Wolf-Thing Origins Read a sample chapter of Blood of the Brotherhood! The novel, Blood of the Brotherhood, is a story that’s been nearly twenty years in the making. For those of you who have a novel, or comic book, or poem in you that’s struggling to come out, I hope that seeing my creative process will give you the desire to continue working. My first illustration of Wolf-Thing. What is up with that eye? It's like a cycloptic werewolf! I do like the belt though. Below you can see the cover and first few pages of a comic that would serve as concept art for Blood of the Brotherhood. This cover art reflects a scene in Chapter Twelve of the book. In that chapter, Matt is confronted by another werewolf named Razorback. The dialogue shown here suggests that Razorback will taunt and belittle his victims. In Blood of the Brotherhood, Razorback is ruthless, sinister, and manipulative. In the book, Samantha stays true to the basic character shown here. She wears glasses, usually keeps her hair up, and is quite intelligent. In the first chapter of Blood of the Brotherhood Matt and Samantha talk about some creepy myths and legends and introduce the idea that their town of Devil's Bluff has a haunted woods. Samantha doesn't mention Angelica, Matt's love interest, in the first chapter. Angelica is discussed in more detail in the second chapter when we meet Matt's best friend, Kyle Bryson. Samantha does invite Matt to attend the Gypsy Revival Festival with her but the festivities are held in the woods instead of at a cemetery. This page also shows Matt's best friend and roommate, Kyle. In Blood of the Brotherhood Kyle has no intentions of leaving the Baxter Institute as he hosts his own campus radio show and is very well liked (probably also wouldn't be caught dead reading a sci-fi magazine). Instead, it's Matt who's forced to leave when his uncle freaks out about a local newspaper article concerning a wolf attack (this event doesn't take place until the second book). Here Kyle is depicted as super intelligent. When I wrote the novel his character worked better being funny and very personable. That leaves Samantha as the only really smart character. Just making that one change created a great dynamic between Kyle and Samantha. This, in my opinion, is where the wheels came off the wagon. I wanted Blood of the Brotherhood to be a fantasy story where the events are supernatural yet grounded in some reality. Samantha flying around with crumpled bat wings wasn't going to cut it. By the way, Angelica is the blonde with pink pants. In the novel, she actually looks more like the gypsy dancer because she is, in fact, a gypsy. Angelica also has very dark hair instead of blonde. Remember that each step you take in creating a character or story will eventually lead you to a polished product that you can be proud of. Keep working toward your goal!