What big teeth you have…Bleeding Heart

A scientist in training finds a wounded werewolf in the woods, and does the inadvisable thing…

Bleeding Heart

Kickstarter ending 9/3/14

So, this isn’t how I wanted to begin this particular post, but the crowdfunder, Sabrina Cotungo, has a history of working on and in animation (and is a storyboard artist for a Disney series…). Her animated short video, “Kagemono,” features an adorable little fox and what just might be an undead hyena, and I’m so tickled by both that I must encourage the world to see them. It’s a great animated piece, sweet and just a bit haunting, and I can only hope it speaks well for the quality of Bleeding Heart!

But that’s not why we’re here. Although it is a good excuse.

Bleeding Heart is the story of a young scientist-in-training–we’ll call him Henry because that’s his name. He’s got a soft heart and a dreamer’s head, and when he goes into the woods–the possibly haunted, fairy-infested woods–he finds an injured werewolf in the dark forest.

And brings the beast home.

What follows in the short graphic novel is a story of identity, brass goggles (oh, I hope), self-understanding, and possibly a lot of angst about not becoming a monster. The magic of the forest has its own sort of spell, and the further Henry involves himself in the woods and its people, the more his own spirit becomes at risk. Bleeding Heart is the first part of a webcomic of scientists, experiments, and awesome hair–more information on the series “Glass Scientists” on artist Sabrina Cotugno’s art blog tumblr. It’s the solid, hold-in-your-hand book that will kick off the webcomic and introduce readers to the world. After that, we’ll see where Cotugno’s muse takes her.

Wherever it goes, she’s got an impressive head start–after a week, the project reached $10,000, schottischeing past most of the critical stretch goals Cotungo laid out. Unfortunately, she also burned through all her work-intensive, customized pledge points, which is a pity, but the trade-off is that the project’s a winner early in the run, so that’s a good thing. And there’s still lots of nice swag–bookmarks and stickers and all that fun stuff.

So if you like your werewolves huge, salivating, and engimatic, and your  scientists gentle and doe-eyed–I’m flashing back to Carlos from “Welcome to Night Vale” over this guy–then Henry and Bleeding Heart has a lot to offer. Although the plot is highly reminiscent of a werewolf yaoi I stumbled across at our local comic store–at least the first couple of pages, at some point in the middle the content went down a different road entirely. Probably.

Note: Images used above are included to promote the work of crowdfunding artists, and are owned by the original creator.