Everything started with these two character concepts done by Thorsten Kiecker in 2006. As Tim Gaedke had just joined Stenarts for an in-house trainee position, Thorsten crammed the sketches out of the studio shelves and the pair decided what they could do with them. Tim made some first sketches initially with the idea in mind to create images for mobile phones and ringtones.
The team, however, found it hard to work in the limited space of mobile content and realised there was more potential for the shark characters, so they just needed to develop a story. After more sketches, and plenty of coffee, a question presented itself; what would happen if the sharks got to Moby Dick before Captain Ahab?
The idea stuck. The story shifted perspective to have Captain Ahab being the main character instead of the sharks, and then it got more interesting and fun to work with. Tim Gaedke was really inspired and his sketches began to show the right level of fun, and in close collaboration with Thorsten, the comic series was fleshed out.
After the first strips were drawn, Thorsten sent them to Diver Magazines all around the globe, and after only two days, they had a bite. The leading diver magazine in Germany, "Tauchen", agreed to publish "Ahab and the Moby Dead Inc." in 2007 and 2008.
