Where Did MAN IN THE MASK come from?

Hey there masked maniacs. Thanks for joining me on this look back at where I’ve been, what I did and where I’m going with MAN IN THE MASK. I know this was probably a little bit more apt 6 years ago, but I was kind of flying by the seat of my pants and certainly made enough mistakes. Still do. Maybe this one also. But I just thought it was a good time to look back as I look to what’s next.

The beginning
I’ve been reading comics for, well, just as long as I can remember. I just turned 47 in December, so that’s a lot of years. Probably loved the more famous characters even longer. I still remember watching Superman The Movie at 6 years old and just being in awe of it. From there, the Incredible Hulk, Super Friends or those silly live action DC specials of the late 70s filled my imagination. The Greatest American Hero became a fixture in my life. It may have been released many years before me, but I was obsessed with the Lone Ranger. And let’s not forget Batman the movie that played every Thanksgiving on one of our 10 channels in the day. I always had my Bat Shark Repellant ready for that. I was a casual collector of the spinner ranks at the drugstores my family would frequent, picking up what interested me, mostly Marvel. Probably became a serious collector at 12 and then just went full on when Crisis on Infinite Earths handed me the keys to the DC Universe and I never looked back.

I’m gonna be in comics
It all hit me at once. John Byrne’s Superman. Frank Miller’s one-two punch of The Dark Knight Returns and Batman Year One. George Perez’s Wonder Woman. The Flash written by Mike Baron. The Question by Denny O’Neil and Denys Cowan. So much was happening at DC at the time. So much renewal. So much to indulge in and I was right in the middle of it. It was during this time that it hit upon me these names I was seeing in the books, were making a living creating comics. Mind blown! They got paid to amaze me? Sign me up. And thus created, probably the only thing that endured in me. Not only did I fall in love with comics, I wanted to make them too.

But what was I going to do? At 13-14, I knew I just had to hand them some stuff and they were going to hire me on the spot. Since there was so many updates (that’s what we called reboots at the time) going on at DC, I thought I’d update an old character and start my career there. But which one? I decided I needed to go small so that when it hit big, it would be even more amazing to the world. Yes, I’m groaning at myself as I read this. Anyway...luckily enough DC was putting out Who’s Who and Secret Origins at the time, so I had an index of lesser known characters at my disposal. I have to say that it was at this time I realized I just wanted to devour everything I could about comics. The history, the lineage of it’s creators. If only I applied that appetite towards my schoolwork. My occasional bad grades had my comics taken away from me a number of times.

It’s funny how things catch your eye. And looking back at the things I loved to watch/read, I see a pattern. The everyman. The person either put into a situation or placing themselves willingly into the situation and how they come out of it. Byrne’s Superman was a big example of applying that everyman to an iconic character. He made Clark Kent real. With human, loving parents and the sense he was a human man if emotionally and mentally if not in anatomy. Wally West became a person under Mike Baron. He was selfish and heroic. He made mistakes. Bruce Wayne became the directed fixed man that would rather die than let someone else go through what he did. I saw these characters as human and related to them. Charles Victor Szasz was a complete jerk, but turned his life around but not letting go of that eternal question of “why?” I wanted to follow in their path.

By luck, while I was trying to figure out what I was going to update, Secret Origins reminded me of a character I had seen briefly in All Star Squadron 31. And he was the everyman.

Before, you say anything about this character being a pale comparison to a larger than life legend, remember I was just getting into comics heavily and had no access to a comic shop. If it wasn’t on the spinner rack, I didn’t know it existed. So when I saw MIDNIGHT in Secret Origins drawn by Gil Kane, I was just overtaken. This was it. This was what I was going to update. Now, by reading Roy Thomas’ editorial explaining the character, he mentioned him being pretty much a copy of The Spirit. Which, did become my gateway into at least wanting to know who The Spirit was. But I put that on the backburner as I came up with my premise.  I worked hard on it until I learned they bringing the character back in Ms. Tree Quarterly. Somebody beat me to the punch.

Devastated.

But I kept drawing. Kept coming up with idea and dreaming of that day I would be drawing Superman. Or the Question (even though I would have never wanted Denys Cowan to leave it).

Indy Influences
As one ages, you tend to gravitate to more sophisticated material. I started going to a good comic shop two hours away in Lexington once or twice a year. I finally discovered who The Spirit was and was forever changed not only by him but the other work by his father, the astounding Will Eisner. I fell for Denny Colt’s absolute drive. He generally got beat up, but never quit. He had so many woman at his coat tails I was jealous. And it wasn’t lost on me he had a similar origin of the Lone Ranger of “dying” and being reborn a better person.

More importantly, through the storytelling, Eisner was teaching his readers on numerous levels. Pathos and humor were rich within. And, some stories took place with The Spirit very much in the background. In later years, I picked up Eisner's non -Spirit stuff and was amazed even more so of his grasp of humanity and making me feel what I was reading. His art books on sequential storytelling hold a special place on my shelf and one of the first I passed on to my son.

It was through finding The Spirit, I found a treasure trove of indy books over a span of time. Some I played catch up to. Others I got to experience as they went. Matt Wagner’s Grendel and Mage, The Green  Hornet written by Ron Fortier, Mike Allred’s Madman, Mike Grell’s Jon Sable and the jaw droppingly good NEXUS by Mike Baron and Steve Rude, that I saw you could make a great comic outside of the big two and I was forever changed by it. I’ve always been a stubborn loner and indy comics seemed like the place to be.

I kept drawing.

The Self Publishing Boom
1992-93 was a big year in comics. You had the Image guys breaking off from Marvel and shaking the industry to it’s core. People started noticing the excellent work Jim Shooter was doing with Valiant. I was even more emboldened to be an indy guy. Even tried to start a comic company with some buddies. It was fun, but I think we all liked working towards it more than actually creating them.

Right after this boom, came the Self Publisher one. Jeff Smith’s BONE, Terry Moore’s STRANGERS IN PARADISE, Colleen Doran’s A Distant Soul and of course Dave Sim’s CEREBUS, became example of that lone creative vision and the person doing all aspects of the book. As I learned with my friends, I typically get impatient with others and go on my own. Self publishing just seemed like a good fit. But what was I going to do?

As I am want to do, I don’t usually make good decisions or financial ones that is. I decided to do a b&w, masked hero book. You know something indy readers just clamor to get. Uh-huh. I knew going into, it but didn’t care. Surprisingly the story came together pretty quick. I used my Lone Ranger fandom and weird fascination with the idea Clayton Moore never wanted fans to see him without his mask. Even when he was legally barred from wearing one, he wore big sunglasses. Add that I had liked the movie “In the Line of Fire” with Clint Eastwood and I had my premise. STRANGE ADVENTURES OF THE MIDNIGHT MAN. Charlie Benson was a “target man” a guy that guards politicians and is trained to take a bullet for them. He’s an orphan that has always been closed off to the world. Never having a relationship with anyone and always wearing sunglasses to put people around him off. When he learns of a big conspiracy, he’s left for dead, but rises back wearing a mask and it’s through that he truly starts living. I had everything planned out. He was going to be like The Equalizer (a big favorite watch) and advertise to help people.

Interestingly enough, I drew a whole issue. But I just had problems with some of the directions I wanted to go. It was a real world and I just didn’t think Charlie could operate in a mask in this realistic world. Even though I had staged most of the plots as being more about the people he was going to help, him being in this world concerned me.

And so, another thing floundered while I returned to living in the real world and my job.

Transition Period
I never let go of the idea of self publishing. I knew whatever comics I was going to do I needed to do it all myself. About a year after drawing that first issue, I decided to go in another direction but keep a lot of the visuals I had developed for Charlie.

And that direction was...?

My Pop
Let me back up a bit and tell you about my Pop, my grandfather, Tommie Belcher. This man served in World War II. Worked hard in the coal mines of eastern Kentucky. He joked that he was probably one of the reasons for child labor laws as he worked in those mines since he was thirteen, often being the one that had to hold the dynamite. And yet, outside of those mines, dressed to the nines and always had to look sharp. He worked long hours to provide for my Mamaw, Uncle and Dad. Had the first tv set in the neighborhood and had all the neighbors over constantly. He was genuinely the best man I have ever had the honor of knowing. Easily my best friend, he was always supportive of me and very supportive of my crazy dream of working in the “funny book.” He was so tough that in his late 60s, his appendix burst and he drove himself to the hospital which was an hour trip.

The stories he told me were better than anything I could have ever come up with. One always stuck with me and it was through that, I would come up with the closest thing as you now know as MAN IN THE MASK.

As I said, he worked long hours in the coal mines. As such, he didn’t have much time as he would have liked with his family. But he was doing right by them. After working so long in the mines, he developed Black Lung, a very common problem that miners would develop. It essentially meant his time in the mines was over. He would tell me how hard that was on him knowing that. He was barely into his 50s. It’s all he knew. But then a little later, something happened that made things easier.

I came along.

He would tell me that he looked at me through the glass in the hospital nursery and knew everything would be okay. Can you imagine hearing that from someone? So just when I needed it, I thought what if there was a masked man that thought so much about his grandson that he would offer him the identity that meant so much to him. That passing it along was greatest gift he could offer.

I had my start. And the world they lived in would be a little more comic bookey, so I didn’t have to worry about the realism messing with the core story.

Taking inspiration from two sources, I started crafting my series. I’m a ginormous Matt Wagner fan. Mainly Grendel at first, but his other story, Mage became more of an influence as I got older. Matt had based Kevin Matchstick on himself and friends of his within it’s pages. It was a hero’s journey through things he had experienced himself. And it worked so well to bring a personal touch to it

As I mentioned the idea about passing on the tradition interested me. I was introduced to the Green Hornet by Ron Fortier in the pages of Now Comics. He melded all the Green Hornet versions together into one timeline and made his characters so real. I felt their loss. I felt their triumphs. Ron made legacy work so well. It was through those two sources, I decided to make my Pop and me the basis of the book.

Seeing how I equated my Pop and his youthful energy to the only other people I knew that didn’t act their age, the Justice Society of America, I knew whatever kind of masked man I made him into had to be a mystery man. So I thought back to Midnight and of course, The Spirit. And the fact my grandfather would wear a hat and suit to McDonalds was a big part of it also. The mask was central to the character. I chose a little fuller one like Clayton Moore/John Hart wore in the b&w Lone Ranger. I didn’t want to stomp on The Spirit at all. So I did ditch the hat and coat. Originally, I had him in a white shirt and suspenders but decided to go with a black shirt with white tie to put more zing into it and further distance him from other masked mystery men. I wanted to use the coal mining secret identity. It just made sense that no one would think about someone they generally saw covered in coal dust as a clean suited masked man. He was set. Now what kind of masked man would someone my age lean towards? It was easy. I just used the outfit Charlie Benson would have worn.

The title? I decided on MAN IN THE MASK just as a generic term. My Pop would never make up a name and I thought that was a good direction to go. The way I wanted both of them to operate I felt actually referring to them by a name would take away the mission. The book was going to be about service and trying to make a difference without using some tragedy to validate their existence.

Now out of sake of not trying to seem vain, the whole thing was more to honor my grandfather than it was to make my personality into a character. The Pop in the story is TOMMY FRANKLIN. That was my Pop’s name. I just chopped off the “ie” and added a “y” and Franklin was his middle name. And for a portion of grade school, I started calling myself Tommy because I just wanted to be him. So the grandson would be Tommy also. In fact, it’s the funniest part of the current version of the book. I’ve stated a few places that even though everyone calls the grandson Tommy, it’s not his real name. It’s surprising to me, that even readers that love the book have never asked me what his name really is.

I digress.

I worked on this story for awhile. During which, my Mamaw passed away and that sent me off into my first real bout of depression. Thank God I had my wife to get me through it. Once I centered again. I started working on the layers of the book. I wanted it to be fun and full of hope, something masked comics of the late 90s were certainly missing. I was still going to do it black and white. Reason I tailored everything to look alright in that contrast. But as I worked on it, a lot of changes steamrolled over me. Some by choice, some that just overtook me. Despite my want to do comic, I never thought my art could live up to what I was seeing published. Or that, in these gritty realistic times, anyone would want to read my book. All of it was just too much and I thought it was best I left wanting to do comics by the wayside.

The Dad Years
Setting the comics aside was easier when Aiden was born. He truly was the life changer everyone told me he would be. Even though I still sketched and thought about doing the book, I worked and did what a dad was supposed to be very willingly. I wanted to pass along what my Pop had done for me and be my son’s best friend. I never forced or suggested comics to him. But they were laying around and as he got older his just gravitated to them. When we got to the point of talking about what he read, it was even more amazing. During the years after he was born, I would be at work coming up with whole scenes for the comic I seemingly left behind. I would thumbnail them out, you know for fun. I tried to suppress it, but it just wouldn’t die. And when Aiden was around 12, he found some of these layouts and asked the question “why don’t you make a comic?” “And if you do, maybe I can help?” I was taken aback. I think one of the things that bothered me the most was that Aiden was growing up not seeing me do what I truly wanted to do. When he saw that I had long wanted to create my comic, he kind of gave me the permission to go back to them. When I actually started producing the book, it just made sense he could help out on color.  I gave him a crash course in Photoshop and he took to it quickly.

I can’t believe I’m finally doing this
Now to put things into perspective. I lost my Pop in 2011 to pancreatic cancer at the age of 90, a year before Aiden offered to help me bring my book to life. Pop lived a strong, vibrant life until 7 months before he died. He was so tough, something had to take him out because old age wasn’t doing it.  When he passed, I truly thought that was the end of the book because I never made it for him. So the very fact I was thinking about going ahead with the book seemed wrong. One of the biggest things I struggled with in going back to the book was the reality of the situation. I won’t go into it, but those of you that have read the graphic novel, know what happens 3/4s into it.

This is real. This book is based on the relationship I had with my Pop. A lot of it is true bits of our life I lifted to make the story work. Just subtract the mask part and you get it. As such, that turn in the story truly happened. It was one of the deciding reasons I put the book aside years ago. And it was embracing it, that made me finally decide to do it. Sorry I don’t like spoilers, so I’m not trying to be meanly vague, just considerate. But embracing it helped me decide that at least the graphic novel would be more about family drama and the ups and downs that come with it. And that while it might have surprised some of you that read it, that it wasn’t a super hero action story, it was the story I needed to tell.

The Work
Early 2014, I announced to my friend Todd Goodman, who publishes Old World Comics, I was going to follow his lead and publish my story as a graphic novel and sell them at cons. He was very supportive and let me see what I was in for by sharing his con table. It was in the fall that I had finished the first chapter in the book and in my overzealousness printed it as a comic. It was b&w and while I was happy with the story, my art rust bothered me. In hindsight, I wish I had never published it. Because the few that bought it, I think when they saw another version of it on my table later, didn’t think I was someone you could depend on. I made that mistake again by making a “second Issue.” It was after that, I decided that I wouldn’t release it again until the story was over.

The biggest differences in the story of the younger Tommy Franklin that I’m working on now opposed to had I did the story in 1998 as planned? Tone. I planned to have fun with his story then. But I also wanted to follow more elaborate harder edged storytelling. Long form and bring in a lot of conflicts. Tommy then would have also been more of a masked fanboy and not really have earned his spot so to speak.

The updated story has the benefit (or curse) of me looking at it through older eyes. I’m looking to do a less cynical book than lot of modern comics. I’m not really interested in tying Tommy down with a lot plots or devices. As a result of the graphic novel, Tommy’s earned his smile and has an appreciation for the mask beyond what he thought he had. So he’s a little looser and compelling. I’m also leanOmg on the MAN more than the MASK. I find that getting the character across as a person makes you appreciate the masked part of his life. My original goal was probably the reverse of that. My current thinking is more focused on making Tommy and the people around him interesting. So you don’t get bored when he’s out of mask. He has a more relaxed attitude and I think it makes the story work better. I also, after the GN, wanted to make shorter one off work.

The first collected version I finished in 2016. I changed a lot of pages that were in the previous comics. I had a section in the 2014 first issue, that had the original Man in the Mask lobbing softballs at some crooks. That was only in there because my Pop loved to throw baseballs, softballs, you name it. I just didn’t like what I did with the sequence, so it definitely got refined.

Sold a few. But I just wasn’t grabbing people. When they flipped through it, they typically bought it. But getting them to stop was a problem. So I endeavored to join social media against my better judgment. But everyone told me it would be a great tool to let potential readers see my work I think it helped me think daily on doing the book. And it certainly allowed me contact with inspirations and influential creators. I only made a transitional “Prelude” book the following year to setup the first issue of the series. It was then I decided I needed to be a little more serious about what I was doing.

instead of looking forward, I decided to look back and work towards selling the graphic novel and be a little more professional. I made a choice to revamp the graphic novel into something a little more “finessed.” and sell it online at Indyplanet. I had originally drawn the story I had in my head and it was created in the spaces of my self employed day, which wasn’t a lot. So some pages were rough. Then I felt I needed some transitions in places I was too focused to think about before. I gave myself rules that I only corrected storytelling issues. That no matter how rough I thought a page was, if it told the story I wouldn’t touch it. Therefore, despite me redrawing a number of pages in the first release of the graphic novel, I redid some more and created some new pages. The story remained the same but it was “expanded.” I took the packaging a little more serious instead of making a rough indy book. So new cover and polish. By the end of the process, I would never touch the book again. Whatever warts I left on it would stick.

After the Glow
Since the official release of the graphic novel, I have four other releases. A “prequel” that I came up with as a cheaper option than buying the graphic novel. It turned out to be a lot of fun. The “Prelude” I spoke of. The first issue which I am very proud of and the fact I have a backup story written by Mike Baron. The last thing I published was a Halloween book that I am immensely proud of because it can be read separately and just a fun story.

Where do I go now?
Well, that’s why I wrote this. Call it therapy. Call it trying to recall what brought me to the game. Or you can just call it the way long essay of a guy trying to get his mojo going again. Creating a book that has limited distribution is hard. Comics are tough to produce. Even moreso, by yourself and then add a day job on top of that. There are only so many cons I can attend time wise. I’ve had a real problem with how to get new material out in a manner that can keep a nice interest level going and not feel like I’m sacrificing quality or my income. I know fans of the book would like to see it more often. I’m just trying to figure out how to do that. Online digital distribution? Webtoon? Or just produce when I can?

The Eternal question of producing an Indy comic I suppose.

And as weird as it sounds like I’m complaining I’m not. When I work on a story, I’m living the life I wanted. It may not be everyday or even every week, but getting to produce anything to do with MAN IN THE MASK is the highlight of my day and it’s been a very weird trip here and I wouldn’t have it any other way.