the fun thing about the RIFTS universe created by kevin siembieda (and propagated by palladium books!) was that it is teeming with such a rich array of choices for creating characters. everything from aliens, monsters, mutants, humans, cyborgs, dogs, rats, dragons… ogres… you name it! and yes, i said dogs. this is where bowie comes in. bowie, a free-born dog-boy (escapees of the genetically created dog-boys of the coalition army) and part of our group of desperados. he is their resident mechanic, driver (of petunia their off-road transport), and all around go-to guy, er dog, and the heart and soul of the group. the teams best friend if you will… sorry couldn’t help it 
on the flip-side of bowie we have magali. the leader of the rat resistance ensconced in the underground catacombs of the coalition’s lone star complex. i modeled magali after calisto, a bad-ass chic with an eye-patch, from my years of reading the uncanny x-men. i figured make her a rat and you just one-up the bad-ass quotient 
when MOD was collected it finally gave me the opportunity to give it an official title page which it lacked with it’s original serialized run. i wanted the title page to also double as a lead-in to the story. these kinda of images (the title aspect aside) are what i often refer to as “beat” panels or pieces as they enhance mood and/or pacing within a story. when collecting MOD i originally wanted to add in many pages like this through-out the story to smooth out elements i thought were often rough or lacked finesse. back when i was writing MOD in 1999 i often cut pages or sequences due to space as i was alotted 8-10 pages per chapter. one of the biggest was a showdown between the burster of the group (johnny) and the aishwarra, the large alien creature that plays a pivotal role in the story. however, 10 years later i felt my style would be far too different and the pages would be too obvious and perhaps pull the reader out of the story. so aside from cleaning up some panels and character renderings the art you see in the collected edition is virtually untouched.
Having followed your publications since my introduction to your art through Palladium Books I can say that MOD is truly intriguing from point of view of a fan. I’ve been a fan of your black and white character pieces ever since your introduction of the CS Mutant Rat in Rifts Lone Star, so it is both pleasantly nostalgic and exciting to see another Mutant Rat take the stage.
i loved my time with palladium. there are times when i would love to back and dabble in their worlds.
my roots are in b&w but as the industry went colour i followed suit and most of my work seems to lean more towards that. i am really itchin’ to get back into some heavy graphic black and whit work. and while the green river killer project that i am working on for dark horse does fall into that realm it isn’t quite the same… i need a nice sci-fi or retro noir to really play it up. time to develop some of those ideas… and satiate my cravings