Version 1 of this comic updates every Monday and will run somewhere around 45 pages. It is the tale of Parzival as written by Wolfram von Eschenbach, only with a furry sci-fi\fantasy spin. =) When V.1 is finished, I will do a second version, pencil sketch only but following the book in more detail.

I was introduced to Parzival during my freshman year of college. My University Intro class was themed around the Quest for the Holy Grail, taught by a man who quickly became one of my favorite teachers, Dr. Larry George (he let us watch Monty Python for the Final!) Larry is the type of teacher that doesn't assign anything hard but is so easy going and cool that you outdo yourself just to impress him (the best kind of teacher.) We had one project due at the end of the semester that could be anything you wanted to do: write a paper, paint a painting, design medieval clothing, make chainmail, whatever. I drew all the characters from Parzival as humanoid cats and rewrote the entire story as a script to be drawn out on notecards. I thought I was going to draw the whole story as well, but according to my script it was going to be 93 notecards long... not happening.

My sophomore year I had another semester with Dr. George, this time a literature class called Hero and Quest. Once again we had a project due at the end of the course, and I decided to take another crack at my Parzival comic. I had decided that notecards were too limiting, so I opted for a comic-book style layout instead. In very small, rough sketches I plotted out how the pictures would look and flow for 19 pages (41 of the 93 cards,) and completely drew and colored the first page. By this time I had put a lot of time and effort into this project and I didn't want it to die, so I did the only thing that would guarantee I would continue working on it: make it a webcomic.

Wolfram von Eschenbach's writing is, as Larry once described it, "purposely obtuse and convoluted," not to mention the fact that he lies about his sources. I'm not about to glorify his writing or praise his fine works or anything. I'm a typical college student and product of my times; Parzival was a pain to read (though not as bad as Tristan, don't even get me started there.) In trying to comprehend the story I looked for summaries online, but I didn't find anything that made it interesting, which is a shame. The story itself is actually quite exciting, with action, death, love, dramatic irony, etc, etc. It's the tale of how Parzival changes from a ignorant juvenile who totally screws up several people's lives and doesn't even realize it, to an educated, chivalrous knight who corrects his mistakes and ultimately becomes worthy of the Holy Grail. And yes, the Holy Grail is a rock. When this story was written the idea still hadn't come around that the Grail was the cup used in the Last Supper. Deal with it. ;)

About me: I am currently a Junior at SMSU in Springfield, Missouri. I'm majoring in Electronic Arts with an emphasis in Computer Animation and minoring in Creative Writing. I love God, cats, anime and manga. I hope to work for Big Idea and make VeggieTales. =)