We’re still in the midst of the Kickstarter for Issue #3 of In Our Dreams Awake. If you haven’t had the chance to venture over to the page, be sure to do so. With this being the penultimate issue, things are beginning to spiral out of control for our Jason Byron.
In the process of trying to promote the Kickstarter, I’ve been talking to people about the book, telling tales about how we came up with the story, and it occurred to me that I had a very interesting story where one of our Backers directly influenced our comic.
If you have read issue #2 of In Our Dreams Awake, you may have noticed a few felines who have made their prescence known in the cyberpunk future beginning with this fellow:
But there is a secret story behind how Kiku-San, Hater of Carbon-Based Life Forms appearance in the comic book. For our issue #1 Kickstarter, we had a Reward level to Get Drawn Into the Comic! It is obviously on the higher end of cost ($200), but I’d seen other campaigns have similar levels – so it was worth a shot. Lucky for us we actually had two people select that level (the other is also a part of the Parliament scene – not the Crab Person!). So, we began to coordinate with them (get their information and image over to Rolands so that he could work his magic).
However, they threw us a curve ball. It seemed that they didn’t want their likeness to appear in the comic, but instead wanted to see their cat (or cats if possible). We weren’t expecting that, but Egg is not one to ignore a possibility. He immediately agreed, and then set to work on figuring out how to incorporate the felines.
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As an aside, there are two things you should know about Egg Embry. He is not an animal person. Unless it is a comic book about frogs, he doesn’t want anything to do with them. He tolerates them when he is over at other people’s homes, but they are not for him.
The second thing you should know is that if there is an animal in the house, they all want to be best friends with Egg. I don’t know if there is a memo that the animals pass around. Or if maybe they can sense it on him, but they all make it their mission to break down his stern exterior.
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Egg decided that the cats were going to be antagonists for dear Jason and Mikey. That they not only had a paw in the trade but seemingly were in control of which gangs did what and where. And if Jason did not agree, they were more than willing to get their fur dirty.
What amused me the most in reading the script for the Cyberpunk portion of the issue, was that if you’ve ever dealt with a cat, they can be extremely stubborn about how they deal with humans. You get on their bad side, and they have no use for you. You get on their good side… and the love will flow.
Sadly, Jason must take after Egg and not be a cat person!
Be sure that the cats also make an appearance in Issue 3 as well.
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There is a post-script to this story. When trying to decide on what Rolands cover was going to look like, Egg landed on an homage to an Amazing Spider-Man Annual (#5). But then he had Rolands not only add the Backers other cats to the cover, as well as his wife’s departed furry friend (Rajah). He also put my two cats at the time (Westley and Inigo) who have since both passed over the Rainbow Bridge. But it feels amazingly fitting that they are immortalized on a comic book that they sat beside me and “helped” me write.
It’s why I’m always amazed by collaborating with other people… the end result will always be infinitely stronger than you could imagine.
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If you would like to help keep the story (the Dream) going for us, consider supporting In Our Dreams Awake on Kickstarter. And if you’ve already backed us, thank you for helping to make our Dreams come true!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ioda/in-our-dreams-awake-3-a-dreampunk-comic