Well, now that Issue 10 is finally out, it ends up marking the end of Arc 1. This past year and a couple of months have been somewhat exhausting when trying to get ten issues out, but most of that has to do with my own laziness. When I started this out, I had a clear idea in my head of what it is that I wanted to do with this. I've always wanted to make a comic of any sort, and show it off to the world in some format. I first started thinking about Sanctioned way back in October of 2011. How it all started was because I had finished reading Grant Morrison's Supergods: Our World In The Age of The Superhero.
I read this book on my way to and from college. I grew inspired by it, I felt like all this time I just tried to delve into other people's worlds. I had not drawn, or written down anything original since I was in the 6th grade. everything prior and after that grade I was just doing fan work based off of things that I liked. After reading Supergods, I decided that I had to finally come up with something that was my own thing again. My previous venture into publishing a comic online was a few year back, maybe 4 years ago. I still had that itch in the back of my mind that I wanted to create something new for myself, my own characters, my own world. My own comic.
I had no idea where to start. What exactly could I do that hadn't been done before? The answer to that was "nothing." I knew that I couldn't just come up with something never before seen. I once read a quote that supposedly came from Stan Lee, something about that you can't come up with something original, that you can only make it different. Whether or not he said something like that isn't anything that I have since tried to confirm. I took that quote in mind and I dug deep in my mind of what it is that I could come up with, what interested me the most, what exactly did I want to see done. That's when it hit me. Back in my last semester of senior year in High School, I tried to write a novel that was superhero based, I only got around to writing 15 pages, and one day I hope to find those pages and re-write them on this site, but for now this is all I can say because this "novel" ended up being the starting point for Sanctioned. I looked at what I had written and decided that the comic would actually be a prequel to the "novel." This is how The Empowered was born.
The Empowered was the first title I gave to this comic before I decided to rename it to Sanctioned back in 2012. The premise was the same as Sanctioned, you have a bunch of people that suddenly gain powers in a world where there have been no people with powers before, pretty much a modern day what if scenario. I had started writing the comic as soon as I had thought up the idea, I went through a bunch of different drafts for the first four issues, each focusing on the four main characters that Sanctioned is based around on. I realized that in order to get people hooked, and for me to get moving somewhat faster in the process once I would actually start releasing the material, that four issues focusing on each character was going to be a bit much, there would be no hook. I decided that it would be best if I were to condense the first four issues into a single issue, which is what I ended up releasing in December of 2012. Upon releasing it, I realized that this comic was something I could actually finish one day, it was an accomplishment all its own by the mere fact that all my worries about interior, and exterior objects and whatnot were actually done. I was afraid that I had no idea how to make my characters be in motion. I had been drawing for about 12 years before I started working on Sanctioned, and not once did I ever try and go out of my way to not just have a stationary character occupy a blank space, except maybe for my Ghost Rider fan comic. Sanctioned was my second attempt at doing something that I love: comics.
This first arc was a test to see if I could develop not only my skills as an artist, my amateur writing skills, but also if I could actually accomplish setting out what I had in my mind this whole time. The few of you that have read this, many of you seem to agree that I've done a great job. I would like to think that I have, and I hope that I can hone the skills I have learned. I now know where my limits are, I know what I am capable of now, and I intend on taking full advantage of what I've learned this past year, and allowing it to help me grow as an artist from here on out.
Expect Arc 2 of Sanctioned to start in June of this year. While you wait, I'll be doing some viral world building for Sanctioned, that way it won't seem to just be on pause this entire time. The world of Sanctioned will continue on off panel, be sure to be on the look out for these viral pieces of world building as it will fill in the 6 month gap that the world of Sanctioned will have once it comes back from hiatus.
I will also be releasing any concept art I will be drawing over the course of these next few months, along with some sketches I have done since before I ever put a word on a script. For those of you that have been a part of this journey for the past year, stay tuned because it's far from over. For those of you who are about to tune in, I hope you enjoy the series enough to want to stay for the long run.
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