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What the Hell Is Zamora?

36 minutes ago

6 min read

It starts with... one sketch; I don't know why....

“Your first version doesn't have to be impressive. It just has to exist long enough for you to make the next version. That's how a sketch becomes a character. A character becomes a story. And eventually, a story becomes a world.”

Before Father Zamora fought monsters, I had no idea what Zamora was.

I just had a drawing.

Then another.

Then a character.

Then a story.

Then, somehow, a whole mythology started growing around it.

And now I have a graphic novel sitting on people's shelves.

So maybe it's time I actually explain what the hell I've been making all these years.

The Origin

When I first started Zamora, I didn't have a universe.

I didn't have a carefully constructed mythology.

I didn't have a five-year franchise plan.

I had ideas that wouldn't leave me alone.

A character.

Some monsters.

A few scenes.

A lot of sketches.

And the vague feeling that something bigger was hiding underneath it all.

That's usually how personal projects begin.

Not with a business plan.

Not with a finished manuscript.

Usually, it's just:

"What if...?"

Then you draw it.

Then you ask another question.

Then you draw that.

And eventually, you look back and realize you've accidentally created a world.

That's basically what happened with Zamora.

Sketch → idea → character → mythology → graphic novel.

The funny thing is that if I showed you some of the earliest drawings, you probably wouldn't immediately recognize the Zamora that exists today.

And that's exactly why I want to show them.

Not because they're good.

Some of them absolutely aren't.

But because they show something artists don't talk about enough:

Your original idea is allowed to be terrible.

It just has to survive long enough to become better.

The Artist's Version of Worldbuilding

One of the biggest mistakes I made early on was thinking I needed to figure everything out before I could move forward.

Who are these characters?

What's their history?

Where did the monsters come from?

How does the supernatural world work?

What's the mythology?

What happens next?

It can become overwhelming very quickly.

Especially when you're trying to build an original universe from scratch.

But I've learned that worldbuilding doesn't always happen before the story.

Sometimes the story teaches you what the world is.

You draw a monster.

Then you ask why it exists.

You give it a name.

Then you ask where that name came from.

You give it a weakness.

Then you realize that weakness says something about the creature.

You put the creature into a story.

Then suddenly it has history.

Then another character knows that history.

Then another character disagrees with it.

And now you've got mythology.

That's how Zamora started growing.

Not all at once.

Piece by piece.

Which is probably fitting, considering how long it took me to finish the damn thing.

The World of Zamora

At its heart, Zamora is a horror story rooted in Filipino mythology, Catholic imagery, demons, monsters, and cosmic horror.

It's a world where the supernatural isn't simply something hiding in the shadows.

It's something that can tear apart the rules of reality.

Father Zamora is a 100-year-old priest and unconventional exorcist.

He's not exactly the kind of priest the Church would put on a recruitment poster.

He's spent a lifetime fighting things most people will never see.

Demons.

Possessions.

Creatures born from human darkness.

And things that are much older than humanity itself.

But Father Zamora isn't simply fighting monsters.

He's trying to understand what kind of world would create them.

And that's where the mythology gets bigger.

Because the monsters aren't random.

They come from somewhere.

They have histories.

They have motives.

And some of them may be connected to forces far older than the Church, humanity, or even the world as we understand it.

That's the part of Zamora I want to explore.

Not simply:

"Here's a scary monster."

But:

"Why does this monster exist?"

And perhaps more importantly:

"What does it reveal about us?"

So Let's Talk About the Monsters

This is where I want to start opening the archives.

Not with a giant explanation of the entire mythology.

Not with ten paragraphs of exposition.

One creature at a time.

One story at a time.

One strange piece of evidence at a time.

Think of these as field reports from inside the world.

ZAMORA FIELD REPORT #001

CLASSIFICATION: UNKNOWN

THREAT: EXTREME

LOCATION: [REDACTED]

FIRST RECORDED SIGHTING: [REDACTED]

KNOWN BEHAVIOR: [REDACTED]

CURRENT STATUS: ACTIVE

Then comes the artwork.

Maybe it's a monster you've already seen in Zamora.

Maybe it's something you've never seen before.

Maybe there's a sketch from years ago showing what the creature looked like when I was still figuring it out.

And underneath it:

This creature exists inside the world of Zamora.

That's the beginning of the Zamora Archive.

Why I'm Showing You the Ugly Stuff

There's a reason I don't want to only show polished comic pages.

The polished pages show you the destination.

The rough drawings show you the journey.

And artists need to see more journeys.

We see finished comics.

Finished animations.

Finished concept art.

Finished books.

Then we compare our messy sketchbook to somebody else's finished product and wonder why ours doesn't look like that.

But nobody starts with the finished version.

The first version of Zamora wasn't supposed to be impressive.

It was supposed to exist.

That's an important distinction.

Your first drawing doesn't need to represent your final ability.

Your first version of an idea doesn't need to represent the final story.

It just needs to give you something to react to.

That's how you improve it.

The Artist's Worldbuilding Rule

Here's the rule I'm trying to follow now:

Don't wait until the world is complete before you invite people inside it.

Show the sketch.

Show the monster.

Show the page.

Show the strange little piece of mythology you figured out last night.

Let people discover the world alongside you.

Because there's another lesson I've learned from making Zamora.

People don't necessarily need to understand your entire universe before they become interested in it.

Sometimes they just need one doorway.

One character.

One monster.

One mystery.

One image that makes them think:

"Wait... what the hell is that?"