Yellowknifer Kody Ferron has an ‘Infernal’ desire to see his comic book published.
Originally from Ontario and having graduated from the McEwen School of Architecture in Sudbury, Ont. in May, Ferron has finally reached the point where he’s ready to release his literary project.
“It’s going to be unrated, and there’s going to be gore,” he said of Infernal. “It’s not going to have a terribly dark tone, so the gore is kind of played off as light. The story is a cosmic sci-fi action comic that follows the story of sort of a mysterious hero. He finds himself without his memory and imbued with the power of a dying star, which obviously makes him incredibly strong. He gets mixed up with a character named Orion, who is sort of the main villain, and yeah, that’s the gist.”
Ferron is working to achieve publication through fundraising on Kickstarter, an online platform. He’d raised $1,276 of his overall $7,000 goal earlier this week.
“The money from the Kickstarter is being put towards three issues,” he said. “The idea behind that is, in order to get a comic published by a publisher, in order for them to take you seriously, you pretty much have to show up with three issues finished.
“So I just need the funds to make those issues, then I can take it to a publisher and say, ‘Hey, print my story, please.’ And I can start making it a monthly comic.”
According to Ferron, funding has hit a bit of a lull recently, but he has some announcements planned for his Facebook and Kickstarter that he hopes will stimulate interest.
As for Infernal itself and the work that’s gone into it, there’s some definite sci-fi inspiration that helped to influence its creation.
“There’s a plethora of things that I could list for you, but I’m super, super passionate about sci-fi,” he said. “Like all the really high concept things, like the AI (artificial intelligence) taking over and trans-humanism and all that stuff.
“All those kinds of things are going to play some kind of role in my story. Spawn is big influence on, sort of, my story building, but it’s not necessarily an influence on my artwork. Some of the bigger influences on my artwork would be like Star Wars — that’s a huge influence on a lot of people in the sci-fi (genre). Dune also.”
Some characters in Infernal also reflect Ferron’s love of comics. For others, his originality is on full display.
“Orion, the way he carries himself, his aura, is sort of inspired by Darkseid (from DC Comics) — this kind of like super-powerful sort of shrouded in mystery type character,” he said. “Solis, I don’t know what inspired him really, I just thought a fire character would be really interesting.”
Ferron’s work on Infernal also shows a deeper storytelling angle than the basic good-versus-evil concept.
“Solis, the main character, is meant to be representative of, kind of humanity and the struggle of existentialism, hence the sort of amnesic origin, but also the superpowers,” he explained. “He has his superpowers, but he doesn’t know who he is, what he’s supposed to be doing, where he came from, all of these things. And these are kind of what he’s uncovering throughout this tale.”
Infernal was originally the title meant for an older piece Ferron was working. However, the link between the title and his sci-fi story using a dying star as a key plot point made for an excellent match.
“As I started drawing the comic, it just kept going towards sci-fi because what informs your comics is how you draw,” he said. “So I kept the name Infernal because of the idea of the dying star that I had, even earlier than the idea of the name Infernal.”
For those interested in supporting Ferron’s journey towards comic publication, the link to his Kickstarter can be found here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kodyferron/infernal-the-dying-sun?ref=discovery&term=infernal&fbclid=IwAR31ZVrZmeliXU4IYfzbqUXeOkeleT_7wXN2jcTsI3AEJI6PZ0dlvbfkATw
