The making of Vegetable Wars
by: Peter Caton

The beginning.  An incarnation of ideas.  Swelling.  Growing inside.  The burgeoning fever, that forces sweat out of the skin.  Makes it roll down.  Fall out, on to the page.  The blank page that stares endless.  Then, all at once, comes alive!  With a slash. With a stroke.  With the invention of craft and will, the story is born.  From the words of the writer.  To the mind of a visionary- an artist who sees beyond the letters.  The cases and tense.  Sees into the very sentence, and brings the words to life. 

This is creation.  This is the place where it all begins.  Where even I, began.  Yes, even Town's current narrator owes much to the pen and might of Greg Hiatt.  Greg uses both pencil and computer.  The might of tradition blended with the beauty of modernity.  The traditional tools include a good old number 2 and a sheet of paper.  The modern tools he uses are a Wacom Cintiq LCD monitor and the majesty of Photoshop.

While I wish he drew me with less wrinkles, I must confess, his work is good.  Better than most.  And I owe him much.  For it is his hand.  His pen that brings my words alive.    For I am none other than John Narrator.  A narrator in the family of Narrators, who has been given the task of telling the tales that Town often endures. From the silly to the creepy.  To the remarkable to the insane.  My family tells the stories, that bind us all together.

And tonight, we have a special treat for you.  A look inside, of the creative mind.  A look at beginnings.  Endings.  From rough sketch to final print.  It is all here, for you to pursue at your leisure.

So take a stroll with me.  Through these sketches.  The ideas that put into motion, a simple story about a chapter in Town's history.   A  Town like any other Town.  A Town, that I have oft been criticized for referencing too much.  So I shall refrain from this gimmick tonight.  As I dare not do it here dear reader, for it will only detract from my mission.  And my mission is important.  It is important for you to see, the creation that brings me to you. For all eyes to behold, the Town that exists in both you and in me.

Where better to start than Town's founder, Wilfred Town.   The founding of Town is nothing more than historic.  For it is the history of one man's journey that has led to the building of this great city.  Its mysterious beginnings, leading chase to the events that have unfolded throughout our time.  In our very place, this place, we call home.  Wilfred Town set out in the East, traveled West, and landed, somewhere in the middle of a vast continent.  New.  Untold.  Unoccupied, save for the inhabitants who lived here, long before we were born.  And on this face of Wilfred Town, you see a man driven.  Driving himself to find purity.  Clarity.  In the world we all now know.

Skipping ahead generations, we move next, onto the alien gardeners.  This particular drawing was one of the first.  The first translated, transposed into your world by Greg's hand.  The image depicts an alien, calmly smelling a rose.  The alien, himself, part of  refugee group of aliens who remained in Town after the alien invasion of '29.  The refugees from the great alien attack settled in Town.  Settled down, and began a life amongst the human residents.  The aliens are partial to flowers.  To the green earth. And have thus, found a place in Town. That is, once Hand National Park was, itself, created several years later during the giant robot attack of 1940.

But these stories, of Wilfred Town, of alien invasions, gardeners, are still untold in print form.  So, I must keep these stories secret.  Guarded until it is time for them to be revealed.

So onward we must move.  On to the current tale in Town's history.  That chapter you know as, The Vegetable Wars. 

Here we see a tomato general.  In both black and white and in color.  Perched high on a cliff.  Watching Town burn.  From a fire his soldiers started.  From a fire of evil born long ago.  An evil once shapeless, now exists, concrete in the form of Mad Scientist.

The tomato general image is significant because it became our first marketing tool.  T-shirts.  Posters all held this image as their own.  Those who are cool enough have this merchandise,  wear it, display it, with great pride.  For the significance of the Wars  merchandise cannot be under under-appreciated, for merchandise sales often help us survive.   Narrators.  Artists, both alike.  So I might as well come out and say it bluntly, instead of fuddling over tact.  Buy our stuff, help keep Town alive!

Okay, back on track.

None of the Wars could be possible, of course, without Mad Scientist himself.  The buffoon.  Often a mockery of evil now has taken his place among the best.  Among the greatest of evil doers.  Amongst the most evil of fiendish fiends.

Here, Mad Scientist's profile is captured.  In an ominous black and white.

From pencil to ink.  The rendering of this evil man is seen in full.  The terror of the black mask.  The sinister eyes, jaded yet calculating.  Always, thinking of a plan that will bring him, total world domination.

Alone so often in his mind.  Lost, in his own world.  Mad Scientist is now a pillar of evil.  Of destruction, resurrected from the ashes of Town's incredible past.

Yes, it is Mad Scientist that is a catalyst to the Vegetable Wars.  And the main ingredient, as the story is told, it began with an X.  An X and a plan of doom. Contrived by Mad Scientist, and his mind of gloom.

As we know by now, the X led to the vegetables, which can be seen in an early incarnation here.

The renderings of madness.  Of sheer chaos!  For who would have thought to animate vegetables, and turn them onto to an unsuspecting Town?  Not I, dear reader. Not I.  For I do not have the mind of Mad Scientist.

Yes, it was he, Mad Scientist, who had the mind to brew the mysterious formula imbued with X. 

The tales of The Vegetable Wars thus far told, are The Beginning and Enter the Nightmare.  The covers for these issues are here for your perusal.

The issues themselves need little description, for the stories are there in print for all to behold.  The images do give shocking clarity.  A resonance to the stories that have thus unfolded.  So I shall not indulge here, other than to say, if you haven't read issues 1 and 2, move fast over to our website (http://www.thevegetablewars.com) and order a copy today!

Alright, another plug.  Please forgive if I have offended.  As we need to live.  We live to write.  To draw.  To create, so you may take pleasure in what we make.  In the process, money is made.  Exchanged.  And this is okay.  So forgive, forget, and buy all the Wars you can get.

And so my time here, is almost at an end.  Yet, there is still so much to Town.  Besides the aliens, the robots, the monsters, the vegetables. 

Yes, Town even had a run-in with the pods from beyond..… Every town must have a pod story.  Must have a story about invasion of the body and the mind.  Well, Town was not going to sit back and let this great story pass us by.  Let others bask in the glory, and not try to cash in ourselves.  NO!  And so we bring you last, the story of the pods, known as One of Us.

Often forgotten, the story of One of Us was, alas,  not brought to you by one of the great Narrator Family.  No, the tale survives on tape.  Recorded by the lone survivor.  Yes, even the Narrators fell to the fate of the pods.  The tape itself, though, is  preserved in Narrator Hall, and can be read for public viewing in Issue 3 of the Vegetable Wars.

It is fitting that the most graphic representation of the creation of Town can be seen in the evolution of the One of Us images.  As Greg listened to the recordings, he literally saw the man who made them through the voice speaking on the tape.  In the words, the sounds, Greg felt the paranoia.  Shared the anxiety.  And thus were born, the photographically negative, eerily black and white images of One of Us.  You can see the pencil sketch.  Layer after layer, growing, giving birth, at last, to the final image.

And what is born, is paranoia!  Anxiety!  Isolation!  The pods attack!  And the question that hammers around in your mind, is who now remains that is still human?

To find out more about One of Us, you'll have to buy Issue 3 of the Vegetable Wars.

And with that, I am signing out for now.  I hope you have enjoyed the beginnings.  These stories of creation.  How we took the words of the Narrators, and put them on to a page for all to see.  From Greg and myself, we hope to see you again.  In the vast, wide world of our beloved Town. 

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