The Devil’s Bargain images

I don’t have any specific images for this story, just an old drawing I reworked that fits nicely into this

This sketch goes way way back, probably about 20 years old when I started dreaming up the characters and stories. I was massively inspired by the early works of Jhonen Vasquez on ‘Johnny the Homicidal Manic’ and his hand-drawn inking style. I wanted so much to copy his style, using paintbrushes and India ink back then, lying on the floor looking at the way he shaded things. His work changed my life, showing me, for the first time, that my style of drawing and the messed up things in my head had a place in the world. I set out to do something of my own and so Rowan was born. He was soon followed by Dana and Stefan, who first appeared in my sketchbooks tormenting Rowan with the character ‘Princess’, one of the first stories I ever came up with.

‘Stefan Ackermann’ is the name of the singer from the German industrial band ‘Das Ich’. I was listening to them a lot back then. He’s got a strange, distinctive voice and creepy look, which inspired me to create Stefan. The name stuck as a tip of the hat to him. Combine him with the, at the time, lesser known world of ponygirl fetishism, and well, Stefan and his legendary temper are just so much fun to write about!