My name is Otis Frampton. I'm a comic book writer/artist. I guess you're all wondering why I've asked you to come to this bare-bones blog and proclaim your love for George Lucas & Ron Howard's underrated and mostly forgotten gem of a fantasy film.
Well... a few days ago I whipped up a quick digital sketch of what I thought Willow Ufgoof might look like 15-20 years after the events of the film when he has risen to the position of High Aldwin of his Nelwyn village...
And it got me thinking about how I always wished that Willow's story could have continued. I know, I know, there were three novel sequels written in the '90s. Have you read them? Unfortunately, I have too (well, I read the first one and then looked up info on the other two). They were not what I was hoping for, to say the least.
So after I drew that sketch, my mind started playing with ideas for what I would have done to continue Willow's story and I've been noodling out a story that I think might make for a fun comic that fans of the film might enjoy. I have basically taken the original film and thought of it as "The Hobbit", a fun prelude to a larger tale that expands on the world we've already seen.
"Shadows of Nockmaar" is just a working title, something to get the ball rolling (this blog will also serve as a placeholder to manage the project at this early stage). I like the title and it relates to the story I have in mind in a cool way, but I'm not thrilled that the word "shadow" is also connected to the three awful sequel novels. We'll see...
Anyway... speaking of getting the ball rolling, that's where YOU come in.
I don't have time to work on another comic. And quite frankly, fan fiction isn't really my thing when it comes to devoting large chucks of time drawing comic pages. But... this could be a fun project to write and I'd be willing to contribute comic pages to it if I could find enough fellow fans who are also artists to help tell the tale.
So here's what I'm proposing: a fan created crowd-sourced sequel webcomic.
I would write the script (I'm hoping to talk someone else into helping me bang out the story/plot), manage the project and contribute the first page (and more if need be). After that, a different artist would draw each subsequent page, resulting in a stylistic anthology of sorts that tells a single story. But I will only start the ball rolling on this if I can get enough artists on board at the outset to justify the time and energy required to write a script and coordinate the page assignments (and just to be clear, as project manager I would choose the contributing artists).
So... are you a Willow fan? Would you be interested in providing a comic page to a fan created crowd-sourced sequel webcomic? If so, leave a comment and provide a link to your website/online art gallery and we'll see if there is enough interest to move on to the next step.
And remember, this will only work if enough artists are willing to contribute. So please help spread the word to your artist friends via Twitter, Facebook, deviantART and your personal websites/blogs.
Now leave a comment and tell your friends, you measly little pecks...
-Otis
