Why pick an issue from the middle of the story?

Even though Wild Stars is a widely spread and multi-genre story, with each issue I concentrated on a different group of characters, and how they were affected by connected events, giving you a beginning, middle, and ending each time.

This gave me an opportunity to showcase the landscape paintings of my late mother, Mary Tierney. Being able to reproduce her wonderful use of color was too great an opportunity to pass up on.

Some of her paintings actually tied into specific scenes in the stories. But, other than the fact that part of this issue takes place in coastal waters, not so in this case. These particular paintings are presented mostly for mood and to keep an earthbound perspectve.

As you can see, Georgian wakes up to an uncomfortable situation.

Put out 20th and 25th Anniversary collections, and still never noticed it until now.

Right now Ernesto Mendez wants to know the answers that Georgian had been sent to South America to find out.

The problem is, Georgian doesn't have the answers.

As you can see here, I chose to go mostly with implied violence. There are, however, stronger scenes elsewhere in the series. In the last issue (Volume 3 #3) a man was shown in the mouth of a tiger shark, being eaten alive.

So, while the Wild Stars are more intended for Teens and older readers, dealing some mature material like violence and drug abuse, with some mild nudity but no bad languange, for the most part I tried to keep the series accessable to the widest possible range of readers.

This issue is key in answering many of the mysteries that will hopefully motivate readers to continue forward.

If you haven't read Wild Stars before, a lot of the ground work is explained, starting right here...!

When I was writing Under the Wild Stars, the novelization of Volume 3, the content of Volume #3's first issue were only told in flashback, at points like this.

Restarting the series with Volume 3 gave me a perfect chance to go back and add retro-material that'd taken place before the events of Volumes One and Two. Although I do have to admit that, before I compiled everything into the Book of Circles graphic novel, it almost required a road map to tell readers the proper order in which to read the story.

Of course, if you'd read Wild Stars Volume 1 #1 way back in 1984, you'd already know most of this.

And, just for good measure, I tied it all in with the Hopi Prophecy Rock and explained the reasons for the confusion in Nostradamus' predictions. He saw events unfolding in both realities!

Georgian reveals that the Artomiques knew more about the Brothan's designs on Earth, having had an alliance with them in the alternate reality. But once that reality was destroyed, the Brothan changed their plans.

Earth is now slated for destruction, unless the Artomiques can convince them otherwise.

Now there is one more person who wants to have a confrontation with Carlton MacKanaly.

More artwork by Dave Simons, with story text omitted, is presented down the left-hand side of this page.

While Georgian was dealing with the affairs of the Artomiques back on Earth, the other two Artomiques who survived the destruction of their reality are traveling deep into space with the Brothan, looking for the man who'd destroyed their world. They think this might be the man calling himself First Marker.

The flashing light comment is an homage to Star Wars, when in A New Hope Luke is being a nuisance in the cockpit of the Millennium Flacon. Hey, with a series named Wild Stars, I had to pay a tip of the hat to Star Wars!

Plus, I can never pass on an opportunity to inject some humor!

Then, a few years later, the movie Stargate came out, and also used a pyramid design for a space vehicle. So, with Volume 3, I redesigned the city to look more like a cyrstaline structure. Didn't want anyone to think I'd done a swipe.

But, speaking of Stargate, there were other similarities when Stargate Atlantis came out. I'd already wrapped Volume 3 up a while back, and had readers tell me how familiar they found that series premiere. "It was like I'd already read most of it somewhere else." Their version of Atlantis did bear a resemblence to Dave Simon's illustrations.

But hey, I was first each time! Check the publishing dates.

This time the scene is seen from the viewpoint of Genghis Champlain.

As mentioned before, this same scene is also shown from yet another, third perspective, on the cover.

Cool.

So, with a traveling space city, you could encounter every kind of person or creature immaginable.

Watch in the background for some walk throughs by some surprise guests!

I've always enjoyed working with a large cast of characters. It makes the interaction more challenging and fun!

I first novelized Wild Stars in the Seventies as First Marker, which was the basis for the Eighties comics. Some of the concepts, that editors in the Seventies told me were too edgy, no longer seem so radical.

Now you can enjoy the entire story in Wild Stars: The Book of Circles -- Recalibrated -- the 25th Anniversary hardcover edition.

Whereas some writers provide very loose scripts, with instructions like 'they fight for five pages', my scripts are tightly choreographed in every panel.

This page was drawn from one such sketch.

But Dave still expressed himself by placing one of his own characters flying above with a furry tail. Plus, is that young Anakin Skywalker standing with a hooded Jedi Master Qui Gon Jinn in the background?

The pipe smoking sea monkey in the foreground is an obvious homage to an ad that ran for years on the back cover of comics.

If I did these pages today, there are many different techniques that I'd use.

For the 25th Anniversary hardcover, Dave provided new pages for the opening scenes, which feature what is probably my best work at rendering.

For anyone curious about what I mean by Rendering, I'm referring to taking an artist's raw pencils and providing shading and tone. Whereas a colorist works with colors, for a black and white comic I painted with grayscale tones.

The action kicks into another gear!

There are questions that long term readers asked: What happenned to Carthage's legs?

Another question about Carthage is; "Why do the Brothan now refer to him as the Prophet?

Akara of the Wild Stars suddenly breaks free from the telepathic trance she'd been in, only to discover that the entire Wild Stars Armada is now in the control of the mysterious armored man who'd stormed her command ship.

In the original Eighties comics, the Wild Stars Armada was referred to as the Wild Stars Fleet. But then along came Babylon Five and their White Star Fleet, so I changed my terms again, so no one would think I was doing a swipe.

But if you pick up a copy of the orginal comic, you'll see what I'm talking about.

I've always been tempted to have a trivia contest to see if readers did figure out this character's secret identity. I think I made it pretty obvious in the finale, but I didn't spell it out.

And here, again, is another spectacular page by Dave Simons. I sold some of the original art on Ebay for Dave, and this page did the best by far!

This is also an example of Dave expressing his interpretation. If you check out the original 1988 publication, you'll notice a difference in the use of this character's eyes. I kept them hidden there, but highlighted them here.

Her use of color was sometimes too good, and people would ask her if her work were Paint by Colors.

I think she took some insult at comments like that.

And here you get a double dose of Frank, as the back cover features a preview (in a preview) of the Fifth issue of Volume 3.

To the left, you can see some of my underwater photography that was used as reference.

Yep. I dove to the bottom of the sea to research Wild Stars! I've even made free dives on the sunken Bimini Road, once predicted to have a connection to lost Atlantis.

I hope you've enjoyed your introduction to the Wild Stars.

Thanks for looking.

Michael Tierney -- May 1st, 2009