Evany Starr & Midnight Penn™ STARRFALL THE 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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When I was in high school, I had a story living in my head. I drew character designs, sketched panel pages, and filled a notebook with story beats and prose. That story was "The Remidy Saga". I started it sometime in my sophomore year, long before I ever thought about writing midterms. By the time my junior year English class asked for a midterm essay, I realized I had a choice. I could write about someone else’s book, a current day topic, or I could turn in something of my own – something I had already been building for years. I asked my teacher if I could submit a short story outline based on my existing work. She said yes. I took the notebook, pulled together the essential beats, and wrote a seven‑page sci‑fi outline called The Remidy Saga. I got a 95%. Then I set it aside. I always kept it and the notebook with the full version stored with the artwork it was meant for. Until recently I haven't looked at or read it for over 30 years. The comic itself never got finished. The sketchbook, however, kept growing. By the time I graduated in 1991, that same sketchbook became part of my portfolio for art school at Pratt Institute. And in 1992, it helped me land my first professional comic book interview. I was interviewed by Jim Shooter on a Friday, and then again by Bob Layton the following Monday. Bob Layton hired me. I was nineteen years old. For most of my professional career, I never thought of myself as a writer. I was an introvert, a pure artist, an illustrator for comics and other media. Writing still feels new and unpolished to me. But I realize now that I had been creating stories in my mind for characters for years, unconsciously. I spent thirty plus years absorbing story structure by drawing other people’s scripts. That’s not a disadvantage; it’s a different kind of apprenticeship. I learned what works on the page, what flows, what lands emotionally and visually. I internalized pacing, panel flow, and visual storytelling in a way that pure writers often struggle to learn. Now I’m applying that intuition to my own work. That brings me back to The Remidy Saga. Thirty six years after that midterm, I pulled out the old notebook. The pages were yellowed, stained, probably by flood water, but the ink was not smudged, the ideas were still there. A global defense organization. An alien emperor forcing human commanders to fight his war. A mysterious hooded figure who believed his own people had gone too far. Moral questions about power, coercion, and good intentions. I didn’t know it then, but that was the same soil where Evany Starr & Midnight Penn would eventually grow. The same distrust of institutions. The same tension between survival and morality. The same belief that dragging innocents into someone else’s conflict leaves scars that don’t heal. I wasn't aware of any overlap while I wrote it. I cleaned up the spelling, standardized the names, and kept every plot point, character, and theme intact. What you’ll read below in the link is the story I wrote as a teenager. You’ll see the seeds of everything I’m still writing today. Read *Remidy Saga: Unwanted War*. Then look at *Evany Starr & Midnight Penn*. The parallels might surprise you.  The original "Remidy Saga: Unwanted War" 2 page intro opener and final page summary + moral addendum midterm paper.
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I've been thinking more about the title.
When I first talked about naming the graphic novel, I mentioned leaning toward STARFALL (single R). Cleaner. Simpler. Easier to read at a glance. But stories have a funny way of telling you what they want to be called. The deeper I got into building this world, the more I kept circling back to something that had already been there from the beginning. STARR - STARRFALL. Two Rs. In-world, people don't even agree on how to spell it. Some call it STARFALL. Others insist it's STARRFALL. Old forums contradict each other. Archived footage labels it differently. Conspiracy communities obsess over tiny inconsistencies the same way they obsess over everything connected to what happened to New Verance City™. And that's the point. Because STARRFALL was never meant to feel clean. It's an event people remember incorrectly. A myth people argue over. A piece of history buried under misinformation, missing context, and fragmented memory. The extra R also connects back into places I haven't fully talked about yet. Things hidden in plain sight. Designations, etc. The more I sat with it, the more I realized I wasn't changing the title. This is me listening to the story. So moving forward: EVANY STARR & MIDNIGHT PENN remains the character story. STARRFALL becomes the larger event around them. The mystery. The wound. The thing this city still hasn't recovered from. -YGA I’ve been thinking a lot about what to call my gn. So here's a follow up to last week's social media post.
The working title has always been 'Evany Starr & Midnight Penn' ... that’s the duo, that’s the heart of it. But a graphic novel like what im planning also needs a name that stands on its own. Something that feels like an event, not just a character listing. For a long time, I wasn’t sure what that name should be. Then I realized, the title is already inside the story. In the world of Evany Starr & Midnight Penn STARFALL is the unofficial name for something that happened to New Verance City years ago. A meteor related catastrophe that left scars, not on its landscape, but on memory itself. Most people don’t remember it correctly. Some don’t remember it at all. But the evidence survives online, in fragments... corrupted footage, dead forums, contradictory witness accounts. The name also carries a double meaning. In world, conspiracy communities often spell it STARRFALL (with two Rs), which happens to mirror Evany’s bat designation (S.T.A.R.R. I know I didnt tell you about that yet) lol. It's not destiny. It’s a pattern – one of many the characters uncover as they realize the city is built on top of something it tried to forget. So STARFALL isn’t a “chosen one” title. It’s not a superhero identity. It happened to the city. It belongs to the event. To the unanswered questions that remain entangled in the present. So listen, I’m leaning toward STARFALL (single R) as the graphic novels main title, because it’s cleaner. The in world spelling stays as a nod to the conspiracy culture. I know some people might have other ideas and I’m open to hearing them. But this is where my instincts keep landing because the name already does what I need it to do. It feels like a scar. And it tells you without a single panel, that something went wrong in this city and nobody agrees on what. Read some of my blog before you jump in with an opinion. I’d love to know what you think. -YG 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” Its about 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: STARFALL – ISSUE #1 “The Pitch That Never Lands” Cold Open – Memory Break On a pitcher’s mound inside a memory construct, Emma Rae throws. The ball stops mid‑air. The field freezes. A faceless figure in the stands mimics her motion. A portal tears open and drags Emma through. Her body disintegrates. The memory detonates. Black. The Theft A young thief breaks into Penn’s relics shop and steals a strange artifact. Penn chases him into a Coda hardware storefront, where she finds evidence he was only a hired hand. The Explosion An explosion rips through the neighboring library. The thief escapes. Penn rushes inside to help survivors and discovers two sisters – Evany and Emma – at the blast’s center. Emma is limp. Evany convinces Penn to get them out before authorities arrive. Escape Penn leads the twins to her vehicle. As they flee, a shadowy Acolyte watches from a shattered library window. A single caption: “Similarity is here.” The Car Conversation Evany insists hospitals are unsafe. The twins offer fragments of the truth in exchange for passage. Penn learns they are low‑level Coda vendors. She agrees to take them to a hidden warehouse. The Aftermath At the destroyed library, the same Acolyte blends into the crowd, calmly measuring the disturbance. Regroup – The Warehouse Emma collapses from exhaustion. Evany explains Emma can walk into memories. Penn realizes the thefts are connected. Evany drops a lead: a secret rooftop auction run by a Coda Delegate named Ledger. Dark Revelation – The Blade In the Coda shop basement, a Technician Delegate joins a stolen knife housing with a Vein Core. The ancient Milican Blade is restored. Awakenings The Milican Blade pulses. Elsewhere, in a locker at an orphanage clubhouse, Evany’s black bat begins to glow in response. Final Splash – Penn Witnesses the Collapse Penn enters the ruined library and finds herself inside Emma’s collapsing stadium memory. Evany holds Emma as the illusion dissolves. The spinning portal and the baseball that opened it hangs in the air. Then it’s gone. Penn alone witnesses the impossible overlap – something familiar, something wrong. End of Issue #1 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. 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. |
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STARR BLOG POST #1
WHATS THE NAME ABOUT?
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
January 2030
Categories
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Character Intro #1
Welcome to New Verance City™
The Championship
Starr Blog Intro
Vein Core Relics
Earliest Sketches of Evany Rae 2003-
The Rae Twins & CODA
The Remidy Saga:
Unwanted War
MASK ATLAS ARG COMING SOON!
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