I had the idea for this going in my mind for some time. It started with
a television program I watched years ago. This program, for which I
couldn't remember the name, was doing a variation of an old chinese
tale. The tale involved 2 travelers who stopped for the night in an
abandoned house to sleep. During the night one of the travelers woke up
to see a horrifying monster killing his friend. The Monster saw him
watching and told him, if he promised never to tell what happened, the
monster would let him live.
He agreed.
Travelling onward the next day he met a beautiful woman. the two fell in love and got married and settled down.
Now many years have passed. The two had children and were content with
their lives. So the man said to his wife, "I have an amazing story to
tell". "Tell me", his wife replied. He proceeded to tell her about the
monster attack.
"Why did you tell me this?" his wife asked. "Because you are my wife and you deserve to hear it," he replied.
"You FOOL!", she screamed. "I was that monster and you broke your
promise! But because we have children, I will not kill you.. But I will
leave. And if I ever hear our children speak ill of you becasue you
mistreated them, I WILL kill you" and she left. Needless to say he was
VERY good to his children after that.
So. The TV program went much the same as the chinese tale except, when
the guy told his wife the tale, she just didn't get pissed.
She turned into a Gargoyle. He tried to calm her down saying that he
loved her. But she just replied " I love you too. But you broke your
promise and now you've sealed our fates" She then Tore out his throat
and she and her two children (whom had also turned into gargoyles) flew
up through the skylight, landed on the roof and turned to stone.
That kinda depressed me. I wondered how he could have told her the
story without the disastrous result. I wrote a couple of stories but
the only ones that seem to work actually involved outside help. I told
a few people about them including a friend of mine involved in TV and
theater work. He told me it was a good idea but it probably wouldn't be
legal to film.
"Why is that?" I asked.
"Because someone else already did gargoyles so that idea may be copyrighted"
I thought for a moment and said, "Okay, Dragons Then"
Now the story has taken far different directions then that original
Idea and it may be some time before I feature it in the comic.
But at least now you know where the title came from. I remembered it
when I was getting ready to start making the comic and Talbona asked me
what the name of it would be.
Dragons Then
:)
