The author was asked by readers to include a page, which showed the sketches he drew for the stories, especially in the New Earth Miniseries. Here they are, close to the order that they follow in the New Earth Miniseries. While the author will agree the sketches are not great works of art, they were necessary at the time, to evolve the body of the story. Sometimes sketching had to be done, before the story could continue.
The professional artwork in the books now follows these initial sketches. The author had certain ideas in mind when writing, but did not want to belabor the reader in heavy writing. After all, the reader really wants speed in the action, not a long dissertation. And the reader of course has his own imagination. Being able to let the reader imagine his or her own ideas is important. That actually helps the minds of the reader. That is part of the purpose of these books. Imagination to the mind, is like exercise to the body. But at the same time, the author was encouraged to keep his early images and put them somewhere on a webpage for readers to see.
The image here is of the author’s little Bombay Black cat, in 2012, which inspired some of the stories involving the Martian black feelup, known by the same name as Kuro, which is simply Japanese for black. Kuro (or Kuro chan, as chan means miss – Miss Black in Japanese) would always get interested when the author was writing, editing, or sketching. Even now, today a decade later, she comes and sits on the keyboard when the author is writing. In the image here Kuro chan is inspecting the very first images the author drew for galactic fighters.
We include Kuro here as it shows her contributing. Her personality and ways she would communicate with the author, showed him that there was a lot more to life than what we see or expect around us. For example, the author would speak to her and she would acknowledge with a verbal cat “Yes.” Kuro was a great influence, and always with the author, as he wrote the third and fourth miniseries.
Kuro chan, as she is known to the author, and all her many friends, is the inspiration and muse for the author in the Captain Kuro From Mars series.
Below are the early illustrations sketched by the author. Blow them up. They are obviously not professional. But they helped further the stories.
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