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.