The Story Behind The Writing: The Overman at Newsarama!

There's a new interview published over at Newsarama this week, of Shane and I, conducted by Zack Smith. We talk about, what else--The Overman.

I've been proofing Book IV and V this week, and making plans to attend the Mid-Ohio Comicon, on Thanksgiving weekend. This will be our last public marketing push before the publication of The Overman #1 in December. While Shane is busy in Seattle pounding out pages, I'll be in Columbus, Ohio offering some free Overman stuff, along with a preview of this first issue for those 1 or 2 people left in the world who don't know about the book yet. I kid. There are actually millions. Did I mention the easy 'send to a friend' feature on our home page? You can help us reach the steaming masses by sending to your friend the following url: http://www.theovermancomic.com/ Perhaps we'll come up with some viral marketing blitz at the last minute, in an effort to prompt more click-thru's. People gotta have incentive.

In the meantime, I'm back to the old script archives, searching for something to post for this week's blog entry. This excerpt is from one of the early incarnations of The Overman, probably around 1990. As always, keep in mind these old scans are NOT representative of the current storyline, but should give readers an inside view of how The Overman has evolved over its many years of development.

The Story Behind The Writing: Journal 1990

It's hard to believe that The Overman has been a project that Shane and I began nearly two decades ago. As I'm sifting through the archives here, I came across one of my old journals, from 1990, most of which recounts my struggles as a young artist trying to build up a portfolio and resume, along with story concepts and the occasional frustration over whoever I was dating at the time. I'll spare you those details.

I thought this excerpt was somewhat telling, in that I mention the Gulf War, and that I apparently thought it was precursor to the end of the world. Throughout my life, I have had these thoughts; nightmares of nuclear Armageddon and wide-scale catastrophe. Much of my writing involves these themes, probably as a way for me to express these fears and, as a result, deal with them. High Strangeness, my first graphic novel, continually refers to the Atomic Bomb tests during the 1940's and later, drawing parallels between nuclear detonations as an alarm for distant, alien beings curious enough to start snooping on us. There are three instances of mushroom clouds erupting in that book, and I never consciously planned that. My current work, Champion Of A Lost Universe, also involves a desperate, though limited nuclear attack by the last surviving super hero; a last ditch effort to destroy his arch-enemies plans of world conquest. The rest of this mini-series is a downward spiral into disaster, and post-apocalypse survival.

The Overman is probably the peak of those fears, finally illustrated and depicted in a way that exaggerates those concepts beyond all expectations. I hope you are all ready for it, on December 5th.