Port of Zelda: 2nd haven

“Yes, Zeus. We are immortal. We don’t ever die. But Rhea’s presence was shattered by Hades. Her fragments now lay with Mother Gaia, where she’ll be taken care of.” —Metis. [MYth: A Promise]

I once read from a great Taiwanese comic artist’s blog… she was experimenting with various types of stories and she spends a lot of time develop and revising her stories to make sure it makes sense. She mentioned types of characters: animal, human, super-human (human with super powers), fantasy creatures, and gods.  Out of all those, Gods are most difficult to create stories with if you try to maintain all the godly features a “god” is supposed to have.  It’s nice to have a godly character in a story as a support for your main heroic human character, but the story will suck if a god IS the main character. Imagine: God isn’t supposed to go through any frustration, despair, adventure, and a god doesn’t have any fear, and the worst is that a god doesn’t DIE, and so nothing in the story could possibly threaten or endanger the godly character.  What kind of story will you have?? 

I thought I was lucky since I have a story about Greek gods, because unlike most gods/deities in Asian culture, Greek Gods are almost human-like…they have emotions. They possess the feeling of happiness, anger, jealousy, sadness, and even lust.  I remember once reading a Greek Mythology book which introduced the gods as “almost the same as us humans, only except they are much more powerful and immortal.”

Mortality is probably the only problem I ran across while planning the stories of MYth.  Death is usually a major element of fear for characters in a story.  When the gods have nothing to fear, it makes the plots very weak.  It also makes any fighting or threats unnecessary and pointless.  I gave this issue a lot of thoughts.  Then a statement from my cool English professor reminded me… he said “Mythology is a religion that people no longer believe in or worship”.  Even in the classic mythology many deities just slowly fade away.  What happens to those gods/goddesses?  Right after the Titanomachy, more than half of the Titans’ whereabouts were lost. (surely they couldn’t have been “killed” by the Olympians…)  So I decided to create a place for the lost deities in the universe of my comic “MYth”. Great Mother Gaia is the mother of all.  Lost deities also make their way back to her. It’s like the recycling of spirits, forces, and power. It will be Gaia’s choice if she wants the lost deities to come back…

Gods are immortal, they can’t be killed by mere humans. However, I think it makes sense when it’s god v.s. god, one should have the power to wipe out the other? 

I guess I cheated a little on this mortality issue.  In essence, I gave them a different form of “dying”.  It’s a “godly style” death unlike the humans. No disease, wounds, health issue could harm them, but a powerful blow from another deity could surely put their godly presence “at risk”.

(I’ve tried really hard not to use any “mortal death” related words in the comic such as “life”, “kill”, “die”, “death”….O___O)

Many people have been asking about Moonless since the comic publisher Tokyopop shutdown months ago and so the comic is no longer available to view at their site.  I’m not sure if the contract still hold (which said I cannot post the comic else where) but another thing is, I have decided NOT to post Moonless online.  Those who bought the RSOM8 comic will have it.  Although some of my readers may disagree, I now see Moonless as a VERY immature work. As much as I love that little comic, I can’t help but think how much better I could’ve made the character/background/setting/paneling/and so and so on…  

So this is what I will do.  When I put the three MYth stories together into an anthology, I will re-draw moonless and include it as well.  I really want to work on my other comic “Rain of Flowers” so I don’t know how long this will take me but I WILL do it! 

if only I have more hours in a day…..O_Q

again, I’m sorry if you really wanted to read Moonless. It won’t be online anymore.

The earlier quote from theoi.com have helped giving me a better understanding.  I’ve been confused and couldn’t understand why would the son of Zeus and Hera (even if as some other versions of mythology says, of Hera alone) could be “ugly”. After all, all gods and goddesses are supposed to be “beautiful”. That’s the other important trait besides being “powerful” that makes them different from man.

So in “MYth”, Hephaestus isn’t “ugly”… he was born small and weak.  Abandoned by Hera, but fortunately good old Oceanus took him in and Thetis raised him…. and Hephaestus grew up to become a strong god. 

Hephaestus wishes Hera would love him as a mother. Being such a gentle god, he could never bring himself to hate Hera even though she didn’t want him.

It may take a while before I work on a MYth comic for Hephaestus, but I will be sketching him occasionally. ^__^