When a secret door opens the way between worlds and realities where time is meaningless, a traveling doctor finds a young girl in need of help, but she’s nothing like the doctor has ever encountered.
In the original graphic novel STRAY, available now on Comixology, a traveling doctor in the land of Omro enters an otherworldly forest known as The Dream, where time, space, and reality are in the eye of the beholder.
We here at Comical Opinions were fortunate enough to catch up with Eric Gray, writer of STRAY, to talk about his creation and give our readers a crash course on the imagination behind the land of Omro.
Please welcome our next ‘7 Questions’ participant, Eric Gay.
1. For anyone who’s not familiar with you, what are the works you most want to be known for?
STRAY – A dark fantasy short story written and drawn by me with colors by Andy Poole.
LEON – A sci-fi buddy comedy I’m doing with Greg Langacker and Jimmy Greenhalgh.
2. What’s was your original elevator pitch behind the concept of STRAY?
“The land of Omro gains a new inhabitant when one mysterious girl discovers a portal between worlds.”
3. There’s a stunning amount of detail in some of the panels of STRAY. Since you’re the writer and main artist, how long did it take you to arrive at the finished work?
I can’t even begin to take full credit for how the artwork ended up in its final form. If someone saw my raw linework against Andy’s colors, I think they would be surprised at how little detail should rightly be attributed to me.
The comic was approximately two months of total work (cut in half by a hiatus thanks to covid). This could have been faster, but I’m a sucker for inking manually, so the added time of printing my pencils from photoshop, inking, then scanning the pages really did add up. That said, I’m glad I did things this way. There’s something about a physical piece of comic art that I can’t pass up. Each page typically took 4-6 hours from start to finish on my end, with a few exceptions that required a bit more time.
4. What was the inspiration behind the concepts for STRAY and The Dream?
The idea for Stray was born from years inhaling works by creators like Neil Gaiman (The Sandman, American Gods), Mike Mignola (Hellboy, Amazing Screw On Head), Junji Ito (Uzumaki, The Enigma of Amigara Fault), Inio Asano (Solanin, Goodnight Punpun), and many others, as well as the old Weird Tales anthologies and far too much Twilight Zone. I love anything with more of a slow burn, especially when it forces me to suspend my disbelief. Also, I’m a huge fan of stories that leave me with more questions than answers, which doesn’t happen nearly enough these days for my taste.
With those things in mind, I really wanted to write something about loss and loneliness, since we all have our fair share of those in life, and tried my best to do so without being philosophical or preachy. I think it added a level of relatability to a cast of characters who, at least from a physical standpoint, are pretty far removed from our own reality.
As far as the Dream, I’ve always been fascinated with mythology, and the concepts of magic and forests are melded quite often in a number of cultures. There’s something about forests that immediately conjures up thoughts of mystery and losing oneself, so I felt it was the perfect location for this story.
5. STRAY appears to be telling one of the potentially many tales in Tabitha’s travels. Do you have other stories in the works for Tabitha?
Absolutely. Stray will continue to be made in short episodes like this issue, each one a little peek into the lives of Omro’s other inhabitants, while keeping a few continuous main characters. Both Tabitha and Sole are among those. I currently have four more stories ready to roll.
6. What are you most excited for readers to know about STRAY? Is there a central theme or message?
I love this question, because I never considered that before and now I’m having to think. Maybe not a central theme, but there are two things I’d hope creators take away. 1) Comics are an amazing medium for short fiction. 2) It’s a rewarding challenge to try and write a complete story with confining length restraints. I hope everyone tries it at least once.
7. What’s next for Eric Gay?
We are on the final pages of Leon right now, which is awesome. After that wraps up, I’m starting a seven-issue dark fantasy series with Andy Poole called LITTLE ODD, this one set in 11th century pagan Norway. I’m pretty confident that another issue of Stray will happen while that one is running, with more after completion.
We’d like to thank Eric Gay for taking our ‘7 Questions’ challenge to talk about STRAY and stay tuned later this week for our full review. If you’re interested in picking up STRAY, you can find it over on ComiXology right now.
We hope you found this article interesting. Come back for more reviews, previews, and opinions on comics, and don’t forget to follow us on social media:
If you’re interested in this creator’s works, remember to let your Local Comic Shop know to find more of their work for you. They would appreciate the call, and so would we.
Click here to find your Local Comic Shop: www.ComicShopLocator.com