Featured Art - Firestarter - The Grand Cross' New Beginning

Featured Art - Firestarter by Derrick Rathgeber
8 x 10 marker drawing with Photoshop fire effects. 
Looking at this picture reminds me of where my story is going now. At the time that I drew this picture and colored it, I was changing my story into something it wasn’t. I did everything I could to put it out there and make it on tv.
When I contacted Warner Bros. Animation studio they were interested in picking up the Grand Cross story line and characters to put into rotation with their Saturday morning cartoons. The only problem was the content. They didn’t want a cartoon that had Earth, Heaven, and Demons waging war on each other so I had to tone it down. Which I did. I changed the story line to fit the “ demographics.” Unfortunately they wanted more changes. Pokemon was new and popular so they suggested that the characters got their powers from rune beings instead of powers from a dying planet…So I created a special being for each rune power. I even had them merge together. 
Long story short I changed EVERYTHING! Literally nothing was left but the characters, but I was going to have my moment. The Animation new projects director pitched my story and characters to the head honchos, and they loved it. We were in business. Or so I thought. A week later I got a call from the Project Director and he tells me they are changing their line up, and adding a new Super hero animation instead. I joked that all they had left to do with the DC lineup was Justice League….and he laughed and said I guessed exactly right. Then he gave me the usual speech of pitch it again another time, and who knows. 
To me this experience showed me something. As much as I love the cartoon look of my story, I hated the story it became. It wasn’t me, and it wasn’t the great battle it was supposed to be. So I am glad I took it all apart, and rebuilt it all. This time I am doing my own research and writing it for ME! It will be a grand continuation to the war of Man, Heaven and Hell full of plots, and sub plots. And who knows when I publish the comic book, I might just create a following strong enough to have a movie made of it. Till then, I will do this project for me.