Cosmic Dash

Here we are, at the end of our journey together.

There was a slight melancholy that washed over me as I started cropping this page for panel peeks. There are two pages left to the current Cosmic Dash episode, but the next page is the last we will see of Orthos and Kracker together for a while.

I do not consider myself a good writer. I would argue I have a certain level of competency and understanding, but that is about it. However, working on these last few pages, I can’t help but be proud of what I have accomplished with “Death and the High Cost of Delivery”. It’s actually a pretty risky choice for a second issue of a comic, but I think in the long run, this is going to be extremely important.

While Dash is pretty much the star of the series, I am making a very deliberate effort to not have him front and center constantly. When I was pouring over seeds for second episodes and arcs to touch on, this one stuck out. Dash’s story really determines where Cosmic Dash ends, but stories like this make the universe so much larger, and would allow these characters to exist beyond the initial drive that is Dash’s journey.

Kracker has always been a character who presented problems for me. He is deliberately more comedic, and most of the time takes a more detached and observational role in a story. The genesis for “Death” came from me running with a Luigi’s Mansion concept. Take a character who most people do not see beyond funny, and throw him in a situation that is creepy and way over his head. I knew I couldn’t have him do a lot of ass-kicking though, which is how Orthos came about. The more I worked on the story, the more I started building up the past and future of these events, and the more I realized that beyond Dash’s story, there was a lot more to this universe, and that I need to start establishing these various events. 

This, of course, is the approach I have decided to roll with for this first “season”. Connecting threads together through a central group of characters.

The pilot episode was just that, a test run. The series begins with “Shmoofyland”, and that gave everyone a little something to do. It maybe was not the wisest choice for an introductory episode in a series that is mostly about Dash, but I stand by my decision to simply bring readers in, right in the middle. “Death” was extremely risky for a second episode, as Dash’s role is extremely small here, but there is ultimately a set-up to get him involved with this storyline for the long run, so I have no concerns there.

Dash will be the subject of the third episode, as I really need to establish some background, but it will also have a major role for Mara, and ultimately it sort of is an ensemble piece in a way. Ultimately, it is kind of hard to write about the adventures of a main character when there is an entire group of interesting characters that surround him. I expect people would understand, in this case, why I’ve made what narrative choices I’ve have. Dash is the focus, but his friends are important to him, and they should be important to us. So the next episode will give readers the background that they really do need, and should help solve some of the problems that the comic is facing at the moment.

For now, though, I am just thrilled to have had a chance to get Kracker and Orthos together in a crazy situation.