Come check out the latest page from the dark fantasy series Instruments of Darkness: Ghosts of the Great Forest. A vampire and werewolf story set in ancient Mexico. Vampires rule the Mayan city of Chitchen Itza and worship Cinzin the Stinking One, lord of the underworld in the caverns of Xilbaba, the place of fear.
Follow Hunts-in-the-Dark our hero an Apache warrior from the New Mexico Badlands and Nashota a 4000 year old werewolf who's parents made the crossing from Asia, across the Bering land bridge to make a new life for themselves away from the harshness of the Mongolian Steppes. They make an unlikely duo, vampire and werewolf but they have to work together if they are to stop the madness of the leaders of the Cult of Camazotz as they gear up to open the gates of Mictlan and cause the destruction of humanity.
The lettering for the title, notably the letter "N," I am curious about. Does that letter signify or symbolize something? The impact of the lettering is greater, I think, when used as the cover image for your Facebook page, than it comes across on the cover page of the magazine. I suspect that's due to it looking disproportionately larger on the Facebook cover image, since the area around the text is cropped, and nothing else is visually competing with it.
Those things said, I think that the art for the interior pages is stronger than the cover art. I am a fan of the old Savage Sword of Conan and Conan Saga black and white comic books, and so I tend to be drawn to black and white artwork. Even still, there's some decent art skills on display.
The thing that really caught my eye, however, are some of the characters. The true strength of this publication will lie in its characters, I think, rather than in its art.
Here's an example - Balim, a Mayan vampire lord and ruler of the fading city of Chitchen Itza. Viewing him on your Facebook page, and reading that brief description about him, made me instantly conjure up thoughts about blood sacrifices of old amongst the native Indian tribes of Central and South America. So, that's why people were being sacrificed to the gods - because some of those that ruled those great cities of old were vampires!
Now, that may not be the underlying pretext in your tale's storyline, but in that moment, you grabbed me. You hooked the reader. Now, whether that interest is retained over the long term or not, that's another matter, altogether. But, those are exactly the kind of hooks that snare people, particularly those who otherwise might be described as "casually interested." I have a lingering suspicion that most of those that you eventually will succeed in snagging as returning readers of your tale will be people who encounter your material largely by accident, rather than those who will have specifically sought you out.
All things considered, I think that Instruments of Darkness: Ghosts of the Great Forest holds much promise.
