What is THE MIGHTY YOOBAI?

Actually, a better equation would be “who are The Mighty Yoobai?”

To answer that, we have to go back a few years…

As some of you may know, I kinda like drawing Jawas. I became “the Jawa guy” for a while there online. I drew so many Jawas that when they show up on THE MANDALORIAN and THE BOOK OF BOBA FETT, I get private messages and e-mails from strangers asking me if I’ve seen the newest episode!

My love of drawing Jawas prompted me to try and make something out of it. I tried to get the attention of anyone at Marvel Comics and IDW Comics. I even started creating fake JAWA ADVENTURES comic covers as a pitch to publishers!

You can see all of the JAWA ADVENTURES covers here!

But I couldn’t get the right eyes on my work to make JAWA ADVENTURES a reality.

Around that time I asked a well-known (and, more importantly, successful) comic creator for some advice on how to proceed with my Jawa-fueled creative mojo. I said that I was considering making a Jawa fan comic and use it as promotion the same way that another comic creator I know had done with great results. But I was told to go another way. I was told that it would be better to funnel my ideas into a new creation and make something creator-owned.

I knew this was the right advice, so I started working on designs and a story that would allow me to draw funny-looking diminutive scavengers and create my own story. But… right after getting that advice, I received a message from an editor at IDW Comics and I was offered a chance to write and draw a short comic story for STAR WARS ADVENTURES!

The resulting story (titled “GONK”) was eventually published in issue #8 of STAR WARS ADVENTURES. And yes… it was a Jawa story. I had a blast doing that short comic, but my ideas for THE MIGHTY YOOBAI got pushed aside. And then the idea was deep-sixed as I focused on ODDLY NORMAL and experienced a series of health troubles.

You can get my Jawa story in STAR WARS ADVENTURES Omnibus Volume 1!

Anyway… I never forgot about THE MIGHTY YOOBAI. The characters and the story kept simmering on my mental stove. And around the same time I decided to move forward with THE PATCHWORK GIRL OF OZ, I decided that it was also time to pull the trigger on YOOBAI. Here are some of the drawings from that initial round of development all those years ago. Some of the designs have changed a bit, but the basic look has remained the same:

As I said in a previous issue of Escape, this one will be a single story of about 80 pages or so. It’s a fun little sci-fi adventure fable that is a mix of JAWAS, THE SEVEN SAMURAI, MAD MAX, and something else that I don’t want to say so I don’t spoil the story.

I’ll be posting one page per week here on my Escape newsletter. It will be free to subscribers. After that, I’ll be crowdfunding a printed version of the book and then, somewhere down the road, will find a traditional publisher for it so it can stay in print without me having to become a print-on-demand service (something I want to avoid so that I can focus on telling stories and not printing them).

I hope you’ll subscribe to this newsletter (if you haven’t already) and enjoy my new comic stories! The comic pages will always be free to subscribers, but I may eventually create paid subscription tiers that give people more content. But that’s down the road. For now, I just want people to enjoy the comics!

I’ll be posting cover reveals for both new comic projects to my newsletter very soon…

Are you a digital artist? If so, you might want to check out my Gumroad store, where I have some great digital assets that might help you create your own work! I’ve got brushes, page templates, and tutorials, and most of them, are FREE!

Click here to see what’s available at my Gumroad store!

Speaking of sales…

I’ll be posting some original artwork for sale on eBay this Friday, and you’ll be the first ones to know about it via this newsletter! I’ll give my subscribers 3 days to buy or bid on the artwork, and then I’ll open up the sale to folks on Twitter and Instagram.

Stay tuned and thanks for reading!

Your pal,

Otis

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