In the world of Inkblot, not everything is as it seems. There are many darker forces at work in the world, right alongside the forces of good or neutrality. Here we have another concept sketch page featuring one of the main cast of "good guys", and three antagonists.

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1. The Censors.

In the empty void of black known as the Ink-Space, there exist strange, dark creatures that defy description or even full comprehension in some cases. Amorphous, two-dimensional and seemingly numberless, the creatures known by the Toons of Inkblot as Censors exist for one singular purpose: The consumption of ideas, in any form.

These writhing, shadowy monsters swim in the inky black sea of nothingness that laps at Inkblot's shoreline, and dwell in the dark bowers and forgotten places of the Desare Wilderness, the expanse of black forests and rocky, craggy hills that stretch far north of Inkblot itself. While there are bastions of Toon civilization out there in the wild, small towns here and there where Inkwells have been set up to pump the necessary matter of life for the citizens, they are few and far between, and only kept safe by perimeter lighting and constant vigilance.

The Censors are weak to bright, sudden light, and can be killed just as Toons can be: With Acetone, Benzene, Turpentine or any number of other paint and ink thinning chemicals. Fire and some weapons from other Toon worlds also work very well, but the Censors can and will build up a tolerance after repeated exposure.

Any Toon caught out by the Censors is normally either torn completely apart and consumed, dissolved into ink and paint and absorbed through their bodies, or crippled after their encounter should they survive. The physical trauma is dire, but the mental trauma...That scars deeper.

There are theories about where they originate from, but the most common belief is that they're primitive, primal ideas; animal-like and feral. Cave paintings, primitive art, the original "Toons", thousands of years old and now almost utterly mindless. They come in all shapes and sizes, ranging from shapeless masses to hard, focused creatures as tall as buildings. The further one gets from civilization, the more varied and dangerous they become.

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2. Catarina Cooke.

Catarina Cooke's past is one not too uncommon in Inkblot: She was part of an attempt to either rip off, or spinoff, a popular cartoon in the 80's and 90's. In this case, she was a concept created to try and creature a Pan-Eurasian branch of the Rescue Rangers, which was to be called the Saviour Society.

Although she looks like a mouse, the little lady is actually a Mouse Lemur, a species native to Madagascar. Although she didn't originally come from Madagascar in the show concept, she still had allies themed around that, including a best friend named Berthold (A fruit bat with something of a wise-guy, street tough attitude) and a Ring Tailed Lemur she rode on her adventures named Winsley.

The show was pitched with the idea that there would be multiple groups of little Animal adventurers, like the Rescue Rangers, and each week would have a different team adventuring in their respective areas. Cat's area would've been the U.K., Wales and England in particular.

The idea, pitched by an up and coming artist named Tom Harlin, was pretty much shot down immediately. Disney executives didn't think they needed another Rescue Rangers-style series, and in fact were already making plans to cancel the original series to begin with.

In the end, Harlin shelved the idea and all of his character concepts with it. Luckily for Cat, this wasn't the end. No, rather she found herself in Inkblot, along with her friends, and soon found work as a secretary for some of the higher-ups in town. She has worked for bankers, businessmen and politicians, but her latest employment has been as personal assistant to Petunia Pettigrew, and go-between with Cyril Squirrel.

Enthusiastic, ebullient and friendly, Cat has been known to be forward and excitable when presented with something she really loves. Bookish and a bit nerdy, she can easily spend all day reading, and has often been known to lose track of time and end up staying hours after she was needed at work. As a "Tiny", one of the smaller citizens of Inkblot, Cat has special privileges and disadvantages.

For one, she can get around in ways other people can't, using an ingenious pneumatic tube mechanism set up in most of Petunia's Palace to get from point A to point B in record time. She can also observe and report things back to her bosses without being seen. The normal size issues come into play, however, when dealing with the larger world as a whole.

She can normally be found working directly on Petunia's desk, at a tiny desk of her own, or living in her apartment in Teacup Towers, an apartment block for toons of her size, just a block away from the Flower Pot.

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3. Tamashī Rangurā (TA-RA).

The Japanese Super Sentai series Sensō No Sekai (War World) was a short lived experiment into a darker, more mature form of Sentai series focusing almost exclusively on the villains. It was already unusual that is was an animated series in a world of rubber suits and spandex, but to have a series in 1981 where the villains won as often as the heroes...Well that was unheard of.

The primary focus of the series was a group of Super Sentai Warriors known as the Peacekeepers, a sort of time-traveling band of police officers that were assigned to a planet known only as War World. War World was the center of a constant "temporal storm" that caused armies from all throughout space and time to pop in and out, leading to over the top clashes and set pieces like a Roman legion fighting a WW2 era Banzai Charge. The series HAD to be animated to allow for the ideas in it.

The main villains were a pair of time-lost scientists, Dr. Kurokumo and Dr. Mujōna, but they were often overshadowed by their darker creations, including the sinister TA-RA. TA-RA is a cyborg, partially constructed from human organic matter, including part of a human brain taken from a murdered member of the Peacekeepers. The remainder of the human brain is, effectively, insane. It is only kept in check by a constant feed of drugs from the cybernetic components.

Tamashī Rangurā, or Soul Strangler, is actually the main reason the series was cancelled. The depiction of the cybernetic monstrosity, all gangling limbs, flailing metallic tentacles and shrieking laughter, was upsetting enough with the fact that it literally choked one of the protagonists to death during the season finale. When the ratings came back, it was decided that the show had grown too dark, and it was quietly killed off in favor of a more traditional Super Sentai series.

This was not the end for TA-RA, though. TA-RA and the "Good" doctors found themselves in Inkblot, but only for so long. TA-RA made a point of strangling both of the doctors to death within minutes of arrival, taking advantage of the fact that the vast majority of Anime characters are NOT cartoonishly durable and capable of surviving impossible trauma like Western Toons. No, they die quite nicely.

This, however, did not prove to be the case when he attempted to strangle a responding Thumper. TA-RA found him/itself locked away in the darkest corner of the Inkblot penitentiary known as The Stain. What TA-RA didn't know was that, after nearly twenty years of sitting in dormancy, he would be found and released through the trickery, bribery and cunning of a local businessman and politician who was looking for an enforcer; something that could truly terrorize anyone who got in his way...

TA-RA was, and is, more than happy to comply...For now.

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4. Johanne Nashorn.

In 1976, German cartoonist and author Frederich Holte was hired by a political newspaper to make cartoons based on the politicians they felt were out of order with their ideals at the time. Normally, Frederich wouldn't have bothered to work for or with anyone who clearly had such a narrow political agenda as "make our opponents look bad", but the paychecks were, frankly, ludicrous.

The result was a long-running series of strips featuring a cartoonish representation of several politicians, with the most corrupt but oddly endearing being the sharp witted, conniving and sometimes brutal Johannes Nashorn. The depiction of the anthropomorphic Rhino was of a sharp witted but short tempered man, willing to do anything to gain wealth and power, with little to no consideration for the well being of others.

After eight years working for the newspaper, Holte found himself out of the job when the real-life politician Nashorn was based on bought the paper outright and had it completely liquidated. Not only did he have the paper eliminated, but the rather ruthless politician proved himself just as much of a bastard as his comic depiction by blacklisting every writer, artist and reporter that worked for the paper, meaning that Holte could no longer find work in his chosen profession.

What this meant for Nashorn, though, was a sort of unbridled freedom that the politico could never have dreamed of before. He took one look at Inkblot, standing in the black waters of her shoreline, and knew that he had to have the city as his own.

And so began to rise to power of one of the most dangerous and ruthless men in Inkblot. While the Thumpers couldn't be bought or intimidated, they could be distracted with lesser evils, and that made his job easier. He started small, establishing lines of credit and building up his businesses, putting fingers in as many pies as possible to make sure he had a steady flow of Moolah to make the gears run smoothly.

Once he had his income, both legal and illegal, he set to cementing a power base. He bought other politicians, threatened and intimidated business owners, sabotaged other people's products and businesses, and worked his way up the ladder until he sat on the board of one of the larger banks in the city, several major businesses, and even had a seat as a city councilman.

This wasn't enough for Nashorn, though; he wanted to be Mayor, and wanted full control of the entire city. One of the major road blocks, though, is the fact that in Inkblot every district is controlled by a relatively small number of representatives. He'd never get the Neo-Tokyo council on his side without enough money to nearly buy the whole district, and Petunia Pettigrew could see through his charming veneer like it was a pane of glass.

So where charm and wit fail, muscle and terror may prevail. Nashorn has used his political and financial weight to dig up some of the worst thugs and goons in Inkblot, and has started making plans to put them to use. Rumblings of his machinations echo through the underworld of Inkblot, and it's only a matter of time before things heat up...

Art by  Gidg, character concepts by me, save for Cat, who was a product of my girlfriend.