Beginning this week at trekkercomic.com, I present another key tale in the life of Mercy St. Clair. When TRIAL BY FIRE was first published, my only regret at the time was that the color and printing was far darker that either I or the colorist (monster-talented Moose Bauman) had intended. It was early in the days of digital color, and we just didn’t make proper allowances for the transition from the brightness of an image on a lit computer screen to that on the printed page. So, with apologies to Moose, I have taken the chance here to tweak things a bit, shifting levels on the over-all color, and changing the panel border color from the original green/brown/gray to the starker black. Above is a side-by-side comparison of page 1, as it first appeared, and how it looks after my meddling.

Apart from that one concern, I remain proud to this day of the story, which contains a major event in the life of our young heroine as well as, I hope, a tolerably brisk and engaging adventure.