How back stories can take on a life of its own.

Way back last year I made a few drawings for a very kind man named Robert who liked to write what I call 'fan fiction' surrounding his favorite characters on the FX show Sons of Anarchy.

I was very impressed with his rough and brusque style that held no punches and seemed gritty and real. I asked him if he wouldn't mind taking his characters he made do his bidding from SOA and transplant them into MY biker-story world of Mayfield Eight.

He was delighted. I needed a back story of how the Biker Gang got a hold of Calvin's DMV records so that they could stalk him at his work and home. Robert got to work, grafting two characters originally meant to be 'Opie' (portrayed by Ryan Hurst) and 'Tara' (portrayed by Maggie Siff) who while weren't a romantic couple in the show were so in his made up stories.

With a simple name change to Gary and Tanya two new characters for Mayfield Eight were born. In this excerpt Gary is returning from a job in L.A. to his New Mexico hacienda to greet Teresa:

Early Return by Robert Stokes

By late Thursday afternoon his mouth was dry, coated with fine dust and grit as he leaned his bike into the flat dirt road towards home. Tired, disgusted with everything, and fatigued, Gary McClellan wanted nothing more than just a cold beer, a cooling shower, and sleep. Even the sight of his petite dark-haired wife on their graying wood porch didn't seem to brighten his spirits.

Tanya McClellan heard Gary's pan-head rumbling outside, taking her by surprise. She wasn't expecting him back from that public housing project in Los Angeles for at least another two weeks.

"Why are you home now?" she asked, stopping short at the step, while he silently dismounted his bike, and untied the knapsack behind the seat.

"The project ran out of funds, so they shit canned all the crews," he replied, pausing to kiss her neck lightly before going inside. "Here's my pay, they still owe for one week..." he slapped an envelope on their kitchenette table. "Fuk it's hot " he griped, grabbing a beer from the fridge.

Tanya counted the cash, watching as he took off his shirt, and emptied the bottle in what seemed like seconds. He was filthy underneath.

"How many hours is this?" She counted two hundred and twenty.

"That's 63 hours for the week before, an all cash. Joey said it was better to pay under the table. We were wondering about that...

... it's overtime included"

Drywalling wasn't exactly a specific skill, but $3.78 an hour isn't too bad, he thought. "We aren’t sure if we'll even get the last week's pay," he added, looking out the kitchen window. Miles n miles of miles of flat he thought. His thirst somewhat quenched, he focused on his wife's sweet curves.
"Help me get cleaned up" he grinned, pulling her towards the bathroom.

Pretty cool, huh? The full length of this mini-story will be added to the back of the comic book when it comes out! Included is a scene where Gary meets up with head-biker of The Banshees Slade (my character). He even shot me a Google Street view image of a run down house -the type Slade would be holed up in. It's real interesting when you come up with a character and watch somebody use him in his story, he got his personality right on the money!

Last weekend!

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