A while back I posted X-calibre, a story I started 35 years ago. As I stated yesterday, it is slated for publication in the next issue of Short Stories and Tall Tales (along with Starduster parts 1 & 2). Starduster part 1 has been exhibited and won an award, so I was loathe to do much to it other than delete the text. X-calibre is another matter.

First off, my brother and I decided to fore-go all references to the term X-calibre, as it has subsequently been inducted into the X-men Universe (1984). The only viable option was to refer to the 1/2 human, 1/2 Android protagonist by the acronym inscribed on his chest, X.K.L.B.R.

I decided to display the pages as they appear in spreads to get the effect of unification I was striving for. If you look closely at pages 3-4 you will see that the gutter forms part of the rock peaks of both pages.

I see plenty of areas to improve in both stories. certainly if I did them today they would appear quite differently. The goal was to try to find a balance between improvements and history.

I included one new drawing, a 2 page spread in my Photoshop enhanced pencil style which I call Pento. The file is over 1/2 a gigabyte of layering enhancements over an un-inked pencil drawing I did in 2000.