I'm not a Legend of Zelda fan. Which, oddly enough, is the very thing that attracted me to this call for submissions.

Early last year, cartoonist Raven Perez hopped onto the semi-secret Webcomic Creators Facebook group and encouraged people to contribute to a digital anthology of short Zelda stories that he would distribute for free.

Here's the tiny Zelda tale that I submitted in April 2013:

Storywise, it's nothing special. Just a few brief pages that sum up my general distaste for the concept behind Zelda (and other "save the helpless princess!" stories).

But visually I was seeking to experiment. Inspired by the vector art my collaborator E.D. used in our Super Haters story arc, I wanted to push the color-heavy art style I'd utilized in The Edge of the Earth one step further.

I drew some raw lineart for my Zelda story that I eventually cleaned up and turned into this still raw (but decidedly less crappy) lineart:

With the lineart in place, I crafted my digital colors. A typical vector art process, I guess. But it was all new to me at the time! (Not to mention really tedious.)

Then I submitted my short story to Raven and patiently waited. Finally, a couple of weeks ago he decided to nix the project for good due to the low number of submissions he received.

No biggie. These kinds of things fall apart all the time. I'm just glad that the Zelda Jamthology is officially dead so I can unearth this comic... FROM THE VAULTS!!!