Copyright 1995 – 2012 Patrick Lemieux. All Rights Reserved. Registered with the National Library of Canada.
Category: Horizon Line
Here is the original first issue, picking up a short time after the events of the “Prequel” issue. You’ll immediately notice the rougher quality of the art. At the time, I’d never tried anything like this, writing and drawing a comic, so I was sort of making it up as I went, with only a vague idea of where I was going. I did settle on a direction and an overall story arc halfway through writing this issue, but lacked the patience to refine the art before I started, nor did I script the story. I wrote it as I did the pencils and only occasionally changed things as I inked the pages. In retrospect, it was probably not the best way to write the tightest story, but it let me explore whichever directions I felt like taking it. If I plotted the entire thing out before I put pencil to paper, I fear it would’ve become stale to me by the time it came to do it. I also didn’t know that was how most comics did it. Again, impatience took over and I just dove right in.
[In 2012 I experimented with completely re-doing the text. I felt the original was pretty illegible. I didn’t alter the content, just fixed mistakes and made it clearer for the reader.]
Also included are two later strips whose events proceed the first issue.
Enjoy.
“The Date”
A strip which ran in the Eyeopener in 1996.
“Stress”
A page-long strip I used as a test for the comic.
(Horizon Line & Apex Comics, characters and events depicted therein are copyright 2012 Patrick Lemieux. All rights reserved. Registered with the National Library Of Canada)
Back in my last year of high school and through university, I wrote and drew a small-press comic series titled Horizon Line. It ran for about 6 years and issues were published quarterly. There were also one-off strips in various publications (school newspapers, magazines, etc.) and a second volume of idependent issues that were written late in the series’ history, which told side stories and back stories of various characters.
“Prequel” was one such back story. It’s presented here first, for the sake of telling the story more or less in chronological order. There will be points where artistic need requires flashbacks and slight deviations from the chronological order, so for story purposes, those moments will be preserved. Otherwise, the releases (strips and supplemental issues) will be placed within the regular flow of the comic in order to tell the most linear version of the story. It’ll make the most sense that way. Consider it my Director’s Cut, with re-instated scenes and bonus footage to enhance the story.
If the reprinting of the series here is popular, I’ll keep posting the original issues, perhaps once a month.
I’ll also warn you that the earlier-drawn material varies in technical quality from the later issues, as I improved as an artist. I hope you’ll forgive the roughness of the forthcoming Issues 1 to about 3 or 4. Issue 0 “Prequel” shows you how good the art became fairly quickly, so you have that to look forward too, if nothing else.
Enjoy…
(Horizon Line & Apex Comics, characters and events depicted therein are copyright 2012 Patrick Lemieux. All rights reserved. Registered with the National Library Of Canada)
MadTheDJ 