When there’s an evil beastie messing up your house, who you gonna call?
Nope, not the Ghostbusters. They couldn’t handle this business. Only Abigail Astoundo, 11-year-old Beastie Buster has what it takes to save the day.
Today we’re taking a look at the first story in Saturday Morning Snack Attack! vol. 2, a tale of action, adventure and flying llama creatures– Abigail Astoundo: Beastie Buster.
Despite her young age, Abigail is ready to take on the Astoundo family business of busting evil beasties using her family’s legendary sword, the Beastbane– a mystical blade that has the ability to turn into whatever a monster is weak against. Abigail might be strong, brave and confident when it comes to fighting beasties, but she’s about to find out there are worst things than monsters lurking in the woods– like teenage boys.
Abigail Astoundo just might be the world’s last beastie buster, but it seems her kind is about to be replaced by beastie trainers– people capable of capturing and controlling monsters using magic gauntlets. Only 11-years-old and Abigail’s already finding out that her job skill is becoming obsolete and that the world is moving on without her. But there’s still plenty of work for a beastie buster to do–because sometimes, an evil beastie is really just an innocent creature being manipulated and controlled by a beastie trainer.
Concept art of Abigail Astoundo by Rose McClain
Rose McClain, the artist for Abigail Astoundo: Beastie Buster is an up-and-coming superstar who also works on the educational comic Solution Squad and the webcomic Scoundrels. I met her at Detroit Fanfare when I was premiering Snack Attack! vol. 1 and she was there to promote Solution Squad. She picked up a copy of the book and we got to talking and she said she was an artist who’s always looking for new work. When you’re a writer and you hear those words, you don’t hesitate. I immediately got in touch with Rose for the next volume of Snack Attack! and I knew she’d be the perfect artist for Abigail Astoundo.
I got the idea to write Abigail after watching the Adventure Time episode “Fionna and Cake.” I loved the idea of the gender-swapped Adventure Time characters, but the episode kind of irked me because I wanted to know why the show couldn’t just have a female lead from the start. Abigail Astoundo was created from that frustration. I wanted a high-energy adventure story with a spunky female lead (and of course, her fabulous flying llama friend.)
Rose fell in love with Abigail immediately and I knew it was a match made in heaven. We started to collaborate together on how to bring the story together and we decided to do something new, something I hadn’t yet done as a comic book writer. The designs for the characters were all created by me and then tweaked by Rose to look more appealing.
Original Abigail Astoundo concept by Kris Moore
It took me a long time to get Abigail’s look down right. I knew I wanted her to have some sort of monster skin cape/scarf with a hat to match, but it took me forever to get it right. Eventually I came up with the giant monster paws, which Rose took even further by giving the paws a kind of life of their own. They can hang behind Abigail like a cape, cover her own arms like sleeves or move on their own to express emotion. I’m not going to lie– I wish I had a cape like this in real life. I would wear it all the time and embarrass my family and friends.
You may have noticed that Abigail’s sword, the Beastbane, has a giant bite mark taken out of it. The bite was my idea– I wanted the sword to look old and beat up, since it was passed down in the Astoundo family for generations. I figured at some point, some monster had taken a chomp out of it.
Rose picked up on the idea and took it even further by adding a little bite mark or missing section whenever the Beastbane transforms into another object. When you’re reading the story, try to find all the little hidden bite marks.
Here’s hoping that you’ll see more Abigail Astoundo in the future. Rose and I have already talked about continuing with Abigail’s story. Where does she go from here now that she knows beastie trainers are out there, taking control of monsters and making them do bad things? How do you survive in the world when your profession of choice is dying out? These are the questions we look forward to answering.
But for now, you can find Abigail Astoundo in Saturday Morning Snack Attack! vol. 2 now available for purchase in the K is for Komics store.
K is for Komics 