Hello everyone. Tom's here, creator of Gaia. Last week I taught you all about my primary protagonist, Tori Jacobs/Gaia. This week I want to go into some details on why I chose Kansas City, Kansas/Wyandotte County as the main location for my comic book series. Like the banner says welcome to Kansas City.
There are a few exceptions to this. Like the fact that Clark Kent/Superman comes from Smallville Kansas. The Winchesters came from Kansas and of course Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz also came from Kansas, and those are the only examples I can think of. The show Smallville and the newest show Superman & Lois both take place in the state of Kansas in the fictional city of Smallville. So that's something.
But few stories have taken place in my hometown of Wyandotte County. So I thought why not have my story take place in KCK? They say to write what you know, and while I haven't been everywhere in Wyandotte County, and I'm terrible at directions, I still know enough about my hometown to feature it in my comic book. The Wyandotte Plaza is even used in the first issue of my current WIP Gaia #1.
Tori, Shinta, June, Lily, Nex, Mary, and Lauren Cooper all grew up in Kansas City, Kansas. Tori even goes to Wyandotte High School which is one of two main high schools in the city. There's Wyandotte and Washington High School. I just decided to use Wyandotte High School because that was the first thing to come to mind. I can always go to Washington High later.
Of course I had to explain why Wyandotte County is the center focus of the story. Since it's the hometowns of most of the characters moving forward it makes sense to have it located there. Lauren is from Kansas City and pulls some strings to make sure her discovery is sent back to the Wyandotte County area for sake of tourism. This sets the stage for everything else to happen in Wyandotte County. It's probably more than my hometown deserves, but it's how I wanted to proceed moving forward.
Now I'm still debating if I want to do a shared universe with different comic book series being made. Right now I'm the driving force behind my Gaia project. Meeting different artists and such to do the work I can't do by myself. I don't have the funds or the resources to work on more than one comic book series at a time. I debated alternating between my four core story ideas, but a friend of mine said it's easier to give 100% on one thing than on several, so for the time being I'm focusing on Gaia in my past time. It already cost me over $500 dollars to get as far as I am now, and it will cost me several more hundreds moving forward. I'll have to promote like I've been promoting as there's a chance I won't even break even, but that's the risk you take when you get into the comic book business. You never know what's going to sell.
For that shared universe idea I was thinking about making Kansas City, Kansas the New York City to my Marvel Universe. Being the main focus point of heroes, villains, and supernatural entities like demons and the likes. Nothing is written in stone yet and I'm still brainstorming, but Kansas City could end up being remembered as the place that Gaia dwells.
And that is something that's worth pursuing.
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