As you can easily see I fancy the cinematic work of George Lucas – namely Star Wars. Especially the minor characters of the new trilogy fascinate me. They share the tragic destiny of inescapably having to die before the old trilogy can take place. For example the Jedi Masters. And there are the many villains. Behind every villain there is an interesting story because no one is born as a villain. Not even in the galaxy far, far away.

I have a liking for all creatures that resemble dragons or reptiles and I thought it a bit unfair that General Grievous only gets a few scenes in EP III before Obi-Wan Kenobi sends him to his ancestors. So I searched the archives of starwars.com and found something out. Surprisingly Grievous was not thrown into the world as a full-fledged killer-cyborg (which would have been quite unpleasant for his mother) and he did not always have that bad bronchitis. And he had a family once.

I went hunting for more details of his story. What I found was the base of an exciting story and I worked some more details out for myself. I made an effort for getting everything right and plausible and weaving in every official fact. And, yes, I know that Hasbro has published an unmasked Qymaen jai Sheelal action-toy (it’s standing on my kitchen shelf). And I’m aware that my version of him doesn’t look anything like the official version. The reason for this is quite simple: There was no official unmasked version yet when I began drawing my fanart and comic, and I went with the look of his cyborg mask and the outcome was dinosaur-like. I like him better this way. Think of it as artistic licence.

• Literature sources:
• Star Wars Visionaries (The Eyes of Revolution by Warren Fu)
• Episode III – The visual dictionary by James Luceno
• Das offizielle Magazin Nr. 41 (Grievous – der unbekannte Krieger by Abel G. Pena)
• Labyrinth of Evil by James Luceno
• Revenge of the Sith by Matthew Stover