's, then you would have heard about Jericho. A fair few people out there have heard of Jericho even though they haven't been following me on social networks.

     Jericho was my first book released through Reload Comics, and ever since then she has been gaining followers, and has been taking leaps and bounds in her progress. She has been nominated for awards, found her way into select comic book stores, gained a following from celebrity comic book fans, and has even had several offers to become a live action movie.
   
     Based on this, some would say that Jericho has been my most successful book, and in some aspects this is true, but in others this is not so true. But regardless of that I can happily hold my head high and say that I have loved working on this book, and bringing the characters to life. So much so that I thought I would share some of the trials and tribulations that I have had to go through to get Jericho to where she is now.

The Alternative Cover to 'Issue One'

     Jericho had been a concept that I came up with back in 2008. This was Eight years after my Father had been diagnosed with Cancer, and 2 years before he actually died form the horrible disease. And in a way it was his suffering that helped to form the concept. It was a case of all the pieces to the puzzle were there, but it was only when a small piece fell into my lap that I realized there was a puzzle to put together.
     Now I won't take too long in explaining the details that lead to Jericho's creation for two reasons.

1. It is a very long and detailed story (in my eyes).
2. I think I already explained it best in the introduction to the first Trade paper back 'Jericho:       
Downfall) which collects the first 6 issues of Jericho.

     The idea came into play after a meeting I had been a part of with two fellow Comic Book fans. One of them was Tom 'Wez' Dorrington, who not so long ago illustrated the pilot issue of a book I created called 'The Asylum Of Fables'.
     The other was a cheerful chap named Callum, who arrived to the meeting late, and before he had even got his whole body through the door proclaimed that he was being stalked by a word.
     Naturally, my first thought at this point was 'What drugs is this man taking, and why isn't he sharing them with the rest of us'. But he went on to explain that everywhere he had been that day he noticed a particular word that appeared wherever he was.

     Now, I love a good mystery. So needless to say, my curiosity had got the better of me, and I asked what that word was. He replied with 'Jericho'.
     And even though there is more to explain on this situation, I think it's best to say that it wasn't long after that moment that a hero was born.

     But no ordinary hero. This was a hero who was born from darkness in order to shed light on the world that had done nothing but given her a painful existence. 'Cause let's face it. The world is always in need of a hero, but we would rather read and hear an interesting story of possible failure, than a simple success story.

     I wanted to work on the character the moment the idea fell into place, and for a while I did. I had my concept, my main idea for a first story arch, but something wasn't right. Something was missing and I couldn't quite place my finger on it. At the time this was hell for me because I wanted to get the story out there, but in hindsight it was truly a blessing in disguise.

     At the time it was the story of a middle aged Male scientist. But two years later something happened to make me realize what I needed to do to make the story work....I began working in a charity store.

The limited Edition Cover to 'Issue Eight'

      It was during my time at the charity store that I went through some of my own life altering experiences, and was focused on bringing another book that I had created and felt very passionate about called 'The Fallen'. However, it wasn't long before Jericho had come back to the forefront of my mind, but still with that feeling that something wasn't quite right.

     It wasn't long before the solution came to me. The problem wasn't the story. It wasn't even the character per se, but it was the characters gender.

     I had started creating a story that was too predictable all due to the fact that Jerry Collins (A.k.a. Jericho) was a middle aged male scientist....that all changed when I turned Jerry into a 20 something female medical student at Bournemouth University.

BOOM!!!!...Just like that the story had become something that I couldn't stop thinking about.

     Now, if you know nothing about the story of Jericho, but you have come this far in the post, then I would like to say thank you for hanging in there. I realize that I have a tendancy to waffle on, and not take into consideration that there may be some people reading who are thinking 'It would help if you told us what the premise is'!

     So allow me to elaborate in the best way that I possibly can.

     Jericho is the story of Jerry Collins, a young woman who has had a tragic upbringing. Being the shy and introverted (and intelligent) girl that she is, Jerry has suffered bullying at school, watched her Mother suffer the pains of Chemotherapy which lead to her Mother's passing, and was abused by her Father, Frasier Collins, shortly after her Mother's death.
     But after all of this, Jerry has been determined to make her way through life, and focus on helping those who have been diagnosed with cancer, and enrolls into the medical science program at Bournemouth University.
     But sometimes Jerry finds herself lost in a fantasy land. Her only two friends (Claire & Carl Campbell) are always close to Jerry, but she sees Carl in a different way. However, Jerry doesn't want to lose one of the only two friends she has because of a 'crush'
     Before a very important lesson, Jerry is brought up to speed on how the media is focusing their efforts on helping bring awareness of a Serial killer who targets terminally ill patients. Even though this news has made Jerry feel quite anxious she is still determined to show off her new project. An Ultra-sound Glove that has the potential to become a safer alternative to chemotherapy.
     However, after displaying the potential of the glove to her tutor, Doctor Foster, and the rest of her class, something goes wrong, and it is soon discovered that the glove has potential to be a dangerous acoustic weapon.
     Of course, the disaster of the demonstration of the gloves potential leads to expulsion by Doctor Foster, who apparently isn't as good a person as we are lead to believe.

The Alternative Cover to 'Issue Two'

     Doctor Foster is accused of sexually assaulting one of his students, and leads to his dismissal from the university. However, The Doctor isn't going to leave without taking a small souvenir that happens to be Jerry's confiscated glove.

     So, two paths have been paved. While Doctor Foster gives in to his bitterness, and joins a dark world controlled by an underground extremist group known as 'The Enigma Operation', Jerry's friends attempt to cheer her up.

     But in doing so it is soon discovered that Carl is suffering from an aggressive brain tumor, and after suffering from a severe seizure is diagnosed with 3 weeks left to live.

     The clock is ticking, and Jerry has to make a choice. Let Carl Die? Become a villain? Or become the Anti-Hero known as Jericho.

     Now hopefully my overly long synopsis of the story has captured your attention. I'm sure I could have kept it shorter, but to be honest with you; I enjoy explaining the story just a little too much. I can't get into explaining the story with out feeling goosebumps.
    
     Some people would (and have) said that the story sounds like it should be a novel and not a comic book. And to be honest with you, I have at times toyed with the idea of writing a novel of Jericho. Especially as I planned four story arch's, and what I have explained to you is just the basis of the first arch alone.
     It also seemed like a good idea as two other characters known as The Ghost & X-Celerate made their way into the book, and their origin stories alone are worth exploring. On top of that several of the villains have intriguing stories that lead up to the events of Jericho, and so do some of the side characters, too.

     But people seem to really enjoy it as a comic book, which is how I had always envisioned it.

A select page from 'Issue Five'

     It wasn't long before Jericho made her way to the world of independent comic books. The first Issue was released on July 4th 2011, and I couldn't have been prouder of my little girl....yes, I did just refer to my character as my little girl. My Daughter if you will, and yes I realize that some may see this as strange, but that is exactly what she is. My child.

     Anyway, I digress. Four days after Issue one was released, Jericho had sold out! And just in case you're interested on who got hold of the last copy to make it sell out, then wonder no more...it was Clive Barker, the man responsible for Hellraiser.

     How do I know this?...'Cause I was the one who handed it over to him at London Film & Comic Con in 2011. He read it in front of me, and expressed how impressed he was by it. In fact, if I remember correctly his words were 'THIS IS FUCKING INCREDIBLE'!!!

     That has always meant the world to me, hearing what Clive had to say about the book, and answering all of his questions about it as well. It meant the world to me because I'm a writer, and I had always looked up to Clive and considered him to be one of the best writers in the world. I'm not an artist. I'm just a writer who wanted his comic books to be released so badly that he picked up a pencil and went for it. But Clive even commented positively on my art work as well.

     So as you can imagine, I was on cloud nine, and I had no intention of stopping there. I wanted to complete the first arch of Jericho, and get things moving with two other projects that I felt just as passionate about (if not more so) than Jericho.

     So I did exactly that. I worked on Issue two & three, and to my great surprise, Jericho had been nominated for two awards, I had been nominated for one, and Reload had been nominated for one as well.....We didn't win any of them. And I was cool with that. In fact, I was extremely happy that we were nominated and didn't win.

     Why? You may be asking...well, it's simple....The nominations are decided by the readers. The winners are decided by a board of people. The readers had let me know that they liked it, and that was all that mattered. And even though recently I won my first award (which I am very grateful for) I still stand by what I have said for the past two years....The nomination is more important to me than the award itself, but the award is a nice bonus.

     After the award nomination it all seemed to be going extremely well, and I was rolling with the waves. I worked on Issue Four, and did it exactly how I wanted to do it. I changed the art style slightly, but kept the story the way I had always planned...This shocked a few people.

     Issue Four was the moment in the story where I revealed how messed up things can get for certain characters, and how evil the bad guys were. I have never been into those villains that prance around with a huge monologue that goes 'I WILL DESTROY CHRISTMAS!.....by kidnapping Santa, and feeding him, and making sure that he is still alive once the police get here, because I cannot be bothered to leave my hideout, even when I know that the fuzz know exactly where I'm hiding'.

     I have never considered those types of antagonists to be villains. I have always considered them to be attention seekers. Bad people in the real world don't spend 20 minutes revealing their plan before stabbing an innocent bystander. They just stab the bystander. They may feel inclined to say one short sentence that consists mostly of curse words, and then stab the bystander, but they don't make a song and dance of it.....so that's what I did with my antagonists.

A select page from Issue Six

      I still stand by my decision. The villains would swear, and they would act instead of seeking attention. This was decided very early on, when I introduced Wreckage, who has become everyone's favorite bad guy in the book. He is just an all round bastard, and readers love him. Occasionally the antagonists may say something, but they would mostly dive straight into action.

     But what I was unaware of was how much controversy, and disgust would be held against me by so many people because the characters in the book swore.

     Bear in mind, this story has dealt with Cancer, violent sociopaths, rape, child abuse on many different levels, and in the eyes of some people that is okay, but swearing?....that's a no go area apparently.....what makes it worse is that Jericho is NOT the first comic book in the world to involve swearing, and each issue so far has clearly stated on the cover 'Suggested for mature readers'.

     I knew from the word go that this book was for the adult comic book fans. Not for the children.
     Yes, I do actually want to write a book for children, and yes I intend to do that one day. But I always did my best to make sure that Jericho would be in the hands of readers who were mature enough to understand it.

     But alas, a day doesn't pass where someone complains about the language in the book. Yet they don't seem to understand that Jericho is my book, and I will write it how I see fit. The more people complain about the language, the less likely I am to change it.

     In fact, a radio interview for BBC radio solent lead to the host spending most of the interview complaining that there was swearing in Jericho, even though he had never actually read the book. That was an uncomfortable interview for me, but I feel that I handled it well, regardless of the interviewer acting like a spoilt child.

     Shortly after that interview, Issue six had been released, and the readers informed me that it was the best cliffhanger they had experienced in the book so far, and it was because Jericho had shown that she could be just as bad as the bad guys, if not worse.

     Now, I won't give away too much by telling you this, but just in case, I will say SPOILER ALERT!

     Issue Six ended with Jerry's first encounter with The Enigma Operation, during which Wreckage stepped up to her, and told her that she was nothing more to him than a cunt.
     At this point Jerry scowled, swung her arm back with a sonic charge coming from her glove, and blasted Wreckage (who is massive compared to Jerry) into the window of a clothes shop before saying: 'It's cunts like me that make pricks like you stand to attention'.

      I have never had so many people quoting a line I had written since the early days of being the front man in Bournemouth metal band 'Abuse'...Readers loved it!

     But some people still didn't like the fact that my characters swore....but believe it or not, that's not where the controversy ends. So if you want to know more, then just wait for part two of this particualr blog post, and until then, let me leave you with a video of me drawing Jerry.

If you're interested in picking up Jericho, and seeing what all the fuss is about, then you can order a copy of 'Jericho: Downfall' from www.reloadcomics.co.uk or if you prefer to read your comics in a digital format, then you can by the eBook of Jericho: Downfall from https://payhip.com/b/Nk5c

Thank you for reading!

Fwah Storm