So many things can happen in a year, so many things can change and so many things can transform entirely.
But there are many things that refuse to change, move or transform no matter how much time passes over them all.
The Duat Emperor is one of those things that refuses to move unless is treated with the respect it deserves.

Originally, my idea of creating a silly comic strip to show off an original character was, in many ways, disrespectful for both, the project and the character.
It has taken me almost an entire year of thinking, doodling and dreaming to realize the nature of what I have growing in my head and my hands, for it is now that I realize the Duat Emperor is, indeed, something alive that breathes new life every time I aproach it with the intention of working on it.

And so, one morning of a snow carpeted Berlin I realized what I was doing was creating Art. Not just an excuse for it or a medium for it, but Art itself. Primal, sincere, vulnerable, fragile Art that flickers with the promise of becoming a raging dragon as big as the Heaven and as powerful as Hell. My creation.

No longer The Duat Emperor will be treated as just a silly project of doodles in the hopes of one day be able to turn it into ART. IT IS ART, since it's very inception so many years ago has been ART and as such it will be treated from now on.

There is much I need to learn about techniques and methods to bring up a higher quality to my ART, to The Duat Emperor, but hopefully the journey will be a fun one and the project will grow and become better as the years go by from this day on.

Prost to Art, for it is Art the only thing that can save us from the dark depths of the abyss.

Why I do the Duat Emperor

Hello, everyone, DAMC here... 

Creating the Duat Emperor´s universe with the intention of it being the next best thing ever to shine under the sun is still my main goal as an artist and creative. 

When creating the first strips for Leo back in 2011, I didn´t have a clear goal on what it was I wanted to communicate. I don´t even think I was aware of neither the message delivering media, nor the art quality of it.

 I simply wanted to draw someone that makes me happy to draw in circumstances that would reflect some kind of life observations from the point of view of an outcast. 

Mostly, the way in which society endorses “faking” into members of society. At the time I was living in Canada, very close to Vancouver and the level of faking was, to me, overwhelming to a point where the first Duat Emperor reflected that shock I was experiencing. I wanted to put Leo as a smartass free enough to mock society´s ways without being part of them.

Then the depression came and everything changed, the demons crawled their way into the webcomic and brought a darkness from which the webcomic hasn´t recovered.

Today I can say I'm a bit wiser and way older, and most importantly, I have a clear idea of what I want the Duat Emperor to be. Definately not a silly collection of lose abstract observations anymore, plenty of memes out there already. Instead, I mean to create a full story with characters and interactions that will shape the world in which they live. (Groundbreaking… *sigh*)

To it's core, the Duat Emperor is the story of an outcast who by chance, and against all odds gets discovered as someone special and worth teaching the secrets of the universe. 

Leo had been searching for freedom, the ultimate freedom: boundless and without consequences. A selfish wish motivated by grief and pain. 

I guess that's the reflection of my own hopes and dreams, my own desire to mean something big enough to be saved from the darkness, both outside and inside my head. Leo is the guy who gets the ticket to wonderland, and I can join in the journey to become a Wandler. 

That's when the story gets it's "charm". The story is about an outcast who has the power to travel between dimensions and realities while antagonizing with funky characters.

Sounds familiar? Being one who has seen a ton of anime, watched almost every fantasy and sci-fi movie out there and read a lot of books and comic books I can´t deny that I´m heavily influenced by the 20th century fiction and their own previous influences. 

An interdimensional traveler who otherwise don´t fit in society is really nothing new, with it's variants, there are lots of stories out there dealing with this exact same premise, which I think is just another hue of the proverbial initiatic journey of the hero that will eventually lead him to the boss fight to prove that the knowledge he acquired in his trip is worth a damn. 

But I think it also is a reflection of my need to explain and give (as oppose to find) meaning to the world around, above and beyond me in my frightened, confused human of the 21st century. 

I can really say that my real intention with the Duat Emperor and why I pursuit it with such stubbornness despite the big delays and obstacles (depression and doubt included), is to create something that will incorporate the ideas that I like with the ones I have come up with myself to provide a reasonable and satisfying meaning to it all. 

You know, THE answer, to life, the universe and everything.

Long live the Emperor!!!

Next time I maybe talk about my own influences, I’ll think about it. 

Duat Emperor, the premise!

Hello, everybody, DAMC here…

I´m more than aware of the many times I have said: “The webcomic is about to start” and then fade back again into darkness. My credibility is nonexistent at this point, so instead of whining about the impediments for the Webcomic, I simply started to use what I already have.

The name has been changed back to what it was always meant to be: Duat Emperor. I consider that the few many months were an experiment and an intimate argument Leo and I had after our break up in 2013. I’m not sure if every creative has this type of relationship with their creations, but since Leo has been with me most of my life my relationship with him is pretty intense and visceral.  I can say today we have grown together again and Im able to start telling his story as it was meant to be.

Leo is a bohemian, latin  gay man in his late 20´s that just happen to had been trained as a Wandler in Canada during one of his adventures. A Wandler is one who can travel between realities (dimensions) to different places thanks to their understanding of light angles and their lamps.

Leo was born different, aware, and for that reason his life took a different path that often lead him to encounter things that many would consider unnatural or transdimensional.  Leo´s best friends had showed him some of the other realities before his adventures in Canada, and even one of them is in fact titania, the Queen of the faeries incarnated as a gay man in his late 20’s. So for Leo becoming a Wandler was something natural and expected despite the perils and high toll he had to pay at the time.

Together with his friends Titania and Jelly Pop, Leo explores realities seeking knowledge, beauty, fun and the way to become someone worth being remembered.

That’s our premise for The Duat Emperor, and I hope it gives a teaser of what is coming and the amount of questions I have to answer with the webcomic itself. Since: Who the hell is Leo? To: So, he does not look for meaning in a story that explores again the idea of the multiverse?

That last one I’m gonna “start” answering right now:

No, Leo does not seek for meaning because in Leo´s universe to understand the universe and how it’s organized is to understand and become the meaning. That’s exactly what makes Leo transcendental in his own story line. Leo is able to explain why in his universe, seeking for meaning is pointless for the simplicity of the answer. The true adventure is to make that meaning legendary and make it transcend.

I don´t want to spoil here my own design of multiverse, that explanation will actually be featured in the webcomic because it’s importance to get Leo´s perspective.

The never heard of characters for Leo´s friends are actually old real friends of Leo that just like him, had experienced a long process of maturing and redesigning.

Titania is indeed the Queen of the faeries and posses a lamp that allow him to travel to other realities where she has allies and fun. Leo met Titania when they were both 19 years old in a gym. They hated each other at first but after a few events, they became best friends and Titania revealed her identity to Leo.

Jelly Pop is a gorgeous tattooed woman who inherited the media empire of her parents and has been running it half time while exploring her passions and desires along with Leo. Jelly Pop had an undisclosed experience in a cave deep in the Mexican jungle. She had been giving makeovers to the natives when she vanished for exactly six days. When she was found in the cave, she had announced she was able to “see” and “understand”.  She operated a few miracles in the town close to the settlement she had been helping and then went back to México city to take care of her business with her new powers.

Of course, the supernatural characters that Leo has been hanging out with will continue to reaper and be part of the story.

So, this where things are right now. Im working on the number 0 of Duat Emperor, a bit of an “opening”  and I hope next week the webcomic truly begins. 

The new Leo is coming.

Hello everybody, DACM here... 

The holidays are over. And i don´t just mean the winter holidays, im talking about the relaxed way in which i was treating the webcomic and the ideas for Leo. 

I honestly got bored of the depressed Leo with a miserable beggining and dragging around and tragic past, blah, blah, blah... I only kept trying to find a new beggining to keep justifying the name of the webcomic itself: Kaiser kaputt. 

In true honesty, when i changed the name from whatever the hell it was i had it named before "reviving" it in 2015 i kinda just have started to use the word "kaputt" in my every day speech and i found, and still find it, funny. Makes me laugh just because of the silly sound it is for such a wide and horrible meaning it holds. Kaput: it's broken, it no longer works, it's worn out, it's defective, it's exhausted, it's no longer able to perform his activities... etc... So, the idea of creating a webcomic called Kaiserkaputt to me was comical, but more and more people kept asking me what exactly did i mean by that and i began to realise the idea was wrong or badly executed. 

What for me it´s funny because it´s new and bubbly, for most of the people who actuallyunderstand and use the word it does mean something negative with negative associations. And the problem i have every time trying to explain the title, because immediately gives a wrong fatidic idea. 

Truth is, Leo´s story is not really focused on how depressed he is. The whole idea i always have about it was to focus on the "solar" aspects of a dark and messy person who does thing´s because he finds them funny. Leo is a free person who takes great pride on the way he abuses his freedom.

Leo claimed for himself the right to choose  When, Where and How to die, nobody else can decide for him, but he can be convinced to choose. 

Leo is happy and owns a Lighter he calls "lamp" that can transport him and whoever he wants to other realities dominated by other spectrums of light. He can also travel to the different hues of each spectrum and is capable of changing also locations. 

Leo has friends. Titania, the Queen of the faries who decided to incarnate as a gay male. Leo and Titania have a long story together and share numerous adventures, though titania is different to Leo. HE likes material pleassures and richness. He seeks external validation and can not stand not being the center of everyone´s atenttion. Titania has also a lighter, though more expensive looking than Leo´s) that can transport him to the spectrum of the faeries and back to the human spectrum only. 

Leo is also friends with Jelly Pop. A beautiful woman who can see anything no matter how hard someone tries to hide it. She is wise and misterious and not yet entirely revealed to Leo, but is loving and comforting to Leo every time he requires her help. 

Leo can see the time keeper and the reaper assigned to him. Thanks to his lamp he can bring them to his own spectrum from the memory shop where they usually chill. 

There are also manifestations of Leo´s internal demons, his anger and the weed he constantly smokes. 

The last ones have already appeared in one way or another in the webcomic, though they have all undergone several redesigns, and i have to say, i have found a good balance between my original characters that are gonna accompany Leo in his really rebooted series of adventures about a gay man who has the power to travel to other realities and even visit the laberynth where the passed ones go when deciding to go to the eternal land of the death or return for another round to the realm of the living.

So, the story is about a free man who can not be killed by conventional ways and has the power to travel to other realities in a metaphysical way with his equally special friends... More or less. 

Leo also has a sword, so is not a sci-fi story aboput paralel dimensions, it's more... Poetic. Yes. 

But, in reality it has nothing to do with a grim "kaiserkaputt" title. Even the name i always wanted for it, "Duat Emperor", seems a little too grim too. 

Supreme Emperor, perhaps? I know, the easiest way would be just call it Kaiser Leo, but there's already someone on facebook with that name, and  in reality is not like it is a groundbreaking name  to beggin with. 

So, for now, the story still has no real name, which it actually for me sucks cause i tend to rely on the title of the stpories i write to set the tone of the story. I guess  in this case im gonna continue setting my characters and tone and the name will eventually come. 

For now it remains a kaiserkaputt, for now, not for long. 

Rebooting Der kaiserkaputt

It's been a long long while since i posted last time, agian treating the blog as an abandoned website. 

Truth is, i've been busy rethinking the whole story for Der Kaiser ist Kaputt and Leo himself. 

I realized it could be more, that he could be more, so i followed my heart on that and i went back to square one, quite litteraly. I went back to reimaging all i could do with the Leo and all the elements i had created around him, both visually and argumentally. 

I had unintentionally created the bases for a much bigger universe than what i had originally envisioned, but i just hadn´t done it out of fear of not being interesting or creative enough, or maybe i just didn't have enough faith on my own original creation. 

Most of my ideas that could fit perfectly on Leo i kept "saving" for future stories and i was constantly struggling to create characters and plots for those ideas and elements that, i realize now, worked naturally with Leo and the story of Der Kaiser kaputt. 

Right now im in the midst of "rebooting" Leo into a real story line where he is the protagonist of a much bigger situation that will unfold as the story unfolds with al the characters that i have already hinted in my previous attempts to get the webcomic going. And i'm really liking the results. 

So far, Leo is well on his way to become what i consider a real original character with real goals, real past and, the most important part, a real future. 

Visually, the webcomic will follow the style i have already set in previous entries in the blog, but im still experimenting and revisiting the influences that helped shape my own art style. Still struggling to decide if i should draw realistic eyes or continue the cartoony blank eyes i started using for the previous entry in Der Kaiser ist Kaputt. This is where opinions from readers would be of much use... Dream on, David. 

For now, i will just say: stay tuned, great things are coming for Der Kaiser ist kaputt: cool mystical gadgets able to transport the user to different realms full of strange and interesting characters, weapons of great power, fascinating characters from places never seen by normal human eyes and in the middle of it all, Leo, facing the looming dangers and the future where decisions shall be made.

Stay tuned, for the Kaiser is kaputt, but not for long. 

Leo in 2009

Hello, everyone, DAMC here.

Yesterday i left a bit of a cliffhanger regarding the current whereabouts of Herr Leo, but since my random ass haven´t finished the number 17, im gonna have to play dumb and instead talk about the other big promise i did on yesterday's post just so i don´t get ahead of the webcomic itself. Afer all, this is supposed to be a support blog for  Der Kaiser ist kaputt (kind of, i will eventually find myself ranting about random things on here too, i know myself).

On my last post i shared the idea behind what, for a long time, was the potential number one for the fabled webcomic about Leo. I don´t know if i said it before, but the actual idea of starting a webcomic, or a comic, or even a strip on a gay paper publication has been around since, i think, 2002. Back then i used to write horror stories and i had some presence in the dark underground México city's scene. My stories were well recieved and Leo almost became a horror host back in the day.
But it wasn´t until 2009 that i drafted the first real idea to make a strip focusing on Leo happen. I was living between Victoria and Vancouver in B.C., Canada, and the time seemed right.

But before i actually show you the early sketch i found for that number 1 that never came to be, there's something else you have to see first. Before the webcomic started in kaiserkaputt.blogspot.mx in 2011, Leo had already experienced a taste of the real world in 2009 while i was living in Victoria, B.C.
Back then, people who knew me, knew Leo aswell, and they like him. I used to include Leo on cards for friends. Halloween, valentine´s, xmas, they all displayed Leo in some way or another.
It was actually in those cards that the concept of Leo accesing different worlds got materialized, and one of the most emblematic pictures of Leo was born.
Here, lay sight upon this

"Im sorry, darling, i was in my own little world."

This one i kept and i still have it with me, it's i think one of my favorite pictures of Leo, even though is not "perfect"

Now let me show you the other two cards that survived thanks to photobucket.com 

"Valentines"

I know, i know, i know... The perspective is horrible! I actually think i was really horny drawing this one. Overall i like it, and is nice to see that Leo was a happy slut.

"zombies"

I remember what videogame had consumed my brain when i made this one. Did you ever played left 4 dead? It was a PC/xbox game. A shooter in first person, so incredibly awesome! I spent so many hours playing online that one, That year i was everything zombie. Fun fact about me: i'm actually really sincerely scared of zombies. The whole idea freaks me out so bad i have been facing that dumb fear since i was a teen. Proud owner of the zombie survival guide and a katana here. But back to Leo, do you noticed he has some chest hair? Yeah, that was a fetish inclusion to boost up the picture's testosterone. Leo is actually smooth on his chest. 

Anyways, moving on. Thanks to the cards and the constant exposure of my doodles and drawings, i got some comissions from friends. One in particular was really cool. This cute couple were all about pirats, so they wanted a picture of him as a pirate and i was the guy they choose to do it. Here's what they got. 

Can you see the guy holding the pirate's flag? Does he look familiar? He should, his name is Leo and he complained every second he had to hold that flag on that Costa Rica's beach. 

If they really valued this drawing, and it didnt become a blunt weapon during a fight, this framed piece still hangs on some wall in Canada, and that really is awesome, specially since i havent thought about it since then. 

I remember now that the girl actually printed a Leo´s face on  a red t shirt. I wish i had it still, that one was lost a long long long time. Oh well, eventually Leo will find his way to T-shirts again im sure. 

But what do you think of Leo's brief period of fame? Should he continue this modeling career? I think he should, but right now is time to show the first attempt to create a webcomic with Leo. 

Done in Vancouver in late 2009, sometime in August, this sketch was one of the closest to the final piece if it had been an actual final version of it. 

To be honest, i hadn't look at this one since maybe 2011, and it made me laugh how bad my anatomy dominion was. My idea of Mike steel was not really well executed, he looks just exagerated, the basics are there just not well arranged. But the real surprise was the name i had intended for the webcomic, "i was here". Isn´t that what we all strive for, to leave a mark? To let the world that will be know that in this time there was a person who felt and thought and dreamt about the time when someone whould rediscover their mark and aknowledge our eternal statement: I WAS HERE! The kind of sentence that challenge the gods and their thrones: I WAS HERE! That´s what Leo wanted, and still wants, to be remember ( however people chooses to do so).
I like it, was a cute idea... Just like that last Leo walking away resolved to get booze money posing as a homeless. Though, im glad i went back to draw Leo with long messy hair, somehow the short hair version seems incomplete, doesn´t it? At least to me. Leo always had longer hair and at some point he had long sideburns aswell.
But what do you think? I would like to hear from everyone reading this words, you know, for a couple of reasons. First, to get some needed feedback on this project, and second, well... Just so i know im not simply talking alone in the dark.

But for now, i say auf wiedersehen and until the next time.

DAMC out.

What's holding back the webcomic.

Hello, everyone, DAMC here...

Four days without posting seemed like way too much time for an emerging blog regardless of it being a support blog for another blog that tends to collect a lot of dust between posts.
When i started drawing Leo i quickly realised my biggest flaw was not really on the drawing itself, but in the time it actually took me to complete each one of them.

I don´t know if a lot of people who draw face the same problem, but i always get a quality of anxiety and fear when faced with a fresh new piece of paper to draw on it. I wanna jump into it and cover it with my art, but at the same time im overwhelmed with the responsibility to do something of worth just so the paper don´t end up wasted in some stupid doodle. This, i must blame on my mother... I know, i know, everyone always blames their mothers for this and that, but i swear she litteraly said those things to me when i was a kid and i was at the table drawing. back then she tried to instill me an ecological mind ( i hope so) by saying those things. Like, before i even drew something she would question me if i was gonna draw something worthy or just doodle, because the paper was not for that, blah, blah...

That i think is the reason why i feel more comfortable drawing on scrap paper that is already "ruined" anyways.
Im ashamed to admit most of my best drawings will never see the light because they were executed that way, and of course, never finished.
Ah, the mind and it's fragility!
So my pathetic brain freaks out when faced to a pristine sheet of paper, sets for failure and of course accomplish exactly that.
This stupid "condition" (trauma) causes me to repeat the same drawin A LOT!
Here, check this one i started for number 16 and got quickly abandoned.

The result, im probably the slowest penciler out there ( who doesn't yet delivers pieces like Frank Quitely do. God! Have you seen his work? HE IS AWESOME. Totally the kind of penciler i hope to be).

Between this and the whole process of healing and diferentiation between Leo and I, number 17 has been started, sketched and redone several times already for the last few months.
I mentioned before i toyed with the idea of redone the entire webcomic entirely and give it a new vibe, look, everything. Im dying to introduce Leo's friends and begin the kind of story Leo was always meant to be.
But there's a lot of stuff  i honestly still don't know how to do digitally and technique wise, so, it made sense Der Kaiser ist Kaputt remains as a form of testimony for the constant improvement of something that had a defined beggining.

So, for number 17 there has been a lot of ideas regarding how to treat the story of Leo waking up after a couple of years of slumber.
I really, really, really don´t want to do a downer webcomic anymore.

In it's inicial concept, Leo was a bohemian artist who, when he wasn´t some guy´s boy, he was venturing into the world seeking to satisfy a  raging lust for life burning in his heart like a disease.
The very first idea for Leo´s webcomic was him and Mike Steel, his first love (another story for another time) in Vancouver's gay parade. Both wanting to drink but not having enough money. Leo, who's been carrying a coffee cup gets upset and opens his arms causing some person to drop a coin or two in his cup. Mike laughs as Leo contemplates staring at the coin at the bottom of the cup.
The punchline was Leo shoving Mike away telling him to give him some space to get them booze money.

The idea was that Leo could be easily mistaken as a homeless person in need, and him using that to his advantage. Leo didn't care, Leo didn't need social approval nor external validation, and he had Mike.
It was a good one, wasn´t it? But that idea comes from early 2009, and i wouldn't be me if i hadnt gone through some serious shit back then putting everything in perspective.
But i want to recover that part of Leo's personality... Im pretty sure i have some of those  sketches for that early beggining somwhere with me. If i find them i'll edit this post just to show them.
Leo was a bit different then, younger and bolder.
The Leo i've been drawing since 2011 has been very angry and dark for a long time already, and he is not really meant to be THAT dark and angry always. Unless he ran out of weed, then by all means, evacuate the planet.

I had not long ago an idea on where to take the story and ive been maturing it... That and the pieces i can produce now as far as drawing please me. They really do, even though i know i am far from the level i want to have. I think im ready to continue this journey of a little Kaiser called Leo who´s been away for far too long.
 But where is he been exactly? Some kind of desert? And there's, or there was snow there? Where is Leo?

And that´s exactly the question im gonna answer maybe in the next post, for now auf wiedersehen!

DAMC out.