Having finished the Aidan’s War Trilogy (available on Amazon), I’m now working on a graphic novel! The story is historical fiction featuring two famous gladiators in the first century Roman Empire. You can see some of my previous posts about this story here, here, and here. The following images are concept art for the project, which I’ve titled “A Thousand Deaths.”
The protagonist of this story is Priscus, a Briton whose earliest childhood memory is witnessing the Battle of Watling Street.
After living most of his life as a farm slave in a Villa, he is sold to a gladiator school.
This story centers around his identity as an indentured refugee forced to engage in blood sport to entertain his colonizers.
Every warrior needs allies and, more importantly, friends. Priscus makes his first friend in Verus, the devil-may-care Roman who fell into gladiating because of severe gambling debts.
Verus helps Priscus in his early days at the school and the two become friends. They spar together, chat over barley gruel lunches, and generally try to watch out for one another.
Priscus and Verus become friends with a gladiatrix – a female gladiator. Female gladiators were said to have fought with bared breasts and the comic (as well as the following concept art) will reflect that reality.
Drawing inspiration from the classic Japanese comic book “Lone Wolf and Cub,” each of this story’s five parts will be approximately 60 pages long and printed in a smaller-than-standard format similar to the size of an average fantasy paperback.
If you’d like keep up with this book’s progress (and get a free prequel novella for the Aidan’s War Trilogy), join my mailing list.