Maria Varmazis
maria@varmazis.art

Red Flag

Red Flag, 34 pages, black and white.
2014

A young woman who dreams of escaping a scorched Earth to live in the stars puts her faith in a long-shot orbital ship, and things quickly get dire.

Everything seems so much easier in Earth orbit, and Cassie finally has the space view she’s always dreamed of. But the long-shot ship she’s on is quickly falling apart, putting her and her crewmates’ lives in danger. She soon has to make the decision: Her life, or her life’s dream?

This was the very first full comic I ever made! I learned a ton from this start-to-finish experience, and I’m very proud of this as my first comic. The story itself was based on my own troubles with an exploitative landlord, it was quite a mess, but at least it gave me the basis of this story — so at least some good came of it.

All the interior art for Red Flag was on bristol paper with manga inking nibs, which felt right for the manga-influenced art I did. The lettering and some post-effects were done digitally. The cover I painted with acrylics on canvas.

(If you visited me for Somerville Open Studios 2014, you saw the original art for this hanging up all over the walls of my studio.)

Though this comic is out of print, you can buy the PDF of it right here.

❌ This book is currently out of print.
Contact me if you'd like to be notified of any reprints.