About the Author and Artist

I am 28, female, and currently reside in British Columbia, Canada in and about the Lower Mainland. I am a graphic designer by profession and am currently gainfully employed at a university producing all manner of things, such as posters, brochures, calendars and such. I also teach photoshop in the evenings for Continuing Studies at the same place. I am in a long term, happy relationship with my significant other. We'll call him Ben. Ben is a very big and very protective guy who loves me very much and is a huge support in my life.

My hobbies include videogames (current obsessions are City of Heroes/Villians and Secondlife), anime (and lots of it), art (duh), watching movies, reading comics (online or off. I have an extensive collection.), collecting anime figures, hiking, and annoying my two kitties. I have had a long history of interest in mythology, folklore, and fairytales. I also have an avid interest in transformations (of all sorts), roleplaying, roleplaying games (of the tabletop variety), and anthromorphics.

I started Shifters initially as a way to improve my art and storywriting skills ( which I have.. a lot), and to share a story with friends who enjoyed similar sorts of stories as me. Particularly those with vampires, werewolves and all manner of other beasty, lurking just under our noses.

A lot of my ideas came from Cyberpunk: Night's Edge as I was really into it at the time I created the Shifters 'mythology'. A few old characters from that game even snuck their way into the comic. My other influences included North American Shamanism, european werewolf fables, Final Fantasy, Greek, Roman, and Egyptian mythology, and a liberal smattering of my own twists and giggles.

Its been a tough labour of love for this comic. I've been bashed, smashed, reviewed, kicked in the teeth, and generally abused by critic types (with a few notable exceptions), but I've kept up with it because frankly, there isn't anything else like it and I enjoy the story, even if it is a bit obscure and really requires some effort to understand how deep it flows. This is not a comic for the faint of heart or the lazy of mind. There is so much subtle detail, so much floating just under the surface that you have to really be perceptive to pick up on it. There are some that have, but they are few and far between. If you are at least enjoying the comic, I encourage you to participate in its success. There are many ways to do so, such as voting at Buzz or Topwebcomics ( just click the buttons to the right!), posting in the forums, posting in the livejournal, commenting, telling your friends online and off, donating, etc. I appreciate all the emails I get and do try to reply to them all at least once.

I personally never expected this comic to become popular (even as popular as it is!). So I think its pretty successful for what it is. The subject matter is kind of far from the mainstream and the story is complex. Plus, I wasn't very good at the beginning and that turns people off. Hopefully I will be able to find a way to redo it so that the art and story jive a bit better. I have plans to publish shifters, which requires redo anyway, so hopefully with that will come a much stronger front to the story. I think that will help get more people into the story easier and clear up a lot of the misunderstandings that were generated from the beginings being rather disjointed and incomplete.