Knightingail: The Legend Begins #1 cover

Wayne Gardiner is the creator/writer of Knightingail: The Legend Begins coming in November from Ardden Entertainment (it’s available for pre-order now!). Westfield’s Roger Ash recently sat down with Wayne to learn more about the book.

SPECIAL OFFER! Every copy of Knightingail #1 pre-ordered through Westfield will come signed by Wayne Gardiner!

Westfield: How did the series Knightingail come about?

Wayne Gardiner: I was at the San Diego Comic Convention in 2009. I had just written a series called CrossStar, and I was trying to get an artist for that. I had a concept for a character called Knighingail in the back of my mind. The character was basically this elvish princess with healing powers who got brainwashed and captured by these evil witches and turned into a sorcerer. Later, she escapes and combines both of those powers into this healing warrior princess type of character. That was in the back of my mind. I was walking through this big convention looking for an artist, I saw this picture of a character that some artist had created, and I said, “That is the look of Knightingail.” I went and talked to the artist and she was possibly interested and agreed to talk about it later. On the way home I basically did a whole backstory of the story and came up with this larger epic story – this fantasy adventure to place Knightingail in. That’s how it started. I wrote the series, and then in January of the following year I started having the artist produce it.

Knightingail preview page 1

Westfield: What can you tell us about the story?

Gardiner: The series is called Knightingail so obviously it focuses on that character, whose name is Eloa. It starts out as a six issue miniseries that introduces this teenage princess, who’s from a forest tribe. She has healing powers and doesn’t know where they came from. Through the miniseries, she finds out that there’s this prophecy that she needs to reunite all seven tribes in the land and only by doing that would she be able to stop this massive invasion force that’s coming. She only knows about three tribes, so she dismisses the idea. Pretty soon there is an invasion, and she’s thrown into the middle of this and makes some bad judgments. At the end of the day, she reunites with her friends and is able to become the character Knightingail. After that, I intend that the story would then become a monthly series where the larger story would be told – this whole thing called the Restoration War and how she has to then find all the seven tribes, reunite them, and rescue her homeland from this huge invasion that’s taking place.

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Westfield: This is listed as an all ages book. Was it important to you to do an all ages book?

Gardiner: It kind of worked out that way. You have this teenage princess who’s not a natural leader and she gets thrown into a situation where she’s expected to become a leader. Because of that, because she’s female, because of the way the artwork’s drawn, it has a more light manga feel that a lot of female cosplayers and female audience really love. I remember comics like Bone or ElfQuest just bringing in that more all ages type of audience. So this has just kind of turned into that vehicle. There really are not that many comics that are for all ages. If you like Lord of the Rings, or if you like Chronicles of Narnia, you’ll definitely like this series as well.

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Westfield: Aside from Knightingail, who are some of the other characters readers will encounter in the book?

Gardiner: She starts with her best friends who are in two other tribes. Eloa’s from the forest tribe. She has a best friend, Kaeli, who’s from the Hunter tribe. She’s kind of an animal-like character who has a long tail and is kind of furry but still wears clothes. She finds out there are things about her powers throughout the series. Also, they have a friend called Daniel who’s from the Carver tribe. He sort of looks like Eloa with pointy ears, but the Carvers are actually a mountain-based tribe. Those are the key friends who start the series together. They find out about this whole prophecy and about the invasion, and it’s about how those three tribes come together. At the end of the series it becomes a real team book with Knightingail leading these two, plus some others who are introduced throughout the mini-series.

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Westfield: You mentioned before that finding the artist was really important to Knightingail. What can you say about her?

Gardiner: The artist, Tina Francisco, is really essential to this whole universe. In any fantasy, you’re creating a new world, a new environment, new characters, everything. Tina comes from a company called Glass House Graphics. All the artists on the book are from the Philippines. When I was looking through Glass House Graphics’ dossier of people, I looked at Tina’s artwork; it was extremely detailed; and it had this manga-like influence to it but not too strong. Her facial expressions are wonderful. This is a character driven book and when you look at Knightingail’s face, you need to know exactly what she’s thinking without even looking at the words. Tina was immediately beneficial to the project. She came up with all the character designs, all the costumes, and the detailed environment. One of the things that sets this book apart is it’s very detailed – there are lots of environmental aspects to it that really brings the universe to life.

Westfield: And you also working with Katrina Mae Hao as colorist.

Gardiner: She came in and put the depth to it. When you look at the lush atmosphere and the costume colors, or when it gets to a darker aspects of the story, she was able to bring a 3-D depth to the book through the coloring. It’s just amazing.

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Westfield: Are there any other projects you’re working on that you’d like to mention?

Gardiner: Like I mentioned, when I started Knighingail, I had already done the full scripts for a character called CrossStar. That’s a more traditional superhero type book. It’s actually kind of a detective series. It’s set in modern day America and this hooded character with a sword just shows up and starts fighting crime and no one knows why. It’s told completely from the perspective of the people who see CrossStar. It’s a detailed investigation into who is this guy and why is he in modern day America. I hope to start that series near the end of Knightingail’s run.

There’s a third project that I’ve already done the background for and it’s called The Purifires. That’s more of a historical book. Six people from the American Revolutionary War form a militia and their intention is to purify America from the British occupation. It’s a sort of team superhero book but it’s based on reality and history. It’s told from their perspective as they travel throughout the American Revolution. I hope it will give the reader an appreciation of how America was founded. That will probably be launched at the end of next year.

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Westfield: Any closing comments?

Gardiner: I definitely appreciate Ardden Entertainment who’s taking a big risk on an unknown creator. The artist’s are professional and have done a lot of work before but are not well known. But they’re incredible. For Ardden Entertainment to look at this project and say “Yes, I can see the quality of this project,” I really appreciate that. I hope to have a big launch for the book.

To keep up on all things Knightingail, check out her Facebook page here!

Purchase

Knightingail #1

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