STEPPERS 5.1
Chapter 5.1 + Creator Commentary for "Mr. Esteem"
With Chapter 5, we’ll be releasing it in parts, a few pages each week. In order to compensate, there will be a little bit more PROCESS talk below, in case people are curious about that stuff. This is information we’d like to dive into more now that we’re further into the story.
In case you need to get back up to speed, here are the last four chapters!
STEPPERS
Chapter 5.1: The Duel
Creator Commentary: Mr. Esteem
Mr. Esteem was a title that stuck around after putting the script together for Chapter 1. Riffing off of “steam”, we wanted to play coy about who this story was about, leaving the big reveal at the end of this Chapter that it was indeed Mickey Mouse. “Steam” was the working title we had written for the project before we were ready for release. It felt relevant to the anger and frustration we were trying to convey, while also connecting directly to our source material. We ended up moving away from titles with “steam” in the name, having some good reasons behind the title STEPPERS.
In this Chapter, we introduced another character from Steamboat Willie, a nameless bird with a breed that I would describe as…open for interpretation.
So, we went ahead and created some backstory for him inspired loosely off of the cartoon (seems to be mostly friendly with Mickey, albeit a bit quick to give him shit) which served as the foundations for Jay Bird.
Overall, we wanted this introduction to the world of STEPPERS to set a gritty noir tone for the book while juxtaposing economic adversity and depictions of struggle.
There comes a time when everyone must reckon with their relationship to their values, especially if they run against the systems and structures that we are all bound to. Jay has maintained a strong set of anti-establishment values that he now must reckon with due to his health.
From a marketing perspective, we felt a bit of a swing and a miss with this chapter, as we buried the lead with the Mickey reveal being on the very last page. Clearly, if we wanted to ride on the coattails of Disney, we should have at least made it clear from the start that this is what we were doing. To newer creators, I’d recommend building an audience before trying to do something like this, because it’s really only an “oh shit” moment for people that already know you and read your work.
More STEPPERS coming soon. Drop me a comment and say hi, I’ve been away and am curious what everyone else has been up to!
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