Author notes

HA #3 Cover by alejkhan and Abt_Nihil

Abt_Nihil

on Oct. 31, 2010

Lineart by alejkhan, colors and letters by myself (exclamation marks & retro text courtesy of alejkhan - although I can't deny that I enouraged her to go for it :P). I had wanted to collaborate with her for quite some time now, and I'm very glad that it finally happened in the form of this cover. There's an abundance of talent to be found in webcomics, so, in my opinion, in the end it boils down to which art speaks to you and which doesn't. In my case, hers does just that, and I hope it somehow shows in the way I've colored it. I've tried to add details wherever it seemed reasonable (for instance, if you look closely, you might spot ripples where Thrawn's tentacle touches the water! :P) while still trying to retain the sort of "retro" clarity of the piece.

alejkhan has three active comics on dd, which are…
- Lola, an all-ages comic which has just won the dd Award for "best black and white artwork",
- FireBorn, a sword-and-sorcery fantasy epic, and
- Jump, a supernatural thriller.
It's hard for me to really classify any of these, because each of them is much, much more than their descriptions could ever entail. They're bursting with creativity, and that's one of the reasons why I like them so much. They're coming with my highest possible recommendation. ALL of them!

I'm also deriving huge personal satisfaction from finally being able to include a character from Shades in an HA story. (Yup, it's Thrawn, in case either the teaser hasn't given it away, you're refusing to look at the cover above or *gasp* you haven't read Shades!) Basically, the first question I'm always asking myself when writing an HU or HA story is: "Can I include someone from Shades??" DAJB very generously offered his characters pretty early on, but so far I've never had the feeling that I could do them justice.

Thrawn was designed by E.C. Nickel, the artist on the second half of Shades.

As you can see from the cover, this chapter also introduces HU/HA first-timers Peligroso (created by sux) and Bleeder (created by lustyJin). Blue Jay (who already appeared in several HU Adventures) and Mr Imp (who made his debut in HU: Fury) also join the HA team. Also pictured here, below Bombshell and Bleeder, is a new character I created for this chapter - you'll get to know her soon.

Thanks for reading and commenting, and I hope you'll enjoy this chapter!