First off, turned out to be an all-Soracia issue. She's in nearly every panel of every page. It was also finally time to let out morsals of information about her that I've been patiently holding back until the right moment. -I finaly got to show what that extravagent bow on her chest was for,, and I was able to bring her honor guard into the picture. among other things. -As well, I was able to develop a little more the long suffering Locumire,(who at the moment is still a little bit 2-D, as far as characters go, but there's time to work with her.) So many secrets!

Anyway, while nervously watching the clock, (the Blue Book having eaten up an alarming portion of my production time), and while puzzling over what to do with this issue's cover, I thought of something which would be both interesting and time saving. I recalled an old air-brush project from the early days.

Back then, 'Soracia' and 'Shadow Lady' were labels I was just getting used to saying. Sha'anne was her name in the beginning. and the painting I used for this issue's cover was an image of her as she stood in the late stages of metamorphosis before assuming her new mantle and the name 'Soracia'. (Sha'anne, from the much earlier and far less developed incarnation of Thieves & Kings, lived as a sword-swinging martial arts minx in a world where, i am loath to recall, there also dwelt a race of hobbit/seven dwarves style short folk, and where peopl's names included fantasy-novel apostrophes in their spellings for no appartent reason. -And where all the main characters weredestined to meet in dingy tavern before launching on big quests for the magical stone of blah, blah, blah, because that's what fantasy novels were supposed to be. -I don't know how most writers first started out, but my palms sweat when I read over some of that old high-school stuff!)

I did, however get a few nice paintings out of the deal.

While my abilities have changed and improved significantly since those days, and while I am no longer a huge fan of high-realism artwork, the painting on this cover represented a rather special point for me. It was my first half-decent air brush project, which finally came close to justifying the big stack of summer-job money I'd blown all those years ago on the very best airbrush equipment.

This painting is neat fo a few other reasons too. It took six long weeks to complete. -I had little dishes of acrylic paint with the colors I'd mixed, and I'd start every day by dropping a little trickle of water into each dish to keep them from drying out. YOu'll notice the pants and leggings and boot designs Sha'anne/Soracia is wearing are what I ended up giving to Rubel; these paintings are where I did a great deal of design work for T&K. -Indeed, the reason I spent so long on this particular project (SIX weeks!) was that I kept stopping in order to work out how each of the various garments, could actually be made. I'd take trips to Fabricland (the local dressmaker's store in my town), to check out cloths and sewing guides, and I'd rattle away on my mother's sewing machine trying to make stuff.

I went to my job at the mall lottery booth several times wearing Rubel's leggings, in order to see if they'd work in the real world. (After a couple of designes, I discovered not only that they did work, but that they were also reasonably comfortable. But boy! Modern socks with the diagonal cross-weaves and elastics of today are a big improvement! -And they use a lot less material, too! Which is why, incidentally, even without elastic available, so few people wear Rubel-style leggings in the T&K world. The fact that Rubel does wear them has more to do with his having seen them in a picture of a thief he once admired. -Which is why anybody wears them in T&K land. It's entirely fashion statement; the expressing of who a person thinks he or she is by their choice of clothing. Not so different from our world)

My poor boss at the time chalked up my, 'make my own strange clothes' obsession as yet another reason it wasn't so bad that I eventually go fired. (She didn't have the heart to do it herself; the regional manager had to come and give me the shove-off in the end.) Though I provided many reasons. -Did you know you can counterfeit a scratch and win ticket quite easily if you know how to work with acrylic paint? Neither did I. (I was testing out several possible character traits for Rubel while putting him together. I almost made him the painter instead of Soracia.) I didn't actually swipe any money, (lucky for the world that the bulk of lottery profits go to hospitals), but my poor boss didn't know what to do with me when I happily showed her my handiwork.

Anyway, that's the story behind this issue's cover.

See you all in #26! Gotta run. FedEx closes at 8:00!