A Stars Were Right Christmas

My wife is awesome. How awesome? Well this awesome: for Christmas this year she commissioned one of my best friends and beta reader – comic book artist Josh Montreuil – to draw the characters from my latest manuscript, “The Stars Were Right!”

He out did himself. The result is the amazing image you see above. (Click to embiggen.)  The characters are (left to right) : Protagonist Waldo “Wal” Bell, Detective Carl Bouchard, Priestess Samantha Dubois, her brother Hagen Dubois, Peter Black, Zilla, Wensem dal Ibble, and his son Waldo dal Wensem.

It’s incredible, and the first time I have ever had anyone render a creation of mine. As writer it’s amazing to see how people interpret these characters and just gets me that much more excited to keep working with them.

There’s a few details I really liked:

• Wal’s tattoos – wagon wheels on each forearm- are a lot more stylized than I had pictured in my head.
• Wensem dal Ibble has kind of a Solomon Grundy look to him which is good as I sorta leave his race up to a lot of interpretation.
• I also really like the casualness of Samantha’s robes. She’s more of a professor than a priest. So it makes a lot of sense.
• There is also the entire construction of Lovat (the multilevel city Stars is set in) in the background and the crowded nature Josh brings to it that I really love.
• He nailed the look of Bouchard, the determined gruff cop a little worse for ware but determined to get his man.

There’s really not enough adjectives to describe how much this piece touches me and if anything it lit a fire under me to get The Stars Were Right out there for public consumption.

Here’s hoping for some big news in 2013.

…and thanks Kari-Lise, and thanks Josh, truly. You couldn’t have given me a better gift.