Long John

The Rook was one of the last additions to the comic, added after Chapter 1 had already been completed. Chapter 1 was a standalone story, to an extent, crafted in a way so that if I wanted to walk away from Long John at the end of it, I could. Since I loved how Chapter 1 came out, I had to really lock down what happened in the subsequent chapters. The overall story and plot was there, but many details were still nebulous.

I knew I didn’t want to jump to Rich Jack right away, but simply delaying his appearance wouldn’t give Long John many antagonists to interact with. Fleshing out the world, I was fascinated by the idea that the two main antagonists––Rich Jack and Hellrider Jackie––were more mirrors of what Long John could be rather than outright villains. So, with that dark reflection in mind, I figured giving Rich Jack a posse, similar to what Long John had with Juan John and Jonny Mono, could be an interesting idea and act as a way for Long John to interact with Rich Jack by proxy; saving his reveal for later as I had wanted. That, combined with creating the backstories for the characters and why exactly they would work with someone how kind of outright hates them, really brought them to life and out of the shadow of simply being henchmen sidekicks.

The thing that still astounds me after all this time is that I love the characters of The Rook and Bishop as much as I love Juan John and Jonny Mono, and I was so excited to give Rook her moment to shine here.

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