THE ORIGINS OF BLACK WOMB
AS TOLD BY MATTHEW LEDREW

 

The conception of the character(s) of Black Womb started when I was about four years old. I know that seems far-fetched, given the subject matter, but it's true. It started with a television show that captured my imagination, as I know it did many other children of the '80s: Astro Boy.

That's right. In no small way, Black Womb owes its creation to Astro Boy, as weird as it sounds saying that out loud. I remember pretending to be him and making up my own heroes and villians while living in Bellevue, Newfoundland. They were some of my earliest memories.

Now, most people eventually grow out of that stage. I didn't. I can't imagine any writer ever does, but I could just be trying to make myself feel better with that one.

I never stopped imagining the different stories and characters and situations that could come out of everyday life. As I grew, the charcters changed and developed with me. Eventually I forgot about Astro Boy (and my first creation, Super-Matt. Very original, wasn't it?) and started writing a series of adventure books about a character named Alexis Temple, also known as Chaos.
I'm not going to patronize you. They were bad. I mean God-awful. Towards the end they started to get some flesh to them, but I'm convinced nothing can save the first few. Maybe Engen Books will release them as children's books one day... but I doubt it.

 

 Once the eight books in the Chaos series was done and over with, I figured that was it for my writing career... at age 14. At some point every child gives up their dreams of being a firefighter or a racecar driver. Now, I thought it was my turn. Some people will probably tell you it should have been. Maybe they're right, but we'll stick to the facts here. :)

For about six months something just bugged me. Really, really bugged me. I've described it in the forward to Black Womb as a piece of meat caught between your teeth. That's still the best way I know how to describe it.

One day I was reading through a Wizard magazine and flipped to the price guide in the back. Anyone who read comics at any point in their lives is probably in some way familiar with it. They were color-coded and gave the prices and events that happened in each issue. Now, I was supposed to be studying at the time. Math, I think it was. I always tried my best, but my brain was always against me. It would always try to think up way to distract me from the task at hand. It's funny: when you're a kid that means you're lazy and a procrastinator... when you're an adult and published, it means you're dedicated. Weird.

 

I forced myself to sit back down at my desk to work. For some reason I picked up an empty notebook instead. I had promised myself I would not pick up the magazine again... but I had made no such promise about the notebook. I opened it and wrote CHS (code for Chaos) #1, then gave a one-line account of what happened in that 'issue'. (I kind of grew out of comics, so we tend to call them 'chapters' now... but you get the point).

It took about 50 'issue' to chronicle the events of the eight Chaos stories I had already written. However, rather than call that enough and go back to studying... I wrote down the number 51.

It continued on like that for a while. For about a week that was what I did when I was bored: I plotted a novel series. Some of those old ideas were pretty wild and may resurface someday in the pages of a different novel.

As time dragged on the one-line descriptions became two lines. Then half a page. Then finally a full page (which is decent for a brief outline of a single chapter). The big deal came a while later, with chapter 78. Tapping my pen against my desk as I tried to figure out what to write, I eventually scrawled this onto the lined paper:

'CHS vol.1 #78 - Chs meets Soul, Sara, Cathy, Alexander and Linda at Shane.'

 

Boom. Just like that, life changed.

I didn't realize it then, but those names I had written down would come to be the focus of my adult life. Maybe if I had realized it then, I would have thrown away my pencil and ran out of the room screaming. We'll never know.

The more I wrote about them, the more I liked them. At some point, I decided that I was good enough to stop just plotting the stories... I wanted to actually write one. I wanted to write a whole novel based on one of the ideas I had sketched out in my notebook. There were a lot there. Who knows, maybe some of them would have made for better novels. But for me, there was only one choice.

I had to tell the story of Black Womb.

The actual origin of the story itself... well, I don't want to spoil it. I'm sure I will someday, just not right here and not right now. You'll just have to go pick it up yourself, if you haven't already.
Anyway, its been good getting all the off my chest and out there. I'm sure I'll be doing it again come the second novel in the series, Transformations in Pain. See you there!

Best Regards,
Matthew LeDrew