ALAMAT: ORIGINS

[Addendum 5]

As I've mentioned in the earlier addenda, I relettered the AVATAR issue, and remastered HORUS.

Doing so afforded me the opportunity to see the pages before printing proper.

I did not get the same chance with DHAMPYR.

So I got to see the DHAMPYR section at the same time most everyone else did: when they got their copy of ALAMAT: ORIGINS.

Now, for a bunch of reasons, I have yet to read through the DHAMPYR section page-by-page.

But while I was randomly flipping through ORIGINS, I did note that the page sequence of the DHAMPYR section was... wonky.

So, for those of you who may have been confused with the apparently teleporting/time-travelling characters blinking in and out of scenes, please refer to the page sequences below:

225-234 / 237-238 / 301-302 / 239-298 / 235-236 / 299-300 / 303-306

The DHAMPYR section in ORIGINS runs from page 225 to 306.

We're fine with the initial section (pages 225-234), then we need to jump to pages 237-238, then jump to pages 301-302, then back to page 239, all the way through till page 298, etc, etc.

(Just follow that string of page numbers to read the story in its correct sequence.)

I've made the pertinent parties aware of the wonkiness, and hopefully, these errors will be rectified in any subsequent print runs of ORIGINS.

For now though, if you find yourself scratching your head at the way characters blink in and out of scenes, then please refer to the page numbers string above, which should clarify things nicely.

you can't drink just six,

Dave

 ALAMAT: ORIGINS

[Addendum 2] (1 of 3)

In prepping ALAMAT: ORIGINS, Budjette Tan conducted a trio of Q&A's with me covering AVATAR, HORUS, and DHAMPYR.

Some of the Q&A content made it into the story Intros in ORIGINS.

Most, did not.

So I'll be posting the Q&A's here, uncut, so you can all see what was left on the cutting room floor.

First up: DHAMPYR.

1 For new readers, what’s your pitch that would get them interested In DHAMPYR?

 

You’re a half-human, half-vampire hybrid, who’s become quite adept at hunting down those blood-sucking freaks.

But you’re really looking for one freak in particular: your father…

Family reunions can be such a pain in the neck.

 

2 Aside from Vampire: The Masquerade, what inspired you to create these characters and that world of vampires?

 

As you’ve noted, Vampire: The Masquerade (and by extension, White Wolf’s World of Darkness RPG universe) was the main inspiration for DHAMPYR.

A key inspirational element here was the Vampire campaign I ran with a group of players that included none other than Carlo Vergara himself. DHAMPYR’s setting (that very particular Goth-drenched San Francisco spectacularly brought to (un)life by Oliver) was also influenced by that Vampire campaign.

 

Beyond that RPG inspiration, I also wanted to write about family dysfunction, and I felt that if I could write something fantastic, where you could actually strip away all the genre markers (the vampire/occult stuff) and still have a functional narrative (a son trying to come to terms with an absentee father and the wreckage of his family caused by that person), then I could possibly have a story worth telling.

 

3 If you created Dhampyr today in 2024, do you think you would end up with a different set of characters, a different layout for the world?

 

Interesting question.

Two ways to answer that.

 

One: if, for whatever reason, the specific idea for what eventually turned out to be DHAMPYR came to me today, it would then be a period piece, in that, there’s something very particular about the Goth scene in the ‘90’s, when the ‘80’s (and Goth’s “birth” in the late 70’s) were still a recent memory, before the drift of certain elements of the subculture towards the mainstream (see: emo).

 

So I can’t quite see that DHAMPYR narrative set in the present day, without having its, ahem, fangs filed down, certainly from a visual/aesthetic standpoint.

So the story we told in DHAMPYR, characters and all, would still probably be set in that time frame.

 

The other way to answer your question: if a general idea came to me to write about a half-human, half-vampire hybrid in the year 2024, that story would definitely not be the story we told in DHAMPYR, but another beast entirely…

I highly doubt that it would have that Goth aesthetic, either… so, at the very least, the characters wouldn’t look the same…

 

4 What do you remember from the night the book was launched in Synergy, during Halloween?

 

That sea of PDBs (People Dressed in Black).

So awesome.

:D

So there you go.

After all this time, I am still extremely proud of what Oliver and I were able to achieve with DHAMPYR.

The fact that DHAMPYR was the title that made the Manila Critics Circle establish a Comics Category is still both mind-blowing and humbling for me. Sure, we didn't win, because the Circle has a rule that the voting of the judges needs to be unanimous for a book to be considered a "winner", but that doesn't take anything away from the reality that DHAMPYR was the inaugural title for the Circle's Comics Category.

It broke through the ceiling.

Boom. 

The next Q&A (probably HORUS) should hopefully go live over the weekend?

If you have any questions about DHAMPYR, please feel free to leave them in the Comments section and I'll see what I can do to answer them.

you can't drink just six,

Dave

ALAMAT: ORIGINS

[Addendum 1]

So I got my compli copies of ALAMAT: ORIGINS (thanx so much to Rome for the coordinating) and wanted to note a few things.

Firstly, that this will hopefully develop into a series of posts centered on ORIGINS and the stories between its covers that I had a hand in writing. Random notes and observations to hopefully put those stories in the bigger context that they're a part of.

Secondly, in Karen's Afterword, she notes a conversation in which an "un-God" is mentioned.

Now, time and memory will do this to you, but I, for one, do not recall this conversation.

Time and memory.

And age.

It happens.

I do want to point out however, that the "un-God" is certainly not my idea at all.

Fans of Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol will recognize the description as that of the Decreator. (Still one of the most chilling things Grant has ever written, that sadly, did not quite make the translation in the TV adaptation.)

So, I dunno... maybe time and memory did the same thing to Karen (three decades ago, man! SMH.), but the "un-God" is not an idea I came up with.

The Decreator... that's all Grant.

Anyhoo.

Hope you picked up (or intend to pick up) ALAMAT: ORIGINS, which chronicles our early efforts at comic book writing.

Hopefully I'll be around here again soon with some more ORIGINS Addenda.

you can't drink just six,

Dave