#20 – The Occultist
This is a character which I jotted down in 2009 – started to work on creating way back then. I had ideas of stories – pulp fantastical stories, told as newspaper strips or in hyper-compressed Golden Age style books.
Here’s one of the earliest designs I did for the character:
As the idea for the character grew, I had this plan to have him break through the fourth wall, and to find himself lost in other comic book realities – to have him appear in other stories, to have other indie creators put out their own books with him in. The idea was to have him fight his way back, breaking free of the last constraint – copyright – and become a creative commons character.
Sadly – he got ahead of me, and about 7 or 8 months after I’d added a sketch like this to my deviant art page -Â http://jamiegambell.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d2glsde – Dark Horse Comics announced their own series, called The Occultist.
I don’t think anything was shady about this – the characters are very different. It is frustrating, though.
NB – I spoke with Dark Horse a while ago, and they said that I was okay to use the character, name and all, as long as I didn’t put out a book with that title and have his name appear on the cover.
Not sure where I stand with having the character appear in published work – does a DA posting count?
Anyway – here he is – The Occultist.
Art by Andrew Ross MacLean – this is a splash for a book I was planning, seeing different creators’ offer their take on the character… maybe one day…
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