new generation of comic artists - the creators of Quad Depot, Bermuda's first home-grown comic book.

Dig this. Animals are swiped from Earth by a mysterious cosmic power, segregated into their respective species and given fresh worlds to populate.

They evolve into intelligent bipeds and wind up warring among each other. Bear versus beaver, bird versus guinea pig ... that sort of thing. A council is formed. Peace must be had ...

Elsewhere in the same universe, a planet's leaders, appreciating there are far too many beings running or flying around with super powers, form a special ultra-secret military unit with awesome firepower and defensive capabilities to level the playing field for mortals just a tad.

While on yet another world we find a super-hero team with mercenary leanings languishing ... waiting for a mission, its founder and leader apparently missing, its super-members in super-disarray.

A group of young Bermudians has managed to combine a flair for drawing with a refreshing aversion to reality to create Quad Depot, the Island's first home-grown comic book.

With American partner Larry Jerald, Bermudians Thad Branco, Ronald Terceira, Anthony Cannonier and Alex Monk have warped into the booming shadow zone of independent comic books.

The first issue of Quad Depot, featuring the above story lines, is expected to hit the shelves by summer's end.

While the Florida-based company, Labyrinth Comics, has been just six months in the making, says 18-year-old Bermuda College student Thad, "I've been working on my characters for 10 years.'' Alex, whose own story, Mega-Genesis - a bloody tale set around the end of the Dark Ages and the dawn of modern civilisation - is still "a work in progress'', says the benefit of working independently is that the artists keep their characters and freedom is complete.

The comic book giants, like Marvel and D.C., says Alex, 23, own the characters created by their artists. Furthermore, they cater more to the middle of the road. Aficionados ... purists like these guys find more grist for their mental mills among the eldritch tales in the independent "books'' (not "comics'').

"The independents are bringing in better artists and writers,'' Alex says.

But that didn't stop the young artist from enthusing over his recent opportunity to talk shop with master artist Jim Craig, who numbers that Marvel web-slinger, Spiderman himself, among his work. The comic wiz was in Bermuda recently working on the mini-series Bermuda Grace, for which he drew the story boards, sketches of the scenes.

Each issue of Quad Depot will offer the three stories and a letters page, the latter to be titled by contest. They'll sell initially for $2.75. The drawings will be in black and white, with colour maybe coming later.

Alex says black and white prints better and is more expressive. Thad, editor and marketing director, says he'd long had a desire to get into comics. But it wasn't until he met Larry Jerald, a 26-year-old Florida art school student, and the two discovered a mutual passion for the genre, that the idea took shape.

The distribution deal will see Quad Depot advertised in a "previews guide'' put out by American giant Diamond Comics. Labyrinth pays for the advertising.

Diamond then buys as many books from Labyrinth as it gets orders for through the previews guide. And so on each issue.

They hope to put out Quad Depot every two weeks. But if it turns out to be a monthly, the guys plan to put out a different book on the odd weeks.

The nuts and bolts of comic creation, says Thad, is something akin to producing a regular TV show.

"We usually sit down with a basic idea of a couple people (characters) doing something,'' he explains. "Then we decide who else, what other characters are involved. A structure happens ... how they got there, why they're there, how the other characters react. The story line continues to build.'' Next is research, studying maps where appropriate, digging through the encyclopaedia, looking up "things we really don't know too much about'' that might be part of the story. New characters are sketched out, time parameters set and the nitty starts getting gritty.

The actual panels are laid out, Thad says, but instead of artwork, within their frames are written descriptions of the intended action, lighting, background, etc., maybe a rough sketch if its particularly complicated.

"Then it's time for Anthony, or me, to go over the panels and sketch them out.'' The two artists approach the final stretch differently. Anthony makes "film sketches'', says Thad. He draws the whole book in miniature, the result resembling a role of movie film.

"He's got lots of little drawings all over the place. Then he takes one panel off that and makes it bigger, adds the background, detail, the movements so it doesn't look stiff. He's very technical the way he does things.

"I make a few sketches, then go back to the page and just let it happen, really.'' And while the artists are honing their drawings, the writers are back at stage one, mapping out the next instalment.

Ideas are no problem, they say. They're all imaginative and, somehow not surprisingly, they all play Dungeons & Dragons, the fantasy role-playing game that's been blamed by some on the lunatic fringe for all manner of societal ills, from devil worship to suicide and murder.

Thad's own alter ego is a powerful paladin, a term Oxford defines as "any of the Twelve Peers of Charlemagne's court; a knight errant, or champion.'' One of the really good guys.

Ronald Terceira, 19, prefers to play a thief of "chaotic good'' alignment. It allows him to indulge a wide range of desires.

He doesn't exactly get his ideas from the game, he says, but "it helps to hone your calculations ... about how your character reacts in certain situations.'' The ideas "just come to me,'' the business management student says. He writes DPI (Department of Paranormal Intelligence), in which high tech - "huge robotic suits and damping fields'', among other tools - gives mortals a better chance of defeating the super-villains.

Anthony Cannonier, 25, who studies art in Florida, draws the story. Since all three of the tales are set in the same universe, hints Thad, who writes and draws Salvo, the tale of restless super-mercenaries, eventually characters from one world tory could meet up with those from another.

"Watch everything from the walls to the people going by them and beyond,'' he grimly advises.

The interstellar animal tale, entitled Star's End, is written and drawn by Larry Jerald.

On a more serious note, Alex is also working on a reality-based comic chronicling a young man's battle with alcohol and drug addiction. It will be called Awakenings and is to a degree autobiographical.

"It's no Little House on the Prairie stuff,'' says Alex. "All of it is real.'' But with his talent for drawing and Ronald's gift with words, he promises it will also be entertaining.

They all hope eventually to spin their fondness for fables into lucrative careers. As Alex, presently financing himself in the construction industry, says: "A couple of years down the road I'll be able to sit back and forget all about masonry.'' Steve Mundy is a sub-editor with The Royal Gazette and wrote about his Caribbean wedding and honeymoon in RG No.2. He has also played an 8th level Evil Wizard called Ar-Delian in Dungeons & Dragons.

Photographs by Stephen Raynor Thad Branco, editor of Quad Depot and creator of Salvo: "I make a few sketches, then go back to the page an just let it happen.'' Alex Monk, whose Mega--genesis and Awakenings are works in progress, promises: "It's no Little House on the Prairie stuff'' Ronald Terceira, Quad Depot treasurer and writer of DPI (Department of Paranormal Intelligence), has a "chaotic good'' alter ego.

RG MAGAZINE JULY 1993