About six years ago I received a Christmas card from a well-known entertainment mogul. It was a fairly typical holiday image, a casual shot of the entertainer surrounded by his wife and children. And yet, as I looked at the photo, I couldn't help but think, "Here's a guy most of the children throughout the world revere, but what do his own kids think of him? Do they think he is someone special too, or to them is he just regular ol' dad?"

That struck me as fertile ground for a series of comic stories. Rather than tell all-too-familiar tales of family strife show-biz style, I decided to set my stories in an easily recognizable fantasy world. Looking for an iconic character to feature in my story, I found a natural one in Santa Claus, also revered by most children throughout the world. True, popular mythology dictates that Santa and Mrs. Claus have no kids of their own, but then again, what if they did? A girl, let's say. Cute of course, but one who had grown sick of the sugary-sweet marshmallow world of the North Pole. And would that girl be kind and generous, or, as she grew up with the greatest gift-givers of all for parents, would she be spoiled rotten? I figured spoiled rotten would lend itself to funnier situations, and so Santa's errant teen-age daughter Jingle Belle was born.

Jing's angst is summed up best in this quote taken from her website at www.jinglebelle.com: "You're a teenager and on account of your dad is an immortal holiday icon and your mom's a magical elf queen, you've been a teenager for years. Decades. Centuries! Lemme tell ya, grinding out toys in Big Chief Yellow Lap's sweat shop kinda loses its luster after twenty or thirty years, especially as I ain't had my allowance raised since '98. (1898, not 1998!)

Then there's the social scene, or as I call it, El Zilcho. Zip. Nada. Sure there are a couple of elf guys and gals that I hang with, not to mention a tribe of cool Eskimos down the shore, but other than swiping pop's sleigh and going for a joyride now and then, there's nothing to do up here!"

For the first few years I had fun exploring the havoc Jingle could create around the holidays, but then I started thinking more and more about what her off-season life might be like. Fortunately that's a question shared by the folks at Dark Horse, who are now bringing Jing into their stable. Starting this fall and continuing into next year, cartoonist Jose Garibaldi and I will be telling stories of Jing throughout the seasons. Also we'll be bringing in guest cartoonists like J. Bone and Stephanie Gladden to illustrate stories of other characters from the fringes of the Jingleverse such as the Mutant, Texas gang and witch chick Polly Green.

The merriment starts this November. See you at the North Pole!
- Paul Dini