Kellie Mar, 36, of Blaxland, hasn’t had any supernatural experiences, but just like her favourite TV character, FBI agent Fox Mulder from the X-Files, she “wants to believe”.
It’s one of the reasons the graphic designer has just completed writing and illustrating her first spooky comic book in time for Halloween.
“Everyone has a weird story [and] I have always loved the supernatural and grew up watching the X-Files. I love a scary story.”
The story is set in the Blue Mountains where two hapless bushwalkers, Pete and Murray (played by her friends Peter Wright, the builder, and Murray Croft, a teacher and bottle shop owner), encounter the myths, monsters and legends of the Mountains, including the elusive Blue Mountains Black Panther.
Henry Lawson’s ghost of Victoria Pass also makes an appearance, the woman in white from Woodford Academy gets a mention and a UFO flies overhead. For added humour, a bloody-mouthed drop bear is thrown in and “dropkicked” by a yowie over The Three Sisters.
Ms Mar writes in the introduction to her cartoon book that there is “an unusually large concentration of the paranormal” here, but she tells the Gazette she wants to see more than a grainy photograph of monsters like the panther as evidence.
“There have been so many sightings .. but I work in photoshop and know how good it is. Come on guys, everyone has a camera, I’m thinking, give me some footage.”
“That said I do look over at Woodford Academy when I am travelling home late at night to see if the curtain gets pulled aside by the woman who haunts the grounds, I want to believe.”
The comic book titled Dark Side of the Blue will be officially released at the Lithgow Halloween Markets on October 27. It sells for $15 at Katoomba’s Odd Mountain store and via her etsy and Facebook pages. Search for Bowie Bunny – Harebrained Art by Kellie Mar. She’s had 100 pre-orders and is already working on a sequel.
Ms Mar said she was pilloried by her university lecturer for suggesting the graphic novel was an art form, but the books are undergoing a renaissance, one even made the longlist for the Man Booker Prize this year.
“There is something cool about being a comic book geek these days.”
