This chapter took…12 years to be completed. As I said to a friend, that must be the most ridiculous and laziest record winner I could have ever achieved.
Of course, I say “laziest” with a degree of sarcasm because I did leave Alpha Luna out of burnout a few times, and others because of depression and real-life situations that I had to tackle for the good of my own mental health. And yes, for a long while, I decided that was it, I didn’t need to come back to Alpha Luna, because in my heart, it had been a failure.
Here in Chile, I published two books and reached a few hundred or thousands of people, but I couldn’t live from it. I focused on commissions and Alpha Luna became something I made me smile when remembering the fondness I had for the characters and the love of some letters and comments I got over the years. But whenever I tried to come back to it, and draw it…it did hurt.
It wasn’t until late last year that something changed. I took a trip back in February and came back with a new sense of purpose. I can’t say much about why or how, but I felt different and stronger mentally than before. I visited family, I talked with friends, I got to meet new people…and even read new fan commentaries. I think a lot of that helped me.
I started to write, and the idea of how to properly make a true ending came to me. It’s NOT this chapter that I just finished. I’m talking about of what is coming next. Because as you can see, Chapter 5 leaves things not quite resolved at all. It still has the DNA of my original story and where I was meaning to aim the characters towards their undiscovered journey. But what about Collie? Is she is now out of the picture? What about Ivan? What was the true story behind the wolves and Anima conflict to begin with? and so many other questions, a few that may never come to be.
The first story arc was meant to be at least 7 chapters…I know. And much of that, the introduction of a new character that was planned for chapter 6 won’t happen now. This chapter 5, marks the conclusion of Alpha Luna as a project, and the next chapter will act as the epilogue, intending to fill in the gaps of what we could’ve seen if I had continued drawing the next chapters in the normal way.
As I said before, the next special chapter will last between 20 to 30 pages….I think. I may try a different “style” with fewer shades to make it manageable. It’d be great if I could keep posting two pages a month, but we will see.
But anyhow, I don’t want to overburden you with information…Alpha Luna will be back in Aveng-…. I mean next month! Maybe just the first cover lol, but I’ll see how it pans out. Until then!
Finally, we learn who this Maned Wolf is, no other than Fadia, one of the elders of Fang’s and Luna’s pack, not quite a Lycan but still. Here we see her take a human form, so right away you can see the way she transforms is more aligned to magic, rather than biological, as Werewolves are.
More than that, she was the voice you read back in the very first few pages of chapter 1 within Luna’s dream. And just to be clear, the wolf in that dream was just Luna’s inner wolf. So yeah, this character had a role to play, significant for a story that we may never see it real course and as she puts it “We both wish we be with Luna and help her on her journey…” or see their journey, in our case as readers.
But anyhow… I really, really wanted to post pages 56 and 67 at the same time…but I just couldn’t make in time. I’ve been somewhat stressed lately, and I didn’t have the energy to work as many hours as in previous months.
Anyhow, 1 pages to GO and chapter 5 is done! Until then!
Luna’s adoptive mother, Laura, has a strange encounter with an unknown creature. A Maned Wolf or something else? What do you think?
This page introduces the epilogue to chapter 5, with a character that was interesting to design since it was originally a regular wolf. But suddenly, the idea of changing the breed to one closer to my homeland and different seemed interesting. Especially because of the delicate and distinctive style of the Maned Wolf, it seemed perfect for this character.
Luna says her goodbyes to Collie as she leaves the scene and makes a promise not only to her but to her mother as well.
And here we are, almost at the end of chapter 5. I know I’ve said this a few times already. The thing is, I kept adding more and more just to make it right. But I’ve managed to sketch already page 55, and if I don’t change plans, it should end at page 56. So, yeah…almost there!
As promised after two and a half years…I think? I’ve come back to finish what I started, finally! I won’t repeat myself with the boring stuff and my own personal demons and drama that kept me away from drawing Alpha Luna for so long. If you want, you can read all of it in the previous post! 🙂
All I can say now is that… whoa, the world is COMPLETELY different from when I started. Now A.I. is everywhere, and honestly, I was a downer regarding my own work. “Who is gonna care anymore for my own stuff now that anybody can create their own with a few paragraphs?!” I had a cynical mind for a while. And I’ve been testing A.I. myself for funsies, I did this cool animation.
But the comic you see here, I’m still doing it the same way I’ve done it for ages. It’s roughly 16 to 20 hours of work to get one page done. This one in particular gave me headaches since it involved a crowd of people getting into the frame and characters we love and care for….and I hope you still care too, even after all this time.
Anyway, I’ve been testing to stream more, you may catch me doing so when it comes to AL pages at my YT channel: https://www.youtube.com/@AlphaLuna
And that’s about it… the idea is to keep posting at least 1 page every month. I know it’s a slow pace. But I’m also still working on side stuff (Other Comics) , real life work and even studying, believe it or not. So yeah…a lot.
I don’t know what to even write here, at all. First, if you’re reading this…wow, you’re still around? THANK YOU. Most likely, you’re a recent/new reader, which is fantastic. LOVE to all of you, long-time readers, anyone who happened to have spent some time reading this small story among so many other better comics about a young girl who happened to be a werewolf.
Alpha Luna did appear back in January 2005, I did spent some time the previous year (2004) getting the first few pages ready for the new year so I could start the comic project of my dreams with a clean slate. Things went better than expected, and in 2010 I got some attention here in my country, Chile, where I published the first Book. Thing scalated and by 2014 I was in full swing, tip-toeing my steps into the professional world, preparing what would be the second book that would get published the next year, 2015.
It’s been 10 years since, and no third book or finished status of the comic happened, and this website, had page 49 (from chapter 5) since August 2022 as the last page posted, well that’s until today when I’ve uploaded the patreon’s pages: 50 & 51.
But why, after left for so long? Much of it had to do with a few reasons.
First, I couldn’t manage a “professional” workload on my own. Back in 2015, I was exhausted with the publication of my book, so it was a given that it would take me at least two years to get the next book somewhat ready, but at the same time, I wasn’t hired or had any deadline; it was all in my own hands. Sadly, contrary to other countries with big comic markets, I wasn’t hired or anything. So I still had to pay my bills, and I was taking strides to really live on my own.
And to accomplish this, my focus shifted somewhat into commission works, Patreon came to be, including a second avenue for more mature works. And this second avenue proved to be my main income, while Alpha Luna, for a long time, proved the contrary, with fewer and fewer people being interested in it.
I can certainly take the blame too. I went through many hiatuses that would last from months to a year or so, which killed the interest and the returning fans. But even then, I started to mature as a storyteller and started to become more apathetic and critical of my own work, and the love that I had for the story, and where I wanted to take it…it didn’t appeal to me anymore. It felt more eager to scratch everything and start all over again.
But I loved these characters. I loved the interactions that I had with fans, and the people I met thanks to AL. I loved that era when I poured my soul and love for it; I loved that I believed in my dreams. And if I could focus and write something really good, give this comic a great send-off, it would be worth everything. But then, shit happened.
COVID happened. I was ok, but my family needed help. All came together in a rush, and I had to leave the place I had for my own, and I decided I needed a fresh start, a more settled life for a better future. I made sacrifices for what I believed was the greater good, as cheesy as you may think that sounds, that was the truth for me.
But I had to try, I really tried in 2022 to be the year I would go the distance, when finally I would close the cycle and work on Alpha Luna and finish what I started, maybe not with the full series I dreamed when I started all of this, but with a cute open end. I posted a few Youtube updates and gave it all what I could, releasing the works I had done with great artists who did my AL Chronicles comics. But…. by the end of 2022 it all came crashing down due my own mental health, real life work and my father’s Alzheimer’s disease.
But I would be lying if I had to blame it all on external factors. Many of my decisions came back to me with a punch because of my lack of motivation and focus. Little by little I started to believe no one cared about AL anymore, it had been way too long, and it was a foolish endeavor to even try anymore. I kept taking a few commissions here and there, but just thinking about AL made me feel a little sick, because of embarrassment, because of failure, and because of all the love I once had for the story now it was a mess of emotions that felt more negative than rewarding.
“The comic was never good” , “The story was shit” , “Who cares anymore?”, “Why would you waste so much time on it?” “Why?” “Because you love these characters?” “Maybe the story wasn’t good, but its themes….identity, self realization, self-discovery, friendship, trust…there were good things, right?”
“I guess….”
Then, one day….maybe 2023 or so, I started to write, what would be ending like….and I kept going back to a single idea, and themes. And it all came into one feeling, happiness. It doesn’t matter who is reading, if it’s worth or not, it matters what I want to say at the end.
Lyrics, song have that special power, to give meaning to feelings through melodies. And after writing the paragraphs, ideas for a possible final chapter, I decided to look up for a song that would give me the feeling I had and to express with words and fitting ideas a possible “Ending song”. And a mong many I found this…
It’s melaconlic and it’s a bit sappy you say? Fuck it, I love it. Sometimes you find the inspiration in the most unlikely places. (Malukah is great btw, check her channel!)
In due time I hope this rambling makes a little bit of sense. But what I can say, is that I have goal in mind, right now at this very moment. It will be a long year, and although it’s March, for me the year had just official beging to me. I’ll start working on AL again, very soon, I don’t know how much it will take, hopefully less than a year? I don’t know. The promise is that I’ll keep going, now and finally with a goal in mind.
I think that’s all I needed in life after all, and just like the song I just needed to follow the moon, a guiding light, a goal, a shining beacon, something to look forward and believe in. Until then, take care.
This time we finally get to check on Collie as David awakes from his apparent death!
I was feeling a little rusty at the beginning but I things came naturally to me after a few hours. That said I wouldn’t be working on shadings if these were the first pages of a new chapter, but since we are reaching the end I did put the extra effort and hours to make it look good 😛
Anyway, I hope you like it! Next page will come around mid September. Until then!
In the meantime Page 51 has already been posted at my Patreon : https://www.patreon.com/alphaluna as usual if you see a new page here it means the patreon usually also is one page ahead.
And so the ensuing conflict comes to an end with a spiraling wind that fades as Teo’s last words are heard by Luna. All of this to an oblivious Fang who is trying to comprehend what just happened.
This page marks the point where I left the comic abandoned back in 2018 with the sketch of this page half-way done. While the previous page (48) was a new addition as initially Teo didn’t make an appearance and this was the real page 48 back then.
But yeah, things change, I’m always double-checking the script with new ideas that fit into the narrative as we get closer to the end of the chapter which should end around October. After that there will be a new “chapter” , but right now is a bit early to say anything else.
In any case thanks for reading so far! Page 50 has already been posted at my Patreon : https://www.patreon.com/alphaluna as usual if you see a new page here it means the patreon usually also is one page ahead.
Oh yeah! Alphaluna.net is NO LONGER , the New URL is https://alphalunacomic.net/ as you can see on top! Please update your bookmarks!
