Sapphire

In the years following the end of the cold war the international intelligence community has found a far greater threat than the games born out of an opposing ideology.
Something dark and sinister is manifesting itself in the world.
In an attempt to understand and counter this menace a new era of global co-operation is born and operation:CRYSTAL is instated.
For John Stedd and his team, the dark forces of the paranormal are all in a day’s
work. However, when the dead body of an S.I.S operative is found in a church, a chilling fact becomes apparent.
When you’re not sure who the enemy are, how do you fight them?

Consequences
Originally published in 1997 as a six part bimonthly series the focus of the story is John Stedd and his team of covert field operatives who are assigned their first case. Operation:CRYSTAL has just been set up and the kind of insecure world that the cold war spies operated in is intensified by the new enemy having paranormal abilities. Stedd also has the responsibility of his wife, who appears to be turning a bit mad. Although Stedd and his team are based in York (and there are good reasons other than the fact that I live there) the story moves around the UK in dramatic fashion as the ops go where the leads take them.

Story
Conceived and written by me

Art
Most of the art was also done by me although with the pressure of the bi-monthly schedule I enlisted the help of Ralph Horsley to do the inking from issue 4. Not only did this take a lot of the pressure away but it also improved the quality of the art (and I'm not just being nice, it really did). I also cajoled Dianne Turner, a friend of mine, into drawing and inking some backgrounds for me which were extremely good but took her quite a time to produce so before long she got a bit fed up with it.

Lettering
All the lettering was done on the computer as I can't write for toffees.
The complete six issue run is available as a collected edition from the store.

 

Secret Chamber Part One

Sapphire was intended to be an on-going series but unfortunately it just wasn't financially viable to continue after the completion of the first story. However, with
the launch of Raven I got the story going again with a new character and a new
style of art.
The focus of the story shifts away from Stedd and more onto Eve Lucas, who has been assigned to one of Stedd's cases as a result of influence by her father, who is an old friend and colleague of Stedd's. The original characters are still around and become more involved as the story progresses. As with the original Sapphire comic, Raven became financially untenable after 5 issues so we stopped publishing it.

However, with a good proportion of a new Sapphire story already completed it made sense to finish it off and publish it as a graphic novel, which is what I did in 2004. Unfortunately, as Roger pointed out to me, the ending had been rushed in order to meet a deadline and so I decided to ditch the last half a dozen pages, leaving a cliff hanger ending and publish it as a the first part of a two part story.

Story
Conceived and written by me

Art
This time, all the art was done by me. I worked out a way of pencilling the artwork using shading to add greytones and then scanned it in to Photoshop and blackened it up. The end result has the effect of looking inked without me actually having to do it (very handy).

Lettering
All the lettering was done on the computer as I still can't letter for toffees. Available as a graphic novel from the store.

 

Secret Chamber Part Two

The conclusion of the Secret Chamber story line and now available from the store.