A few years ago, someone I shared workspace with on a daily basis referred to Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan as “your naked faerie comic”. I was annoyed that someone who I thought really ought to know better would reduce a sprawling, multifaceted comic to that, but once I gave it some thought, I thought “OK, if that's what people see, let's give them a naked faerie comic — and a half!”

Of course, it took me years before I got around to actually figuring out what I wanted to do with that concept. Did I want to work with established characters from ROCR, or did I want new ones? Did I want an urban setting as seen in some ROCR storyline, or did I want to go with faeries as a hunter-gatherere people living in the forest? Did I want to take the comic in a more adult direction, or did I want to do a naked version of the Smurfs? Eventually, I decided just to start somewhere and see what would stick, and let the comic be whatever it wanted to be. And so the first storyline is more adult, driven in part by sex and in another part by xenophobia.

Spun Off will be at times funny, sweet, exciting, bawdy and thoughtful. Compared to ROCRt's set in an earlier period in which the faeries were a little more hardened and isolationist, so they don't have much of an awareness of what goes on in the next village over.

The faeries of Spun Off live as they have done for thousands of years, as hunters, gatherers, fishermen, craftsfolk and farmers of small critters. They are a tight-knit group, protected by wards surrounding the perimeter of their hunting grounds and by their protector gods. Protector gods are larger, more powerful versions of themselves who watch over the villages and demand obedience in return. Nobody pretends they are almighty or have created anything. In this village, the Protector Goddess Emea takes a relaxed attitude to her charges, as long as they keep their romantic lives indoors. In the next village over, the Protector God may have a very different attitude, but the faeries there may also have fangs and tails, and eat mud for breakfast. Or they may be strict vegetarians who shun the use of tools. Who knows?

Spun Off is drawn mostly in pencil, with minimal Photoshop work, and will aim for a schedule of three strips per week.