The author of this Comic, Grischa, actually a boring statistican from Düsseldorf, Germany, went on holiday to Transylvania a couple of years ago. He visited Sighisoara, the birthplace of Count Dracula. Sighisoara is a beautiful, but also somehow spooky medieval village with crooked, colorful houses.
There, in front of a chapel, surrounded by an old graveyard, he found a traveling salesman offering a strange helmet, that looked like the head of a robot.
Costumes are a big thing during carnival season in Düsseldorf, so the author was loosely interested. Having a closer look inside the helmet, he was shocked: There was a plate that was labelled ‘G.R.I.S.C.H.A – Great Refinement of Illustrations and Storytelling by usage of a Cybernetic Helmet for Artists’. Whatever this device was, it matched his name! What a coincidence! Of course, the author bought the helmet and when he put it on for the first time, he immediately had a vision:
He had to draw a comic, capturing his feelings in that very moment! The feelings of a puzzled stranger in a mysterious place.
That comic obviously had to be about Dracula, but not only him, as his story was already told too often. The comic also had to comprise Frankensteins Monster, because it is fun to draw, the Maschinenmensch from Metropolis, because that movie is just great and Dr Mabuse, because he is so enigmatic.
In the second the cast of the Comic was defined, the story developed in no time. The author didn’t have to think about it. The characters simply became real in his mind. The action of one character forced the other characters to react, until the whole plot was defined. The Author now only has to draw and write it down.
Even today, Grischa is still surprised by the unprecedented creativity boost he experienced on that special day in Transylvania. He is still convinced, he only owes it to his helmet …