Every now and again, I still have to pinch myself that not only am I actively making comics, but I’m doing so by making MY comics. Then, thoughts typically turn to my graphic novel that started it all, MAN IN THE MASK:Emerging from the Shadow. And how really, not only was it to be the start, but also the end.

Let me explain.

Anyone who has followed my progress in this comic journey, has read my thoughts on the story of Man in the Mask. So I won’t recover that ground. This is more on the actual production, the work of it.

All I have ever wanted to do, is make comics. From the age of 11 or 12, it’s what I wanted to do with my life. First by working on a big mainstream title, but then wanting to create my own stuff as I grew older. Unfortunately, I let a lot of stuff weigh me down and for a good majority of my life, I put those dreams on the back burner.

The idea of Man in the Mask came to me in 1996. I toiled away for years on the story and approach, but just kept getting personal blocks to it’s basic construction. It wouldn’t be until both hitting 40 and Aiden’s very sincere offer to help me make it real, that I would seriously try to accomplish my dream. Some 15 years after coming up with it.

Why a graphic novel? I had never done a full comic before and here I was diving in the deep end. I’m a guy of the 1980s. I saw a lot of Indy comics come and then disappear. I didn’t want anyone to get a number 1 from me and never see a second issue. The graphic novel approach would be my promise to myself to not only start the story, but to finish it.

And then, that would be that.

I felt that I was getting a second chance and quite frankly I wasn’t going to be so arrogant to go any further.

Anyone that has bought the book (and THANK YOU for that) probably notices that it reads a little odd for the introduction of a masked hero. There’s action, but it’s kind of wordy. You have to understand that me at that point of my life wasn’t trying to set the stage. I was just happy telling a story.

It has it’s flaws. It’s expected because I had never done anything like it before. The pacing is odd in a few places. A lot of the scenes had been constructed purely in my head for years. But I wanted to do a rather quick (even within 120 pages) telling of both Tommy, his grandfather and their lives both masked and unmasked. It’s meant to be personal. It’s meant to be uneven and chaotic sometimes. Life isn’t a straight line and neither is this book.

I wanted to show how up and down even the most fervent person can be in their lives. I can’t relate to you how being a kid from Krypton is really. But you might relate to a guy that has issues with his dad and how that affects his life. Or, how the idea of taking on someone else’s dreams might seem cool at nine, but by the time 18 comes around, you could have another perspective.

It’s a story of humanity. And because of that, it does stand on it’s own. It was supposed to without necessarily, what comes next. The end can be both the culmination of the hero’s journey or setting the stage for something else. I got lucky on that.

I had foolishly released chapters as comics over the period of work and tried selling them, going against my edict of a whole story. Shouldn’t have done it. But it did bring me some feedback from readers who liked what they saw. Originally when I got to the end of the final page of the graphic novel, originally it said “The End.” It was that positive feedback from fellow comic lovers, that I would change it to “The Beginning.”

That was a pretty long winded explanation of why the graphic novel is so much more off in tone than the stories that came after. Much like Tommy in the story is unburdened with some things, so was I. Every story I’ve done since, and there’s now six of them, comes from a place of love and appreciation of what I’ve built. Emerging from the Shadow purged a lot of demons off my back. It allowed me to go forward when I was certainly standing still. And because of that, a lot of good has come from it. Despite it’s flaws, it’s still my proudest literary creation. May not be my favorite now, but that’s a good thing.

One of the biggest reasons I decided to take MAN IN THE MASK digital first, is the immediacy of the format. I can pretty much draw, ink and color a page and have it be seen in a day’s time. I like that because it allows me to do things on the fly.

Like Allies in the Alley.

I’ve had this little behind the scenes story in my head for a couple months. It really could have been left alone but I thought it would be a cool idea to make it a reality, if for anything, an exercise. Since I began this series I have created it between the cracks of any free time I might have. I’ve never treated it with any deadline in mind. I think the fastest book I’ve created was the Halloween Special and that was two months.

With everything going on in the world, my freelance design business has slowed a bit. Hence, the focus I’ve been able to put on the series as of late. I felt if there was any time to try to put out a short story while creating it daily, now was the time.

it’s a pretty simple story. One month after the end of the graphic novel and a few months before the beginning of issue 1, Tommy is just getting used to wearing his pop’s mask. Even though for years, he was running around Millerton, he was hiding as best he could, trying not to be seen or identified. This adventure puts him directly into a confrontation between two men. One who is the obvious victim, the other the antagonist.

i get to introduce a new street level bad guy in Thadeus Wulf and his sons as well as some motivation Gwen’s Uncle Felix has in my series as he becomes kind of a touchstone for Tommy.

if you read the graphic novel, you can see Tommy gained a mask by the end, but lost some things in the process. Felix and Colt’s Corner factor into Tommy rebuilding his foundations. A city is a big place. And for one masked hero, it’s good to have a smaller piece of the real estate to start with. Felix gives Tommy a home base to be able to stretch out but close enough to have a stake in what Felix envisions for the Corner. And by doing so, Tommy is reminded of the sense of community that his Pop was instilling into him about the mask.

I am very proud to say I did do this story in 8 days like I wanted. I penciled and inked in one day, Aiden colored and then I would letter. I’m pretty happy with the results. Usually I plan everything out too much. Sketch model sheets of each character layouts etc. I did everything on the paper this time. Even the designs of the Wulf family. It was a exciting experience to say the least.

I tried to put action into it as best I could, but at the heart of the matter, I’m more a character guy. I like trying to make my guys as human and relatable as possible. And in that respect, I think I did it for this story. I hope you enjoyed reading it.