potential future comic stuff (Patreon)

Somewhat pretentious and relatively spoiler free blurbs for the four comic ideas I have battling for supremacy in my head :P I'd be interested in knowing what you think :)

Title: Aerial Magic
Genre: fantasy/slice of life

Wisteria Kemp is a mediocre witch at best. Her potions are sloppy, her spellwork leaves a lot to be desired, and she really doesn’t want to talk about that time the summoning classroom blew up (it was only partially her fault anyway.) Sure, she’s fearless on a broomstick, but that’s not the sort of thing teachers care about.

Wisteria knows she’s never going to get into magic university and she’s okay with that. She’s spent quite enough time writing essays thank you very much. She’d much prefer to learn a trade and do something active and exciting with her life. So she sends an application to the aeronautics guild (the only people who might care about her totally awesome flying skills) and hopes like hell that they’ll offer her a position somewhere. Anywhere. Please.

To her intense relief she’s offered an apprenticeship placement at Wings and Things (bespellers and repairers of broomsticks, carpets and other instruments of flight) which is both awesome and terrifying.

Wisteria doesn’t know anything about how broomsticks work (she can fly them, sure, but fixing them is another matter.) And she knows even less about “other instruments of flight”, whatever that means. She’s not quite sure if this is the right career for her.

But this apprenticeship is Wisteria’s chance to prove that she’s not a failure (no matter what her academic transcript says) so she’s definitely going to work hard and make the most of it.

Besides, isn’t learning new things what being an apprentice is all about?

Title: Briarbound
Genre: Fantasy

For as long as he can remember, Rowan has been able to see things that other people can't. Spirits. Ghosts. Monsters. He pretends he can't see them. He does his best to live a normal life. And then Emmeline, a monster who looks like a girl, crashes into his life like a storm. 

Emmeline is energetic, cheerful, and honestly a bit of a brat. Rowan knows his life would be much, much easier if he could just ignore her. But it's so nice to stop pretending. It's so nice to have someone he can share his secrets with. Slowly, steadily, they become friends.

But Emmeline has secrets of her own, secrets that make her a dangerous friend to have. And this is only the start of their problems.

The monsters of England are simmering with tension. Most of the native monsters - the faery folk - have withdrawn from the mortal world to avoid the iron in human cities. Some of them think this is the right choice. Others miss the times when they were gods, and would kill to see those times return.

Meanwhile foreign monsters have been arriving from across the sea, creatures from folklore who aren't the slightest bit bothered by iron.

To some, this looks like a war just waiting to happen. All it will take is one spark to set it off.

And Rowan - a biracial boy who shouldn't be able to see monsters but somehow, inexplicably, can - is starting to look an awful lot like a match.

Title: The Sky is Waiting
Genre: Romance/Modern Fantasy

Every night Alex dreams that she can fly, and every morning she wakes with wind-burnt skin and feathers in her hair. She keeps her dreams a secret. She keeps the feathers hidden. This is her life, curious yet unchanging.

And then, quite by accident, she brings a boy into her dreams.

The boy in question is Nathaniel Klein and all Alex knows about him is that he has a younger sister and he's recently moved into the neighborhood. He seems far too ordinary - far too blonde and popular and normal - to have any sort of supernatural secret. Alex doesn't have a clue what he's doing in her dreams.

Neither does Nathaniel.

But they're going to need to figure it out, and quickly.

Because there's magic in their dreams, magic that's old and strange and deadly. Alex and Nathaniel don't know it yet, but they're trapped in a centuries-old tragedy, and they only way they'll survive is by saving each other.

Flying is dangerous - what if you fall?

Dreaming is dangerous - what if you don't wake up?

Tile: The Court Beneath the Waves
Genre: Fantasy

Ayla was eight when she drowned.

She would have died if a river spirit hadn’t saved her by breathing life back into her lungs. Ever since that day she’s been able to breathe underwater and hear the unearthly music of the river folk. 

Ayla was seventeen when a river spirit walked into her sister’s bakery to request Ayla’s presence before the princess of the river folk. Ayla doesn’t run. She doesn’t fight. She’s known for the past nine years that she owes her life to the river. It’s only fair that she repay her debt and return her borrowed life to the water.

But the princess doesn’t want Ayla’s life. All she wants is to train her in magic.

The princess explains that her people control magic through music, magic that they use to keep the river clean and the rain regular.

There’s magic in Ayla’s voice too, magic that soaked into her breath on the day that she was saved. And as Ayla grew older the magic became stronger. Apparently last week she caused an isolated thunderstorm by singing a lullaby to her to her nephew. Most of the river folk think it would be best if Ayla died (or at least had her voice torn from her throat) but the princess of the river folk decided that the magnanimous solution is to teach Ayla to control the magic in her voice. Ayla will study magic. And in her spare time she will teach the river spirits about humans. This is how she can repay her debt.

And so begin Ayla’s life in the court beneath the waves. She’s surrounded by spirits who hate her. She’s trying to learn magic that burns her throat and chafes her tongue. But Ayla’s alive. She’s alive. And once she’s mastered the magic she can return home and her debt to the water folk will be repaid. 

Ayla never dared to dream that she could be so lucky.