When I first started Zebra, it was a project with a few close collaborators who specialized in printed comics. I decided to expand into webcomics but wanted to do something unique. It's all too easy to just through the old 9x9 grid onto a monitor and call it a webcomic. I wanted something new. So I threw the net out and some very talented fish came back.

Alex Hernandez always delivers the most startling scripts and finds the most amazing artists to work with, just look at his Thoth Boy and Eleggua comics at his site ImpComics for proof of this.

John Miers is doing the good work over at his site House of Slab and even designed the cover to the first volume of Zebra Magazine!

I owe these two gents so much.

The first webcomic I uploaded is still the most visited part of Zebra. I hate to call favorites but it has a very special place for me. I'm beyond proud to have it here and know that you as the reader will also enjoy it.

Below are a few words from the creators.

Artistically, what really excited me about Kobuta was the opportunity to put out work in whatever format suited the script, without having to worry about page formats and the limitations of the print quality that I'd be able to afford if it was a paper comic. The fact that I'd previously had a very satisfying collaboration with Alex, had confidence in his ability in general and the story proposal in particular didn't hurt either.

Well, I say that I was thinking about the format that would best fit the script, but I did also see an opportunity to investigate some techniques I'd been getting into in my solo work. Around about this time I'd been creating some very abstract comics with no panel borders (see "Burning Down the House" in the comics section of my site for an example), and the idea of trying this technique out on a more solid (I hesitate to use the word 'traditional') story was very attractive.

Actually the best way to put across my original intentions for the illustration of Kobuta might be to quote from an email I sent Alex when we were getting it together:

"What I'd like to do is not have every scene contained within a panel, but have each visual area defined by strong outlines around what is actually depicted. I'd also like to try to treat the page as a whole entity with pictorial space rather than a series of little boxes of space. I've tried to put this across in the sketch. So in the first panel Kobuta is sitting in a corner, and the edges of the corner make up the edges of the panel.

The lines which define the floor in panel 2 are parallel to the floor in panel 1 - I'd like to use techniques like this to guide the viewer's eye around the page, rather than have lines connecting the panels"

As the story took shape, other techniques began suggesting themselves, most notably the use of manipulated watercolour techniques in Kobuta's wall-painitngs and dream sequence. Again, I relished the fact that I was able to put this stuff in without worrying about the cost of getting decent colour printing. This application of handmade textures in digital artwork is something that's carried on in my current illustration work.

Would I work with Alex again? Hell yes! In fact there's something cooking right now, but I can't say anything because it's still just a baby, and is therefore very fragile."

I've been writing webcomics for a while now. I started out with my comics Thoth Boy, with the great J.C. Grande. The comic was meant for print, but I put it online to get more readers and the sheer amount of hits I received got me thinking seriously about the potential of webcomics. That's when Jameson Lee, director of Zebra Magazine, approached me about creating comics entirely intended for the web. I loved he idea for the site and jumped on.

My first attempt was Eleggua, teamed with the fantastic artist Korshi Dosoo. It's about a Yoruba/Santeria Orisha turned superhero in Miami. On the evolutionary scale from page to screen this is the missing link. The format is pretty standard, but the page is longer allowing me to put whole scenes on a page, all the reader has to do is scroll down.

My second go is the ever-popular Kobuta, a somber little tale about a pig/human chimera discovering his voice through art and the power of imagination. Artist John Miers took the concept of webcomic and totally ran with it. This is my attempt as a sci-fi fable and the art is appropriately strange and beautiful, like a cross between a punk zine and Dr. Suess. The real charm comes in the layout, though. John brilliantly exploited the advantages of a computer screen and gave the story a winding, twisting look that perfectly reflects Kobuta's life and dreams.

My current comic is Children of Mars. This is my epic, part space opera and part samurai flick, it's the story of a Japanese colony on Mars that's forced to revert back to feudal life in order to survive on the Red Planet. My writing and Korshi Dosoo's art is at its best. The first chapter is up and the second will be up this spring.

There are great things happening with Zebra and I'm proud to have gotten in on the ground floor.

(to webisode two)

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