PT is actually based on a story that I started writing about 14 years ago, for a school assignment. The assignment was just to write a short fantasy story, and the original was about five pages long, and involved three characters - Aisha, Cai, and Margensen - breaking into some random evil overlord's castle and stealing some important artifact or another from him. I don't really remember it that clearly, lol.

From there, I just kind of took it on my own and started writing a longer story based on Aisha, because I really liked her character. This story was titled “The Wildlords”, and spanned about fifteen chapters before I graduated from high school and just stopped working on it. I say that PT is “based on” this story, because it still has most of the same characters, but so many things have changed that it's really hardly even the same story anymore:

-> The story took place almost entirely in a city, not a tower.

-> The marsul were separated into two groups, which I actually can't remember the names for, but one group was humanoid (like the designs are now), and one group was more animalistic (think Bugs Bunny). This division was the main cause of strife in the original story, but has since been dropped and all the designs were changed to humanoid.

-> The marsul were not called “marsul”, but instead, as the title suggests, “wildlords”.

-> Aisha was suckered into joining a rebel group by her friend after returning from being in jail for several years (for theft). This rebel group was fighting against an evil dictator goat man named Tarlom, who had forcefully taken over their city in the time that Aisha was absent.

-> Cai was the leader of this rebel movement, and was actually very reserved and calm. However, she's always worn some form of yellow turtleneck in every design she's gone through. She had a staff, which she also had in the beginning in PT, but it got nixed shortly before I started drawing the pages.

-> Margensen was a cartographer who worked under Cai. He was also a shapeshifter who could turn himself into a dragon (…?), even though he never really seemed to use this power, except in one scene. He had glasses and always dressed in very neat, black clothing. He was a bit of a jerk.

-> Aisha's friend and love interest was named Dylyn, and he was part lizard. He does not exist in this version of the story, because I always hated him.

-> Mykel (Cai's brother in PT) was a barkeep, and not related to Cai. He died in anonymity about halfway through the story when his bar exploded (!!).

-> Winley, Veyra, and Orun didn't exist. Instead, their parts were filled by Tiara (a rat woman who was dropped out of the story completely), Olpii (a masked desert-dweller who may yet get an appearance in PT), and Jeluss (more on him below).

-> Jeluss was a coyote who was being held prisoner and experimented on by Tarlom. He was dripping black goo from his mouth and nose, and spoke in annoying sentence fragments. Aisha saved him (unintentionally) from the prison, and he followed her around calling her “pretty squirrel lady” and attempting to protect her until he was thrown into a bloodthirsty mob and killed. Jeluss was, needless to say, dropped from the story.

-> Tarlom was dropped out of the story entirely. He was really a very boring villain. And a goat. Did I mention he was a goat? It's also worth noting that his name is a scrambled version of the word “mortal”. Is this some deep, symbolic thing? No. When I was naming him, I saw the word on my Mortal Kombat poster, fudged the letters around, and used it.
lol!

-> Kori (who will be showing up later) was Aisha's best friend, part parrot, and ended up being lit on fire (!!!) and dying a horrible, violent death. In PT, Aisha doesn't know him prior to the story's timeline, he is not part parrot (but is still part bird), and does not get lit on fire. Probably.

-> Cai was killed halfway through the story, sacrificed on an altar by Tarlom's weird-ass cult that I can't even remember the name of. I think it had something to do with Tigers, even though none of them were actually tigers (…?).

That's all I can think of off the top of my head, aside from, of course, plot differences that could go on forever (and I'd end up getting into some spoilers anyway, lol).

This is really great info. i love to find out how these comic ideas change.

What're your views on furries and anthro conventions and whatnot? I always wondered if there was a reason you draw mostly mixed animal-types.

As far as furries go, I don't consider myself a furry, and I don't really consider PT a “furry comic”. I know it often gets pegged that way, and of course I understand why, but my focus and intention was not “furry” so much as “fantasy”. This story takes place in what is a much, much larger world, and it just happens to focus on the race of people who consider animals to be their spirit partners. It'll be explained in a bit more detail later in the comic (and a little bit more in a scene that's coming up in about three pages). I also have another comic project coming up that takes place in a different portion of this world, in which there are almost no marsul whatsoever - there's only one minor character in the story who is anthro. The rest are human or tsukai, a race that won't show up in this comic at all.

As for other furry comics, sometimes I like them, sometimes they confuse me. It's especially mind-boggling to me when people have worlds where furries live in an otherwise modern, unchanged Earth setting, alongside humans, and nobody seems to find it strange that there's animal people walking around. Usually, no explanation as to why no one is unnerved by a giant bipedal cat walking down the street is offered, and it bugs me, lol. When I see a furry comic, I prefer all of the characters to be anthro, or to be given an explanation as to why some people are anthro, and some aren't. =p

That said, I don't have a problem with furries or furry comics. A lot of the comics are done well and I enjoy reading the ones that are (Persona Animus, Lackadaisy, and Digger leap to mind). I honestly don't mind PT being tagged as one, as long as the tag doesn't involve “oh, god, it's another stupid furry comic”.
lol!

THAT said, I like designing characters that are part animal. There's a lot of freedom when you can give your characters spots and stripes and different shaped ears and tails. =p It's also fun for me to play around with personality types that match their animals - there's no real deeper reason than that. I don't have a “fursona”, I don't consider myself to be spiritually linked with any animals or what have you. I just like designing animal races.

well i have to say i'm liking the story and loving the art, i'm just a bit worried aisha will turn out to be one of those “im innocent but i was thrown in the prison of hardened criminals and fused wit ha squirl” story lines

Though i believe your more creative then that old cleche

lol! Well, don't worry. As we'll see, Aisha is pretty far from innocent. =p

You know “i don't consider PT a furry comic” is kinda funny as i found out today someone considers my comic “Changes” A super hero comic. It's kinda funny cause i don't consider Changes a super hero comic. (it is a furry comic though) I guess you cant pick your audience can you?

Hmmm, I've read a few pages of a comic on your dev account with the same chars (at least names were the same). What about this one?

I've got a cat race in a comic I started writin' four years ago. They're called morphotics and can change in any humanoid of the same sex, except for their eyes that remain cat even after the transformation. Never thought of anthro, though.

Ah, yeah, I forgot about Estalia. That was what I would file under “failed experiment”, lol. It had some of the same characters, but it was a completely different setting and really, I had no idea where it was going, which is why it stopped like eight pages in.

lol!

And LLX, yeah, there's no helping what people will label your comic as, so I've decided to just go with it, lol. I usually end up labelling PT as anthro/fantasy on comic search sites.

Hmmm… to think about this… I've got no clue where my comic will end (if it's finally drawn!) - few possible options are: real life, fantasy, science-fiction, crime/noir, drama, politicial, social, romance and so on… (try to imagine a strange coinage of The Bold and the Beautiful with X-Files, LOST, Heroes, 4400 and other similar plus somethin' more)