I know I should play the part of a humble creator, feigning bashfulness about the work I helped channel into reality - but screw that. I am really, really, really proud of “Wild Heart,” the eighth chapter of WHERE WOLF.
First things first, the chapter gets its name from the Kashena Sampson song. If you haven’t listened to Kashena Sampson, you’re missing out. I first listened to “Wild Heart” while driving to Flordia back in 2020 during a weeklong retreat I had planned in order to finish writing the scripts for the podcast version of WHERE WOLF. I had already written the main story but was trying to massage the characters into their final forms. Sampson’s song felt like a perfect compliment to Sophia’s character and who she was as a person. True story - I also nearly hit a coyote crossing the road while listening to the song. Proof of fate if there ever was such a thing.
Sophia Ploog’s father is named Mike. As in Mike Ploog. Seriously, Mike Ploog is a god and all good werewolf fans should bow down and worship him.
This panel is also my homage to AMAZING FANTASY # 15, a perfect comic book and a clue, of sorts, as to what WHERE WOLF is. That’s all I’ll say for now.
It’s true! Texas A&M does have a great network for getting work at computer animation studios. Quite a few of my friends have parlayed their time in the College of Architecture into jobs working at Dreamworks, Pixar and major video game companies. I wanted Sophia’s own college plans to mirror those of my friends, who I’m very proud of.
So much of Sophia’s relationship with Texas A&M mirrors my own. I really did not want to go to school at Texas A&M but, like Sophia, I made a deal with my parents. I would go to Texas A&M and study business, despite wanting to go to the University of Texas and study film. If I graduated with a business degree, my parents said they would help support a post-graduate education in filmmaking. Even though I enrolled at Texas A&M, I rebelled every step of the way - finding ways to pick fights with my fellow students, assert my individuality in what I considered to be a sea of conformity and just, in general, be a two-percenter.
The book’s connection with the furry community was actually born from this rebellion. While working at Texas A&M’s student newspaper, I was the features editor for three years. I would amuse myself with little pranks, like assigning stories about subject matters I knew would piss off my fellow Aggies. One of those stories was a feature article about the local furry community and, as I expected, the paper was inundated with hate mail.
Looking back, I regret this childish behavior. I wasn’t putting those articles in the newspaper for the right reasons - to give a voice to people who didn’t normally have one. I was doing it because I was angry and wanted to make other people angry. Much like Sophia, my need to rebel had a huge impact on my GPA. I spent too much time goofing off and my grades suffered.
Sophia is so much cooler than I was, though.
I love Sophia and Roger’s conversation on the way to Gwen’s duplex. I could have written twenty more pages about them philosophizing about werewolves, regrets, the beauty and ugliness of Texas and Coast to Coast AM.
Speaking of Coast to Coast AM, a big shout out to my friend Danielle Tremblay who introduced me to Coast to Coast back in ‘06. Thanks to Danielle, I was hooked on the show for years - staying up late to listen to late-night callers talk about Russian gates to Hell, leprechauns, UFOs and interdimensional travelers. More recently, I would listen to Coast to Coast on Friday nights on my way home from hosting Graveyard Shift at the Alamo LaCenterra. I respected the fact that the show’s producers were unwilling to cede the conspiracy theory fandom to the far-right, instituting rules to prevent the call-in discussions from devolving into talk about COVID vaccines, Trump or false flags.
Speaking of Intra-dimensional travelers, if you would like to read more about the Beast of Bray Road, check out REAL WOLFMEN: TRUE ENCOUNTERS IN MODERN AMERICA by Linda S. Godfrey. The book is a breathless rundown of the stories behind the monster. As a bonus, it features hand-drawn pictures by the author!
So let’s talk about this page:
It is the reason I made WHERE WOLF a comic book. I couldn’t get this specific image out of my head while writing the podcast version of WHERE WOLF and it broke my heart that I couldn’t figure out how to write a version of the script that did justice to the picture in my head. The more I wrestled with it, the more I realized that I would not be happy until I saw the image illustrated. Luckily, I was blessed enough to work with Debora Lancianese who absolutely nailed the image.
Here’s how I described the page in the script:
The werewolf is maw-deep in Roger’s neck, eating the man. He’s dead. Very, very dead. In the background we see Gwen, shellshocked and zombie-like, still sitting on the grass outside the duplex. In the foreground, we see Roger’s pick-up truck and Sophia sitting in it. We don’t necessarily see her face - and, in fact, if we don’t see her at all and just the front of the truck - that’s fine.
Roger’s corpse is the focus. Well, kind of - because we see, peeling itself off of Roger’s corpse like a snake shedding its skin, Roger’s soul. It’s beautiful - like an angel - glowing, ethereal. It’s also an anthropomorphic coyote! It’s dressed in Roger’s clothing - it even looks kind of like Roger. It’s peeling itself off Roger, reaching out towards … Jesus Coyote.
Yes! Floating serenely, posed like a saint on a prayer candle - is a stunningly beautiful coyote - Wile E Coyote with abs. It’s dressed in robes and has a halo behind its head. It’s there to receive Roger’s soul and escort it to heaven.
Up until about a week before I submitted all the files to FANGORIA, this image was in black and white. I assumed that the entire book was going to be done in black and white so I never even considered doing spot color. As I got closer to the reality that the book would be published as a webcomic online, I realized I was not constrained by printing costs and could afford to experiment a bit with color. I immediately knew this was the image that needed experimentation.
Here’s the original black and white image:
And yes, even when it was still in black and white, it was always my intention to immediately follow that page with the stark chaser:
Woof.
As I mentioned, Sophia’s story pulls from a lot of my own life. When I graduated college, I had a terrible GPA and it had a huge effect on the type of jobs I could successfully apply for. I may have never kicked a werewolf in the nards, but I certainly felt every word of Sopha’s speech in this scene. I thought I had screwed up my life but things have a way of working out. Don’t give up - the end is not always the end and things can always be course-corrected.
This week’s chapter is a shorter one than usual. Larry’s in jail. Sophia and Gwen are dead. The werewolf is still alive. Shit on a cracker, I told you this story wasn’t going to be a comedy forever.