29 - Atchartay
story: Sharnam
created: 1999

Atchartay is one of the eight perfect daughters born by the three-headed mother god Trebazec, who are all worshipped in the world of Sharnam (in a nutshell, Sharnam is a sprawling fantasy epic and one of my first ‘serious’ stories).  She is the god of the sky and air- calm and forgiving, and loving of the quiet imperfections of the people who worship her- and shares the day with her sister Ayho. 

28 - Aszio
story: Emilio Orion
created: 2011

Aszio is an esef- an alien race that exists in the collaborative world/character-building project, Emilio Orion.  Aszio is in charge of the operation of Kath Station- a construction-based space station/outpost that the human crew of the space freighter, the Emilio Orion, has become stranded at.  Aszio is a calm, orderly individual who values predictability and routine, and doesn’t care for interruptions at the best of times.  Having an entire crew of unhappy people dumped into her life is not her idea of a good time, and having to be a courteous and polite host to them is… well, it’s a challenge. 
(It is important to note that while the esef have no concept of gendered pronouns, Aszio’s being a nurturing male has meant that she was binarily assigned the pronoun “she” when humans and esef were introduced to one another [though the crew of the Emilio Orion, following their captain’s example, refer to Aszio as ‘he’].)

27 - Apollo
story: Children of the Revolution
created: 2006

Apollo is an O-class (basically: humans are extinct, and mutations like O and OI-class individuals have taken their place) and one of four known Graduated Horsemen (a group of persons who have the uncontrollable ability to trigger cataclysmic, apocalyptic events).  His O nature manifests as the ability to constantly grow and shed dozens of wings, which means he is at all times covered with scabby, bloody, feathery masses. 
He lost his eyes (and most of his hearing) during his first and only (thus far) Horseman episode (this was also when his O-class nature began to manifest) when wings grew out of his eye sockets. 

26 - Aphila “TV Jack” Arbutus
story: Weird Pets
created: 2010

Aphila owns a coffee shop/indie book store that shares a wall with her husband Eiylin’s bar in the heart of downtown Vancouver.  In most circles Aphila is known as TV or Jack- those being the first words she heard (and therefore used to identify herself when she was asked) after she joined human society.  Aphila is a faery, though she changed her appearance (partially with magic [or lack thereof] and partially through cosmetic surgery) when she decided to start identifying as human and left her forest/family to move to the city.  She is a good tempered, wonderful woman, who is always barefoot, and cannot walk on grass/natural earth for fear of her human disguise failing and showing her for what she really is.

25 - Antoine Giacomo Ette
story: Jeden Tag
created: 2008

Antoine Ette is a demon who lives in New Reality with his wife, Marie, and together they are hosting Jeden while folks like Altholio attempt to relocate his world (otherwise known as our reality).  Antoine is a scholar and a linguist, who studies the literature and languages of worlds that aren’t his own.  He’s a giant of a man, and his head is haloed with a ring of shadowed horns.  He’s got a very cool, sober (some might say ‘boring’) personality, but that’s all to balance out his rather effervescent wife.

Sometimes he is a monster with three mouths and an endless belly, who can carry three conversations at once- but not often.

24 - Anton Girac
story: Gradient Skies
created: 2005

Anton is an entrepreneur and the on-again off-again “manager” of Elwood and his band, Gradient Skies.  Elwood insists that he’s a good guy, but the general consensus is that Anton isn’t worth much more than the horse he rode in on. 
Anton tends to bandwagon any hot-button social justice and/or human rights issue that is in vogue, in a way that is more for his own sake than it is for any benefit or furthering any causes.  He has a short attention span, and likes to start huge projects and bite off way more than he can chew with no real plan to finish them, but he has a lot of remarkable connections that have come in handy over the years.

He’s a committed Roll Up The Rim player.  His longest winning streak was eight, and he likes to talk about it whenever the season rolls around.

23 - Ansel Jacques (the Pirate Prince)
story: Seven Stories from the Sea [Anarchist Revolution]
created: 2007

In sea-faring mythology, Ansel is known as the Pirate Prince- a legendary being capable of locating all the buried treasure and golden hoards hidden throughout the world.  He is also rumoured to be a living compass, and has the power to becalm seas and conjure fair weather and favourable winds. 
In reality, Ansel is a scared, sea-sick wretch, who is in hopelessly over his head, and has trouble finding his way out of an empty room.  He’s patterned with birth marks that allegedly form treasure maps, but whether the legends about him are true or not is up for debate. (This has not stopped him from being relentlessly pursued by treasure hunters throughout his entire life, however.)  His current location is in the hold of the pirate ship Anarchist Revolution, where he has been detained with threats, fear, and a whole lot of strong magic.  While he has been a captive aboard the ship for several years, the fact he has yet to lead anyone to anything remotely worth while is not something he (or the captain who imprisoned him) really wants to discuss. 

22 - Angelique
story: Black Nail Polish
created: 2006

The other half of the world famous acrobatic stilt walking/aerial dancing duo known as The Stilt Sisters, Angelique performs with her partner Amelique in the court of the blind City King as part of his large entourage of entertainers.  Like Amelique, Angelique spends all her non-performance time smoking and talking shit about those around her.  She loves to be hated, and prides herself on the amount of peer pressure she is able to dole out on a daily basis. 

21 - The Androgynoctopus
story: Orange Octopus gender zine
created: 2010

The Androgynoctopus is the mascot/cover-creature for the Orange Octopus gender zine- a creative, collaborative genderqueer publication that focuses on celebrating gender expression outside of the male/female binary.

20 - Andy Meer
story: Bridgeport
created: 2008

Andy is a fisherman who lives and works in the Pacific west coast port-city of Bridgeport.  He was possessed by a latent demon as a 20-something, in a mislead attempt to trade his soul for immortality- it didn’t go quite as planned, and he has had to deal with occasionally turning into a oil-slick monster for the better part of 30 years. (Also, there’s a little to-do with the fact that his body is rejecting his own immortality, so he’s consistently sick, aching, nauseous, scabby, and in pain.)  Lucky for him his possession landed him in an out-of-the-way city that is a haven for all sorts of monstrous and maladjusted folk looking to live quiet lives while keeping their afflictions under the radar.

These days Andy spends most of his time on his fishing boat (The Hulk II), fixing nets, and listening to classic rock.  He doesn’t swear, and he doesn’t smoke, but he drinks a lot. (He also doesn’t spend a lot of his time as a horrible oil slick tentacle monster- I just like drawing him that way.)