Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics, entertainment, orbital, whiskers mcfadden

Whiskers McFadden – The All Ages, 1950s Astronaut Cat

Published Sat, 22 Mar 2014 10:00:08 -0500

Last updated Sat, 22 Mar 2014 13:41:37 -0500

Ryan Jenkyns works at Orbital Comics in London. It's just possible you may have heard of that shop on Bleeding Cool before. Anyway he has a Kickstarter live right now… take it away, Ryan!

For some, comic books are just a fun recreational activity. For me, it's kind of become my whole life. Of course, that doesn't make it any less fun!

I'm a long-time comic book collector, convention attendee, cosplayer, artist and as some of you may know, full time staff member at Orbital Comics in London. My parents always encouraged creativity, and so I naturally went from learning how to draw my favourite comic book characters, to studying how to become a professional animator.

It wasn't long before I made the connection between animation and comic art, and the seed had been planted in my head that some day I'd draw my own comic, but that dream got pushed back somewhere in my mind and I tried to pursue my career as an animator. Unfortunately, when you leave uni, you're forced to accept almost any paid job you can get, which meant for 5 years I was doing every kind of artistic job beside animation! The silver lining was that I picked up a vast range of skills along the way, and I never lost the ability to just pick up a pencil and draw.

Last year, I was commissioned to do the art on a friend's Kickstarter comic 2052: The Jante Protocol, which though successfully funded and completed, never really felt like the kind of comic my art style was suited to. Thankfully I finally feel ready to push forward with my own creator-owned project, The Bold Tales of Whiskers McFadden, which will be an all-ages action adventure with a 50's sci-fi twist and a handful of humour to boot.

Whiskers McFadden tells the story of an astronaut cat from another planet, who ends up in a small American town, and is adopted by Margo, a loveable adventure-seeking 6 year old. Together they stumble upon an outlandish bank robbery, a desperately understaffed secret government agency, and a series of events that force our hero to be the one thing he doesn't want to be… a hero.