Phantom has become a bit of a favorite of some of the people reading the comic and he is a character that I focused on a lot this year.
I thought I would share a little about how he ended up being the character he is today, a sort of 'behind-the-scenes'.
As I mentioned before, it was about June of when I was in fifth grade that I created the characters; and I created all of the founders on the first day. For the very first time, I'm going back into the archives and revealing some never seen before artwork.
When I created Phantom, I didn't really create a back story for him. I created his name and powers (real name came later), but that was about it. Honestly, of the founding members - he's the one I put the least effort into creating any kind of story for him. I planned all along that his powers came from his cape, but never bothered to determine where the cape came from and he was just kind of always there.
The picture below is technically the first time I drew Phantom:
As you can see, he didn't look much like the way he does now. I actually didn't like how he turned out and I crossed out the picture, hey what can I say? I was 11 at the time! This actually comes from a large sheet where I drew just the founding members, before I "officially" drew them for the first time in July of that year. I say officially as the individual drawings are the ones that I did and remembered, I had forgotten about this test sheet until I found it again about six years ago.
The picture above shows the evolution of the design. When I next drew him (left most), my plan was that he would always have his cloak around him and we'd only rarely see his costume, which is why it is only a color guide. In time I decided that that I didn't like that idea and that's when the costume started to evolve more into what you know today.
Then there came a time where I walked away from my characters, for over twenty years they lived in my memory, and I did visit them for time to time, but I hadn't drawn them for ages. In the picture above, you will see the last time I drew Phantom (left most) for a long time. This was on a poster, done in marker, that hung fading on my wall for all of those years.
In 2012 I got the idea that maybe I could share my characters with the world and maybe, just maybe, someone else would like them too. I began the long process of rewriting stories, fleshing out backstories and trying to draw again for the first time in about 15 years! The middle image is when I drew him next in 2013. At that point I wasn't happy with the artwork and the last image is when I drew him in 2015 (yes, you'll see the artwork is a lot different than the monthly comic - when I'm doing it on just paper, my artwork is much better!)
As for the story? Well, it was between 2013 and 2015 that I finally came up with the origin for his cape's power and a new secret identity and it was in this time period that I decided to make him bisexual. I had written stories for many straight characters, and I have a few gay characters, but I didn't have any bi ones. When I was fleshing out his backstory, which I had basically neglected years before, I figured this would be a way to make him more unique and interesting and expand the kind of stories I wanted to tell and it just worked well with his personality. Of course, his personality pretty much stayed the same from when I originally created him. I did think about changing his name to Pharoh before I launched the comic, but that idea only lasted for a few months.
Oh, what about Phantom Queen (his twin sister) you ask? Well, here's the interesting thing about her. When I created Phantom, I hadn't even thought about a sibling. Then three years later the idea for her popped into my head, and basically designed her as she looks today, I didn't really modify her costume any as she was created when I had already pretty much finalized Phantom's costume. She is unique in one way though, while Phantom and the others have their future's mapped out in my head (I know how all will end up), with Phantom Queen I don't have any idea yet as to her 'final fate'. While I made up her back story years ago, I'm still creating her future as I write the character with no endgame in mind for her.
There is a lot more story to tell of Phantom and his exploits in the future - stay tuned!
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