Somewhere around late 2013 I’ve read a good chunk of the Superior Spider-Man comic run. It’s about Otto Octavius becoming Spider-man, and trying to do his best to fill Peter Parker’s shoes. I honestly don’t remember if the story was any good, but I do remember that one of the characters in it had a pretty major impact on my life: Anna Maria Marconi, his love interest. A woman with dwarfism.
Wanting to express my appreciation for the lady, I wanted to draw fanart of her. But, can a porn artist draw little people? I never considered the idea before, so I searched the internet for such works and oh boy, have I found them. That’s how I discovered shortstacks and thus began my couple year long interest in them.
Alfie, as a character was born in those early days. I’ve doodled a bunch of shorties, and one design kept coming back- a long haired, pointy eared kind of hobbit like girl with intense cuteness about her. I named her Alfie, because she’s short, hairy and likes pussy.
If you don’t get the joke, watch a couple of episodes of Alf.
Around the same time I’ve been psyching myself up to write and draw a longer porn comic, that attempts to marry plot and porn in a meaningful way. Alfie seemed like a good fit for the main character- just archetypical enough a character to draw the reader in without spending too much time on exposition.
Alfie was meant to be maybe three chapters long. Maybe ninety pages when it comes down to it. I did not want to get bogged down with a long story. I knew the perils of long form webcomics. I am no fool. But then, came Vera and my reason crumbled.
Back then, I was terrified of my audience abandoning the story, the second the sex stops. Halfway through chapter one, I was becoming nervous about the distinct lack of fucking. Why, there’s been like seven pages since any porn happened! I decided that I needed some eye-candy to keep the reader’s attention. Originally, Alfie was meant to meet up with her cranky old father- a minor character that did not matter much- but in a spur of anxious fanservice, I’ve changed the character to Alfie’s mom, without even changing the dialogue.
The second I saw the two of them on the page, and the positive response from the readers at the time, I knew I had something here. Between chapter 1 and 2 I re-wrote the entire story to center around these two’s relationship and the way they both change over the course of the comic. Vera revealing the tender heart beneath the mean exterior, and Alfie revealing all the jagged edges hidden behind the cuteness.
That was the only part of the whole damn comic I had planned out. Everything else changed several dozen times over, but the relationship between the Tolman girls had always been my guiding star. No matter how much of a tangled mess the rest of the story was, I think that’s the one thing that kept the whole thing together.
It’s been around twelve years (I can’t be bothered to check, sorry) since I’ve begun this comic and I can not be objective about it. I love and hate it too much. I wanted to quit it too many times to count, but I always knew I could not, because then Alfie and Vera would not get a proper ending they deserved.
Let’s just say that the whole thing had been a labour of love, with all the good and terrible things that phrase entails.
I hope that it had been a good read for you and maybe you found it meaningful in some way.
-InCase
