Eric Craig asked Bryan Pentelow:

A dragon that feasts on oil, rusty parts, and scrap metal is an interesting take on the great wyrms. How did you come up with the idea for Sprocket?

Bryan Pentelow I have always liked dragons but thought they generally got a bad press. There are many feared animals in this world but most of them don't go looking for trouble. All of them, on the other hand, will defend their young to the death if necessary. So I got to thinking about how dragons might have acquired their bad reputation and why man fears and tried to kill them. Every major species has variants which fill particular niches nature and an animal which breathed fire would be very useful in working metals, glass and various refinement processes. Man, also has a very short sighted approach to useful animals, for example, DoDos tasted really good so were eaten to extinction. Dogs fill many useful roles but we have bread many for fashion purposes to the extent that they are now deformed, infirm and suffer greatly. It is not difficult to jump the gap from working with metals and chemicals to wild relations which scavenging for scraps left over by man. thereby filling the sort of tidying up role, that dung beetles and other insects fill in keeping the planet tidy. It is also not a huge leap of imagination to picture man persecuting dragons to the point of them retreating from the world. After all, anything which is really useful is valuable and if it is valuable some people will try to control access to it. We have a great ability to shoot ourselves in the foot, and till we overcome this we will continue to loose that which is beneficial to us.
Perhaps if we grow up and change our ways dragons will give us a second chance.

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