It’s been over four years since I sat down to do one of these. I’ve become a father, moved houses, lost a friend, grown out my dreads and between all that we’ve managed to put out 4 full issues of this wild exhilarating ride. We’ve had a change of personnel here and there but David remains a more than capable Samwise to my Frodo. Most of our challenges have cantered on the age old question ‘ why keep on going?’.
We have found this is not something that disqualifies us from our endeavour but rather an ideological bug that pops up every now and then. It follows us through every un-engaged post; every website analytics meeting; every early morning production session. It is constantly in our faces demanding it’s slop of attention.
There is no one answer, no magic black void-sword to banish it forever whenever it crops up. There are a litany of answers and each has its place. I was in one of my moods when this question decided to haunt me and laden with what I felt was Atlas’ burdens, I posed the question to David ‘what if no one reads this? Why do we keep wasting our time?’. David in his vast wisdom surprised me with his answer, “ Well, I honestly do not care if anyone reads this.” This stumped me for a minute but reinvigorated me.
This is not a performance of something the reader knows but the very best attempt at offering a story that goes wherever we want. We would love more people to read this but in the end we hold ourselves accountable at all times to our artistic ideals- that demands we deliver greatness despite the observer.
As the story slides into the spirit realm and other very meta themes we have to take some stock of what we’ve done so far. I hope all readers can agree this is not a straightforward read, there are easter eggs and future references buried in the nooks and sentences on every page. We’ve intentionally crafted the story to reference itself over and over so some things might not click into place until some issues down the line. At its core CODD is based around African traditions and ancient structures. We hope this seeps through, we have avoided direct translation of cultures to avoid the rigidity and expectation that comes with that.
Who are the Children of the Dying Dawn?
I think some of that should be already falling in place, Baji has taken ownership as the origin of the title ‘dying dawn’ and I’m excited for the readers to witness the connections between our wonderful characters play out. The Dying dawn as we see in the story is inspired by Baji’s visions. These visions are not only key to unlocking the fate of the zinanjans but tie into the journeys of each main character.
I will acknowledge that this story is a complex undertaking to present in a linear format. We’ve sort of boxed ourselves into narrating a crazy ride that is taking place during different timelines to a host of characters. We can only hope the readers don’t completely get lost in the sauce but even if you do remember the only way out is through sometimes going back will render you the foundation you need to forge forward. We want this story to get its fangs in whoever comes across it in a very ferocious way. I know we said we don’t care if anyone reads this but please let us know what you think if you do.
Despite our grandstanding we would love to build up the court and bond over this little thing we have going here. I promise you it only gets crazier from here and you will love every minute of it, long live Wanawili!!
