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All contents © 2005 Jim Cameron

Bobby2 / Bobby3 / Sketchbook /  Toon1

The first time I drew Bobby was back in 1993 in a wee comic called, 'Wee Keech Comics' which was a wee A5 comic which I made up as I went along (although you'd be surprised how much was actually from experience!).

It was just done for a laugh, but like most things I started to add to the idea, and over complicate it, including 3 languages and a storyline that included the downfall of a military superpower and a fair bit of politics.

It started properly in 'BAM!', but when it went on hiatus after episode 2 appeared I decided to stick it in the cupboard for now, and get back to more drawing & painting.

I still do wee one-off pictures relating to the story for myself, but at the moment I don't have any intentions of spending a large chunk of my time drawing up the rest of it. Comic art gets a bad press from many quarters, but in my experience it's a lot of time and work for little reward. Drawing the same characters over and over again just frustrates me personally.

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A very condensed history of Book 1.
'The Decline of the San Toi Empire'


In Book 1 the armies of the San Toi invade the Northern Wastes
in search of huge mineral resources. One of the military orders performs
rites that give them vampyre-like powers, and draws the northern tribes
under their command, and set out to claim the land as their own.

Various internal struggles are taken advantage of resulting in
the assassination of the Emperor, and the Empire descends into civil war.
Meanwhile, to the north, a strange new plague has arisen. In deference to their
'Lords' the tribes have taken to cannabalism, and this has sped up the transference
of the disease, however, as it mutates, everyone becomes a potential victim,
and as it becomes pandemic it arises throughout the empire,
decimating the population.

The fighting grinds to a halt as combatants succumb to disease,
then slowly due to the lowered, sporadic population the number of deaths
decreases rapidly. The upshot of the death of nearly one in three of the population,
and the invalidity of many more, is that no harvest can be had,
even if there was anything to harvest.

The first steps to rebuilding the Empire are slowly begun under the auspicies
of the remaining power of the holy martial orders.
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A very condensed history of Book 2.
'Brutally Frank and the Tongs'

As the San Toi Empire fractures into a number of independent
warring states, Brutally Frank has been uniting the various tribes
of the east by force of arms till now they have developed
into one tribe united under his banner.

Unlike the San Toi, and the new emergent states,
where promotion is bought, or position born to, Frank's forces
are led by men who have proven themselves in combat and are
promoted accordingly. As nomadic tribesmen, the Tongs have a
more mobile form of warfare, and a more pragmatic approach to
battle that involves no ideals of ritual etc., just hard learned tactics
and strategy. This book relates the events that
took place during the Tong invasion.
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A very condensed history of Book 3.
'The Black Muffler'

With the threat from the Tongs a distant memory,
a dark new figure arises, the Black Muffler, and his holy order
of warrior clerics. With their call for a new empire, and a return to
a Theocratic state from which to spread the holy word, the Order slowly
gain popular support with promises of a new golden age, and for the
San Toi to reclaim it's birth right as ruler of the known world.

Things, however, are much darker than they seem for the citizens of the
former empire, and it's not just the peoples beyond it's borders that
need to fear this new figure, and his messianic tirades.
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Bobby2 / Bobby3 / Sketchbook /  Toon1