Lecherously evil brit-punk spirits, ghoulish graveyard parties, stadium pop rock stage antics, and the zombie apocalypse.

All this and more adds up to just one day’s adventures for the girls of ‘Angora Napkin’, protagonists of Troy Little’s graphic novel of the same name and stars of their own upcoming pilot on Teletoon.

Troy is a P.E.I.-based artist who, in addition to working a day job as an animator for the CBC, writes and illustrates comic books under the creative alias Meanwhile Studios. He came up with the concept of Angora Napkin together with co-creator Nick Cross over a decade ago as a premise for an animated series.

“We were really into these weird, indie pop bands like Cub and Shonen Knife,” says Troy, “trio girl bands that play really idiotic pop music. We thought that’d be a funny premise, just this trio of pop girls that would find themselves in these horrible situations but they’d be too upbeat to take themselves seriously.”

Angora Napkin is Beatrice, Molly, and Mallory – three irrepressible pop stars with a knack for landing themselves in heaps of trouble. Molly and Beatrice account for most of the dialogue within the trio, and Mallory acts as a sort of foil to their flaky ‘bubblegum pop’ sensibilities. The latter of the three, in addition to being a quieter, less chipper sort, also has a propensity towards alcoholism and a fetish for the undead.

When Angora Napkin didn’t initially generate the interest that Nick and Troy had hoped for, the A.N. project was shelved for several years. In 2005, Troy returned to the idea and began work on what would become the first Angora Napkin graphic novel – to be published by major comic book company IDW Publishing in January of 2009.

Roughly a year ago, Troy heard about a Canada-wide call for new, edgy, animated programming to air on Teletoon Detour as part of something called ‘The Pilot Project‘.  Teletoon was looking for ten original concepts to air as pilots as part of its late night programming, and Angora Napkin wound up greenlit for one of the spots.

“The show’s done, and looks really good. Working with Teletoon on this project, they were by and large hands off, and this is a very unusual experience in my years working in animation. We had a whole lot of creative freedom that was almost unprecedented.”

According to Troy, one of the few concerns that Teletoon expressed about Angora Napkin was that it might’ve seemed too young for Teletoon Detour content. Teletoon’s proposed suggestion? Up the sex and violence.

“I’ve never, ever in my lifetime had somebody say I could actually up the sex and violence,” says Troy, “It was nerve-racking to do that in a few spots, where it was like, ‘can I actually get away with this?’ and normally I can’t, but they were asking me to. I’m sure if we can get a series we’ll even push it a little bit further, ’cause I think we were still just a little reserved with how far we took it.”

The airdate of the pilot is a bit ambiguous at the moment, with the original date of March 2009 pushed back to a nonspecific Spring/Summer 2009 airing. It features an entirely separate plot from the graphic novel, and was written, directed and story-boarded entirely by Troy and Nick.

“We had our fingers in pretty much everything to do with the project,” says Troy, “It’s really got a distinctive stamp; one half of the cartoon looks like my stuff, where I was directing and boarding it, and one half looks like Nick’s, with his visual take on things and animation style. I think animators in particular might take notice in the difference in tone and appreciate it, more so than having that homogenized kind of on-model quality of most cartoons.”

In addition to his positive impression of how the art and story turned out for the Angora Napkin pilot, Troy is equally pleased with the cartoon’s soundtrack.

“Cub, one of the bands that we derived a lot of inspiration from for Angora Napkin, broke up in 1997,” says Troy, “But we managed to get into contact with the lead singer/songwriter, and got permission to use Cub songs in the cartoon. She actually wrote a new song for the opening credits for us as well, so that was kind of cool to have that come full circle ten years later.”

Armed with a finished pilot, Nick and Troy are hopeful that, even if Teletoon doesn’t pick it up as a series, they will be able to drum up interest some place in the quirky, darkly humorous characters of Angora Napkin.

Outside of Angora Napkin, Troy has also been working diligently on his follow-up to the 2007 graphic novel, Chiaroscuro Vol.1.

Chiaroscuro was the title which originally attracted Troy the attention of IDW Publishing, specifically after Cerebus creator Dave Sim posted a positive review of the comic on his blog. Originally self-published as serialized issues under the Meanwhile Studios imprint, after IDW released it as a collected edition, Chiaroscuro turned quite a few heads in the industry.

“When I was self-publishing, I managed seven issues,” says Troy, “The graphic novel actually contains three issues that were never published. The way that the nature of the industry is going, the next volume will come out as a collected volume. There probably won’t be any more individual issues.”

Chiaroscuro tells the story of Steven Patch, an uninspired, out-of-work artist with a sarcastic streak and serious apathy issues. The first volume, which has a decidedly noir feel to the purposeful, gradually unfolding pacing, ends with far more questions than resolutions.

“When I got the idea for Chiaroscuro, it all came to me in a big flash,” says Troy, “I knew what was going to happen, where it was gonna go, and how it was going to end. So definitely the starting and end points have been etched in my mind since then. The big in-between points are there, and as I’m working on it, I come up with little ideas to fill in the blanks just to keep it fresh for me.”

Troy says that the grand scheme of Chiaroscuro is a three volume story, which each volume functioning like an act in a play or a movie.

“I guess the next one will be the Empire Strikes Back,” Troy says, laughing, “There isn’t too much I’m saying about the next volume, because I kind of like to keep the mystery there. It’s not going to resolve a lot of questions in one sense, and it’s definitely going to add a few more, but I’m going to take it out of that introduction mode and a lot more into the meat of the story. That’ll mean a lot more action, and a lot more things happening than there were in first book.”

The first volume of Chiaroscuro was the product of a five-year effort, and Troy says that while volume two is coming along faster, the finished work shouldn’t be expected for another couple of years.

While Troy is tight-lipped about any details surrounding the future of Steven Patch, he is amiable to dropping a few hints about what to expect in the next Angora Napkin graphic novel (which he is also currently working on).

“What the basic premise is, is that there’s a collector out there who wants to collect the girls in Angora Napkin for his own purposes. He’s kind of this devious character that narrates the story, for the first while anyway. It’s called ‘Harvest of Revenge’. ”

With a title like that, how can you go wrong?

You can also view an interview Troy did with CBC below.

For more on Troy Little and his ongoing projects, you can check his website out over at Meanwhile Studios.