Unspeakable Horror!

I have always been a big fan of fire women.  Recently, I fell in love with Liz Sherman from B.P.R.D. and Hellboy (I also really liked her character in the Hellboy movie).  Before Liz Sherman, I was a fan of Stephen King's fire women, both frightening Carrie at the prom and cute Drew Barrymore as Firestarter.  If you go back even further, as a child I loved watching Firestar on Spiderman and Friends on Saturday mornings. 

In the early drafts of Bartholomew of the Scissors, Jessica Holbourne was a powerful psychic, but her powers were never associated with pyrokinesis.  Only recently, while adapting the story into a comic book script did the concept of a Fire Doppelganger occur to me.  The Fire Doppelganger combines the fire woman with the gothic archetype of the doppelganger.  The doppelganger is like a shadow figure that embodies the darker aspects of a character's psyche -- mainly the things that the character wants to forget or repress.  For Jessica, the Fire Doppelganger acts out all of her violent and repressed impulses that she feels as a result of being different.  

Like a number of characters in Bartholomew of the Scissors, Jessica houses a spectral phantasm in her mind, a ghostly creature from another dimension that gives her paranormal abilities.  Jessica's phantasm is pyrokinetic.  Once her phantasm starts a fire, the Fire Doppelganger emerges from that fire.  Basically, the fire serves as a conduit for spectral energy, which enables the Fire Doppelganger to manifest.  However, once the Fire Doppelganger is unleashed, she is very unpredictable and destructive.  Since fire is the only way to kill a blob, the Fire Doppelganger also saves the day on a number of occasions. 

I really love the design that Daniel Crosier has come up with for the Fire Doppelganger.  In some images, she appears demonic and serpentine.  In other images, she is sensuous and powerful.  Visit Bartholomew of the Scissors dot com and check out the gallery.