Evany Starr & Midnight Penn™ starr blog
STARR BLOG
New Verance City™ is bleeding through time. The past is breaking in. And three people who never asked to be heroes are the only ones who can stop it.
Who??
Midnight Penn – A private conservator and secret heir to an ancient bloodline. Her memories of that legacy have been erased, but when a series of targeted thefts hits her shop, she realizes the city is assembling something catastrophic. She doesn’t chase power; she chases containment.
Evany Rae – A self‑taught engineer and former Coda street vendor. She dreamed of inventing a new sport, but after the Guild rejected her, she kept her prototype bat for protection. By jury‑rigging a broken Vein Core relic into the bat, she created STARR — a reality‑bending weapon that forces ancient magic to obey human engineering.
Emma Rae – Evany’s twin sister. Emma can rebuild her own memories into physical holograms that overlap with the real world. The cost is devastating: the deeper she searches for clues about their missing parents, the more her present‑day memories are violently erased. A faceless stranger haunts her most precious memories, evicting her whenever she gets too close to the truth.
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Welcome to New Verance City™, a city where the past isn’t just a memory — it’s a physical place you can accidentally walk into. Beneath the neon and rain operates the Coda Network, a sprawling black market where thieves and hawkers deal in salvaged tech and ancient contraband. But Coda isn’t just a criminal enterprise. Without knowing it, their everyday smuggling is a city‑wide ritual — a reflection of a hidden cult called The Chantry. The Chantry’s only members are The Acolytes. They believe they are orchestrating the return of the Ancients through the alignment of Vein Core Relics — rare, reality‑warping artifacts. When Cores get too close, reality breaks down. Pockets of New Verance become “Rollback Zones,” frozen in past decades. Ordinary citizens walk through them and never notice anything wrong. Their memories simply adjust. The Acolytes want to force a world‑ending Convergence. The rigid Inventors Guild wants to lock down all anomalous tech. Caught between them are our three unlikely heroes. Midnight Penn – A private conservator and secret heir to an ancient bloodline. Her memories of that legacy have been erased, but when a series of targeted thefts hits her shop, she realizes the city is assembling something catastrophic. She doesn’t chase power; she chases containment. Evany Rae – A self‑taught engineer and former Coda street vendor. She dreamed of inventing a new sport, but after the Guild rejected her, she kept her prototype bat for protection. By jury‑rigging a broken Vein Core into the bat, she created STARR — a reality‑bending weapon that forces ancient magic to obey human engineering. Emma Rae – Evany’s twin sister. Emma can rebuild her own memories into physical holograms that overlap with the real world. The cost is devastating: the deeper she searches for clues about their missing parents, the more her present‑day memories are violently erased. A faceless stranger haunts her most precious memories, evicting her whenever she gets too close to the truth. New Verance is bleeding through time. The past is breaking in. And three people who never asked to be heroes are the only ones who can stop it. -YGA
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A Note Before You Read I’m proud to share something I’ve been building toward for a long time. Below is the first full issue summary with a soft intro to the Evany Starr & Midnight Penn world — the story I’ve carried from dream to sketchbook to script. It’s ready for the next stage, but for now, this is the clearest look at where it all begins. If you’ve come this far, you might as well stay for the read. It won’t take long - YG BEFORE ISSUE #1 — A GLIMPSE INTO NEW VERANCE CITY™
Welcome to New Verance City™. Its 2029. On the surface, it looks like any other modern metropolis. Neon signs, crowded streets, tall modern day buildings, 24 hour bodegas. But beneath that familiar vibe, something is off. Time doesn’t always move forward. Pockets of the city are frozen in the 1970s or 80s — old phone booths, yellow cab stations, half‑burnt neon signs still inhabit when they should not. Most people walk past them without noticing. Their minds not aware of the inconsistency, forgetting what they just saw. But the cracks are spreading. The Coda Network runs the underground. They move stolen tech, rare artifacts, contraband and things most people wouldn’t believe. On the street, they look like your security and private investigator firms, pawn/jewelry shops, night clubs and vip lounges, antique shops, electronics & repair, logistics warehouses, financial consultancies, high end auction houses and art galleries, all with hawkers and thieves who are under Coda employ or influence. But someone higher up is pulling strings, collecting items that shouldn’t exist — Vein Cores, ancient relics that warp reality just by existing. And then there are the three women who never asked to be at the center of it. Midnight Penn™ Known as Penn She owns a small relics shop, but that’s just the cover. Her bloodline is old, powerful, and mostly forgotten — even by her. She has flashes of a hidden vault, a family museum, a legacy erased. She doesn’t chase power. She chases a sense of safety and structure around her. When things start breaking, she’s the one who tries to put them back together. Evany Rae™ An orphan, former baseball player, and part time engineer who once dreamed of inventing a new sport. When the Inventors Guild rejected her, she kept her prototype bat anyway and it became her protection. Then she found a Coda “battery” — a Vein Core Relic™ — and built a regulator for it. The bat started doing things she never designed. Now it’s the only edge she has, and she refuses to let it go. Emma Rae™ Evany’s twin sister. She can walk into her own memories — literally. Anyone can see the memory if you walk into one with her. She rebuilds them as physical places, searching for clues about their missing parents. Each time she does, she loses a piece of the present. And something inside those memories is watching her. This faceless figure that mimics her and pushes her out before she can find the truth. “The Pitch That Never Lands” A championship they won. A trophy that no longer exists. A father whose face is only a photograph. This is where the story begins. Not with a hero answering a call, but with a stolen knife, a library explosion, and two sisters running from a reality that’s already starting to crack. Turn the page. Issue #1 summary follows below. EVANY STARR & MIDNIGHT PENN – ISSUE #1 "The Pitch That Never Lands" Cold Open -Memory Break On a pitcher’s mound inside a memory construct, Emma Rae prepares to throw. Evany stands in the outfield, waving. Emma throws – the ball stops mid‑air, spinning, pulling air and sand into a vacuum. The field freezes. In the stands, a faceless figure mirrors her throw. The ball tears open a portal that drags Emma through; her body disintegrates. The memory detonates. Cut to black. Less Than One Hour Earlier – The Theft A young thief breaks into Penn's relics and antiques shop and steals a mysterious artifact. Penn (Midnight Penn), chases him through alleyways until the thief slips into a Coda hardware storefront. Penn corners him inside, frisks him and finds a shard of glass wrapped in cash – evidence the boy is a hired hand, likely not acting alone. The Explosion A violent explosion erupts at the neighboring library and Penn's search is quickly interrupted. As if on cue, the thief breaks free and escapes into the back of the shop, he leaves with the stolen item. Penn rushes outside, sees debris raining down, and enters the library next door to help survivors. Upstairs she discovers two sisters – Evany and Emma – at the epicenter of the strange blast. On the floor, Emma is limp with Evany behind her trying to gather her up, convinces Penn to help them get out before authorities arrive. Escape Using a back door passage they head down and into an alley, Penn leads the twins to her vehicle. As they flee, a shadowy figure – an Acolyte (later known as the Power Broker) – watches from a shattered library window. He speaks a single caption: “Similarity is here.” The Car Conversation Penn drives off, intending to go to a hospital. Evany insists that Emma just needs rest and that hospitals are dangerous. The twins offer fragments of the truth in exchange for passage. Penn learns they are low‑level street vendors for Coda who have eyes everywhere in New Verance City. She agrees to take them to a hidden warehouse loft on the outskirts. The Aftermath At the destroyed library, the same Acolyte (Power) blends into the crowd, calmly observing the damage and measuring the residual pattern left by the disturbance. Regroup – The Warehouse Penn takes the twins to the warehouse. Emma collapses from exhaustion. Evany explains that Emma can walk into memories. Penn mentions that this is the third incident involving her shop – the thefts are organized. Evany drops her a lead: a secret rooftop auction run by a Coda Delegate named Ledger. Penn agrees to investigate but tells the twins to lay low. Dark Revelation – The Blade Later, in the Coda hardware shop basement, a Coda Technician Delegate examines the stolen knife ornament – a latent shell housing built for something powerful. He produces a Vein Core and, after receiving instructions from another Acolyte (Architect), joins the two pieces. The ancient Milican Blade is restored. Awakenings The Milican Blade pulses with energy, it is somewhere in transit again. Elsewhere, (not very far away) inside a locker at an orphanage sports clubhouse, Evany’s black bat (STARR) begins to glow and pulse in response. Final page & Splash – Penn Witnesses the Collapse Flashback: The Library. Penn enters the ruined library and finds herself inside of Emma's collapsing stadium memory. Evany holds a collapsed Emma as the illusion dissolves. The spinning baseball portal still hangs in the air. Then it's all gone. Penn alone witnesses the impossible overlap of the memory – something familiar, something wrong. End of Issue #1 The Guardian does not care about intention, it only corrects instability. It is pure, blind determinism. When Emma faces it, she cannot “choose” to win. She must align herself with the Guardian’s conditions – become small, accept loss, let go. The Ancients would not approve of the Guardian as it exists, but they would recognize it as a corrupted piece of their design. It helps the rollback – but in a way that threatens even their intended outcome. The real danger is not that the system is working, but that it is working without understanding. From the Lattice Guardian bio (Merenksha Va’Pennestra) or Penn
As a private conservator of rare antiquities in New Verance City, Penn operates quietly in the city—restoring, replicating, and authenticating objects of unknown origin for clients who don’t ask questions. She sees patterns others miss. Unusual requests. Repeat interest in specific designs. Items being targeted with intent. When her shop is hit more than once, she knows: This isn’t random. Penn moves between two worlds. One visible—controlled, professional, precise. One hidden—tied to a bloodline she no longer remembers. The name Va’Pennestra still exists in her space. In her records. On her walls. But the truth behind it is gone. When the twins cross her path, the pattern becomes real. What she suspected is happening: Something is being assembled. “If this thing is going to move… it moves where I can see it.” Penn is driven by a breach she cannot ignore, protecting the twins while uncovering a hidden system assembling dangerous relics, forcing her to act before a convergence rewrites reality beyond her control. Foreshadowing Threat Power Broker (Acolyte) doesn't know she exists yet. When he finds out, he won't just want answers. He'll want her bloodline. And he'll send his best to take it. "Everything has a history. I make sure it stays intact"
Earliest Sketches – 2003 / 2004 Before New Verance City, before the Lattice, before the Acolytes — there was a notebook a name and characters that came right out of multiple dreams. These are the earliest drawings of Evany Rae, in her Red Owls baseball uniform, along with other experimental sketches of her and the bat that would one day become STARR. I was still working with DC on a big Aquaman gig when I drew these in 2003 and 2004, right after I first saw pieces of this story in a dream. The title name Evany Starr and Midnight Penn or a version of it also came to me in that first dream. It was just there, and i remembered to use it. I believe i added Emma as the twin between 2007 and 10'. Evany and Midnight haven’t changed much since the beginning. The world around them has grown. I only ever shared these sketches once, on MySpace in 2007. After that, the physical art stayed in a drawer and the scans were on my computer. Now, twenty years later, I’m pulling them out again. Not because they’re perfect — they’re raw, early, unfinished. But because they’re the first footprints of a story that refused to let go. Welcome to the beginning. — YGA Here are the earliest sketches of Evany Rae from 2003-2012 Evany Rae (the Enginner). A pragmatic, self‑taught systems engineer and former low‑level street vendor for the Coda Network. Evany dreamed of inventing a new armored sport, but after the Inventors Guild rejected her designs, she kept her prototype bionic bat for protection. By jury‑rigging a broken Vein Core into the bat, she created STARR — a highly unstable, reality‑bending weapon that forces ancient magic to obey human engineering. Her role: the anchor in the chaos. Where her sister reaches into the past, Evany survives the present. Her vibe: protective, quietly brilliant, and carrying a chip on her shoulder. Evany built a loophole in a system designed only for “chosen ones,” and she’ll use it to keep her family alive. The Rae twins discover a championship they truly won — but that no longer exists. They can relive it through unstable memory constructs, but they can’t bring it back with them.
Every story has a wound. This one belongs to the Rae twins. Evany and Emma are orphans. They don’t remember their parents. All they have is a single photograph: a man labeled “Dad” in someone’s handwriting, he's in the stands at an unidentified stadium. They’ve kept that photo for years, not knowing if the man is real or just a ghost they’ve invented. Emma has the ability to walk into her own memories. She’s been searching for him — for any trace of the father she can’t recall. But every time she reaches into the past, she loses a piece of her present. And something is always waiting to push her out. Then, inside one of those memories, they saw something else. Themselves. Celebrating. A championship trophy. A final season they know never happened. Their team folded before they could ever get that far. But the memory construct doesn’t lie. They won. Reality just forgot. Now the twins are chasing two impossible things: a father they can’t remember, and a victory that no longer exists. They can relive that championship through unstable memory constructs — the cheers, the final play, the weight of the trophy. But they can’t bring any of it back with them. Not the proof. Not the truth. Not him. As the writer, I don’t know if they’ll ever find their father. Do they find their mother? That mystery is still alive for me too. But I do know that searching for him will lead them to a truth about themselves they never expected. They were champions once. And someone erased it. This is the story of how they try to take it back. — YGA 
I’ve been an artist and illustrator in the comic book industry since 1992. Thirty plus years of drawing other people’s worlds. But this story — Evany Starr & Midnight Penn — is mine. It’s my first, and it’s been locked up, waiting to drop.
I saw the early parts of it in a dream. I woke up, wrote it down, drew the characters, even scripted a first issue. I mapped out how the mechanisms of the bat worked. Then the hard drives corrupted. Everything digital was gone. But I still had my sketchbooks. The characters were there, intact, from 2003. The dream and what i remembered of it was still in my head. That was over twenty years ago. A few years back, I rewrote another draft. That’s when the library scene came alive — the explosion, the Acolyte watching from the second floor, the trio escaping to Penn’s car. There was dialogue now. I set it aside again. Then I picked it up one more time. Its 2026 and now it’s here in the STARR BLOG. The story I was supposed to tell. -Yvel Guichet 1. World of New Verance
Everything about the city, the Lattice, Vein Cores, rollback zones, and the rules of reality. 2. Characters Profiles, sketches, and thoughts about Evany, Emma, Penn, Velek, the Acolytes, and Delegates. 3. Lore & Artifacts Deep dives into the Chantry, the Acolytes, the Continuum, STARR, the Milican Blade, the Artemis Core, and any ancient history. 4. Process & Sketches My 2003‑2004 drawings, rough layouts, script snippets, and any “behind the scenes” content. 5. Blog Updates Shorter posts about milestones (new art, convention appearances, crowdfunding, site updates). 6. Excerpts & Previews Sample pages, panel descriptions, or short story fragments. |
AuthorI’ve been a comic artist since 1992. This is my first story — born from a dream, lost to corrupted hard drives, but kept alive in sketchbooks from 2003. After a recent rewrite, it’s finally here. Archives
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