Winnie Foster has just graduated from college... and has
already hit a roadblock. Working a dead-end job she hates
and struggling to make ends meet, Winnie is certain it can't
get any worse. Certain, that is, until one fateful night
when an accident sends Winnie hurtling into another world
where she is promptly kidnapped and sent to a Demon King...
as a sacrificial bride! Now, aided by humans and demons
alike, she must try to find her way home while maneuvering
her way through court politics and a war of the races...
But will the price of the ticket home turn out to be more
than Winnie is willing to pay?
Picatrix updates Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and has
existed on the web since March 2005.
It all started with a list... one of those 'Things to Do
Before I Die' lists. I had just finished college and, much
like Winnie in the beginning of the story, found myself
thinking, 'What now?' And so I drew up the list and at the
top of that list was to 'create a webcomic'. After all,
I'd always loved comics and webcomics were just beginning
to become an established part of the internet, following
the 'user created content' boom of the early to mid 2000s.
It seemed like it was time to check 'create a webcomic'
off my to-do list... it was either that or run a marathon!
Picatrix started out, quite literally, as a dream. Having
discovered the manga section at my local library, I'd settled
down for the evening with a stack of graphic novels and
a six-pack of Red Bull. The result: One very fitful night
of sleep and a bizarre dream that seemed to encompass bits
and pieces of each of the graphic novels I'd read. That,
in a nutshell, is Picatrix.
Initially, Picatrix was meant to be a quick and easy yearlong
project to better acquaint myself with the ins and outs
of creating comics. Little did I realize just how attached
to the characters I would become! A year came and went,
the story was told. And I realized that the story had so
much more potential beyond the strict retelling of the dream
that inspired it. Thus began the second and third redraws
(the second was abandoned after I realized that I'd made
critical errors, both in the storyline and in the page format).
But through all the challenges, Picatrix has been a lot
of fun for me to work on... I hope you have as much fun
reading it as I've had creating it!
It's been a wild ride since that strange dream in February
of 2005. I'm excited about the future of Picatrix. The entire
story is slated to be approximately 1000 pages long and
stretch over six books. There are so many scenes that I'm
just dying to draw! I hope you enjoy following Winnie's
adventures as much as I do creating them!
J.L. Haram
A special thanks:
To Bjarte: Picatrix wouldn't exist without
BJ's help and support. There aren't words enough to thank
him for everything he's done to make this dream a reality. To My Parents: To my mom whose sense of humor
and quirky personality has found its way into all the Picatrix
characters and to my dad for supporting my work, even though
he's never been much into manga. To Sam: For all the help and advice she's
given me and for all the fantastic gift art! To Sara: For giving me a good kick whenever
I slack off! To Picatrix's readers: You make Picatrix possible!
Thank you!
JamieLynn Haram lives in rural Lyon County, Minnesota with
her husband and two cats. She works freelance as an illustrator
and an author. In her free time, when not working on Picatrix,
she can be found in her garden or at work renovating her
aging farmhouse.