Von Allan's art, comics and graphic novels: magic-users

I’m very pleased to share the latest Bill and Butch short story “Duel of the Magic-Users!”. This story was a great deal of fun to put together and hopefully a lot of fun for you to read. I will say that everything is not quite what it appears to be at first glance. In other words, I think you’ll need to read it TWICE to really “grok” what’s going on. But hey, I can say that about a lot of stories, right? After the last page I included a bit of an explanation — but read the story first! Why spoil the fun?

One last thing: the opening page is actually a DOUBLE-page splash; you can click on the image to see it in all its glory!

Have fun!

Double Page Splash from the comic book short story Duel of the Magic-Users starring Bill and Butch and written and illustrated by Von Allan

There you have it! As I noted, this story really requires being read a few times. I think the reason is obvious; this story is non-linear, moving about in time. I generally don’t do that, though with art there are no hard and fast rules. Whatever serves the story best is the way to go. In this case, I wanted the story to open with a bang and I wanted the reveal of “kayfabe” to come on the final page. The only way to make that work was to play with time. A linear version of the story might have worked, but the “kayfabe” punchline would have occurred midway through and obviously the “kayfabed” fight would have happened at the end. For an “inside-my-own-head” reason, I didn’t want that here. It makes the story a little more challenging to read, but I think it’s far more rewarding this way. You, obviously, will have to judge that for yourself!