It's been seven years since I published Playing with Echoes. While not my first story, it was my first to be published, a dark but encouraging allegory for time spent at the university. Yes, it took a decade to produce the book, as I had started the stories while in architorture school. First came visions of a black supercar rolling down by the river after a thunderstorm. Then came other scenes like a movie in my head. I wrote them down and made a book after the concept proved too ambitious for my usual stop motion animation hobby. It was far darker and grittier as well for the usual hero. Thus the change to the novel format and the focus on the stop motion side character, Agent Inari X.

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The difficulties following my unwilling self-revelation have been cumbersome. I never appreciated Inari knowing my secret side all along nor his shocking persuasion to show my true form during that mutual ordeal with vanquishing monsters out of Echo Park. I painted him as one of the seven titans for another to destroy in the end and Inari called me out as inhuman, perhaps more so than he could ever be, since I preyed on his utility in the matter and considered it disposable. That's fair retribution but inconvenient, nonetheless to my other matters in the long goal to rid this land of the puppet government known as the CRoA.

Now Inari is on an old plane bound west to take the fight directly

So it's May the 4th once more and rather than the usual "on this day, I learned the darkness within people" post, let's focus on the good within the bad, the pro within the antagonists that make the novel "Playing with Echoes" a complex adventure between people and their overlapping intentions.

Dr. Mada Snala

I can't deny having the pleasure of making a duplicitous manipulative psychopath as the main antagonist for Inari. Like your typical college bully, the mad scientist sets things up only to watch the fireworks from a safe distance; but there is some good within the doctor. His work with the CRoA is a giant ruse to destroy them, as he reveals late in the novel that he despises their

Agent Inari X. did not debut with the book "Playing with Echoes" and his ride wasn't originally the banged up LP500X prototype affectionately called the "Black Banshee."

He originally debuted in an obscure stop motion series that was my personal but eccentric endeavor while in university, as a support character. Like so many other projects that became big, this started with an April Fool's joke, this time of a certain little cheeky character exploring the desks of studio that became a challenge by others to do everyone's desks. The challenge was accepted and methodically accomplished with three seasons and forty episodes (not counting holiday specials).

Inari X. first publicly appeared i

Yup. Happy New Year to everyone following this slightly melancholic eccentric, from trains to dollhouses, or weirdly true tales. Friend, family, or foe, happy new year. Hope it's a good year that brings you health, wealth, and no need for stealth. ;) Inbox is always open and miracles are always possible. Anno Dommini MMXXIV