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| The cover for Westwood. |
Westwood was our third webcomics project at Champion City Comics and it debuted sometime in 2010. I was the writer and the pencils, inks, and lettering were done by Victor Pozzi, an Argentine artist. Westwood is a sci-fi thriller that examines the 2003 disappearance of a college student named Charlie Westwood. A photograph of Charlie Westwood is discovered and he's wearing the same clothing he wore the night he disappeared, but the photograph was taken in 1976, which leads to an investigation.
Victor Pozzi was interested in being the artist for The End of Paradise, but I had already selected an artist named Kav for the project. There was a great deal of potential in Victor's art samples, so I did my best to come up with a project for him. A few days after first contacting Victor, I had a rough draft for a story that would become Westwood.
Westwood was created out of my love for urban legends, secret societies, and time travel.
I grew up in Ohio and there was this urban legend that a young guy walked into this local bar, got in a fight with one of the patrons, was killed, and was buried outside of the bar near the railroad tracks. I tried making that a basic crime noir story, but somehow I went overboard. Maybe it was adding the time travel element or having a secret society involved that made the story more campy than noir. Who knows which one of those ideas came first, but I should have kept it simple. I thought it was a fantastic idea to have this secret society of individuals that guarded the secrets of time travel so it would not be exploited for the wrong reasons. Was there a time machine? No. I thought there could be these two magic orbs. Oh boy. Typing this out was a bit rough. I'm literally shaking my head at my own bad ideas.
Are you still thinking about the orbs? I got the idea from a co-worker that received Baoding balls as a gift for Christmas. They were the talk of the office for like a day and that somehow got stuck in my creative process for Westwood.
Victor was and still is a great artist. I feel bad I gave him a project that wasn't one of my best efforts. That man is a saint for working with me. We've worked on some other projects and I'm happy to say that my story ideas have gotten better over time. No more orbs. No more secret societies. Take a look at Westwood below and have a grand ol' time with one of my unintentionally silly stories.
I'll see you tomorrow. Behave yourselves.
Tony Wright is the owner of Champion City Comics. Follow him @TonyDougWright.
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