Rotting Bristle Board: FIREHEART

Today I went through the oldest of my old art, the stuff that's been moving house with me since my childhood in another state. As the originals were literally falling apart, I accepted that today it was time to say goodbye to the ghosts of my teenage attempts at high fantasy. This is the abridged story of FIREHEART.

Like most closeted furry kids in the 90s, I loved the REDWALL series by Brian Jacques. It would take pretty much a decade of reading before my innocent ass really accepted the fact that all those books were basically the same, and at least one of them teetered on creepily racist (OUTCAST OF REDWALL, I'm looking at you), but the point was anthro animals and blood and war and really great descriptions of food and feasting. I wanted in.

Of course, if mice and rats are squirrels are cool, lions and tigers and bears are cooler, and my creation FIREHEART had the whole anthropomorphic zoo. It really was the grandparent of When We Fly, with no species (at least when it came to mammals and herps) off limits. Said mammals and herps (here called Coldbloods) are at war, you see, and while we're looking at the world through the eyes of a tiger, altruistic baby Kae refused to blame either race: corrupt leaders set the masses at each other's throats, and the only cure for a broken world was to come together in mutual understanding. Actually, that's really not bad at all. Well done, baby Kae.

So anyway, our hero, Fallonn Wildcat (a tiger, not a wildcat) has amnesia, because of course she does. Her frenemy Tae Warhorse (a zebra, not a horse), is trying to help her recover her memories whilst rescuing their mammal friends from the Coldbloods who kidnapped them. Hijinks ensue. I drew this series from ages 14-18 and then, like, went to college and had bigger /fish/ to fry.

Baby Kae was SUPER disciplined with learning the art of deep ink, because we all read early TMNT comics and all wanted to ink like those guys, who in turn were emulating Jack Kirby and HIS inkers. Baby Kae's understanding of human facial proportions was creaky at best; I was convinced I wasn't being influenced by anime, but I probably was. Also, I was very much under the impression at the time that you either wrote a funny ha-ha comic, or you wrote a morose and bloody upward trudge towards dignity. FIREHEART was the latter. It could have used a sweet and tasty spoonful of levity on top of all that battery acid. Such as it is, the comic is a fond memory and also the unapologetic murderer of about a thousand Microns and Sharpies.

Damn, son, look at the yellowing on that early page. It looks like someone threw up on it. Threw up earnestly and with all the pathos a sheltered Clintonian-optimist teenager in the 90s can muster.

Also, I insisted on calling myself a "comic novelist". SO cute.