Namesake (webcomic)
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| Namesake | |
|---|---|
 Cover of the third print collection | |
| Publication information | |
| Schedule | Three times a week |
| Format | Ongoing series |
| Genre | Fantasy |
| Publication date | September 2010 – present |
| Creative team | |
| Created by | Megan Lavey-Heaton and Isabelle Melançon |
Namesake is a fantasy webcomic by Megan Lavey-Heaton and Isabelle Melançon. In Namesake, many worlds from other works of fiction are real parallel universes, and people with certain names can travel to certain worlds.
In Namesake, a Namesake is a person who can magically travel to other worlds based on their name. These worlds are established worlds from fairy tales, literature, film, and other media, but in Namesake are real parallel universes. Each world has a name associated with it – Wendys travel to Neverland and Alices travel to Wonderland. The main character of Namesake is Emma Crewe, a young woman from Toronto who doesn't read, or watch TV, or even have the internet at home. She discovers that she is a Namesake, but travels to Oz and is expected to fill the role of a Dorothy (of which several people with that name have visited and helped Oz before). Emma has to deal with Oz's troubles, figure out how and why she went there, and how to get back to her sister.[1][2][3][4]
Emma's younger sister Elaine is also a character: she has "writer" powers, allowing her to affect the outcome of events. Other characters include Ozma and Emma's best friend Ben, as well as a society of Namesakes called Calliope, and their enemies the "Rippers" who have sold their own names.[1][2][3]
Namesake uses color sparingly against mainly black-and-white art. Color is used to emphasise important items or to demonstrate when magic is being used.[2]
Creators
Namesake is created by Megan Lavey-Heaton and Isabelle Melançon. Lavey-Heaton is a journalist, designer, and writer from Pennsylvania who has been a co-editor of the Valor fairy tale comic anthology and a freelance book designer for Hiveworks. Melançon is a French-Canadian artist who lives in Ottawa; she has been published in several comics anthologies, including Womanthology, and is co-CEO of Hiveworks.[1]
The creators described a frustration with modern adaptations of fairy tales and an exhaustion with "grimdark" retellings, and said that they started planning the story in 2008. They said in a 2017 interview that the majority of the creative process is "hashed out through daily chats, monthly story meetings, and poring over the sketches and final pages to tweak the dialogue... After we've hashed out the story, either from chats or the rough script, Isa [Melaçon] does a series of blue-line sketches that I approve. Then Isa inks the pages and sends them to our amazing colorist Gisele [Weaver] to flat. Once Isa has the pages back, she shades them and passes them on to me. I letter the pages in InDesign and do a second draft of the dialogue based on the sketches and the original script/story chat. Isa approves the final dialogue, then I export the pages for the website."[2]