After the initial label nate and I did for liquid gravity’s pale from the crypt, there was a period where we weren’t sure what we would do with it next. Would they want to keep using the same label, change it with each release, or maybe something different? I forget exactly how it came about, but we eventually decided to do something related to the original, while tying it into a costume party they had planned around halloween.
After chatting with brendan, we settled on the idea to do full illustrations of the three side characters from the original label, the brewmeister, the hop witch, and the malt keeper (they were our parodies of the crypt keeper, the old witch, and the vault keeper). In this case, the side characters had all been based on the lg crew, brendan, celeste, monica, and beau and I really wanted to go the extra mile in their depictions. While also trying to find a way to flesh them out for any potential future releases. I wrote up little backstories, and did my best to give them depth in their single panel origin stories.
I knew the hop witch had to be the first. Celeste had fallen in love with the character based on her, and had planned to be in costume as the hop witch at the halloween ball. I knew i wanted to include her cat, but outside of that i really just wanted to do a cool witches cabin, with a cauldron, and add in as many spooky details as possible. It wasn’t too long after this that ec comics was introduced to pale from the crypt. Which lead to it becoming officially licensed, and the decision to have each release be tied to an original piece of cover art from the comics. But god was I glad to get the chance to do these three illustrations. They were a lot of work, but I was incredibly happy with the reception and how they turned out. It’s always so rewarding when you get to do cool stuff for your friends… it’s only made better when they love how it turns out.
