The Journey Begins: How Our Comic Book Idea Was Born
Jump into the Delorean with me for this one…
Me: I’m so bored
Bentzy: Which class?
Me: Every class
Bentzy: haha
It’s Sunday, March 11, 2012 and I’m bored in class. Yes, in Israel we have university classes on Sunday. Being a Canadian expat, this made class even more unbearable.
I needed an escape. Something to save me from a class likely about ancient Roman history, on a university campus that had spotty WiFi at best. Anything.
I headed to G-Chat (yes, that’s how long ago this conversation was) and reached out to one of my closest friends, Bentzy. We talked about his dating life and how he hadn’t started watching Breaking Bad yet (!). We were also super excited for the upcoming season 2 of Game of Thrones. #throwback
I then sent some messages about random expensive comic books I had found on eBay and the first appearances of famous superheroes in certain issues. You know, just to make this conversation even nerdier.
Get this: I was such a noob, I thought it was breaking news that Wolverine’s first appearance was in a Hulk issue (#181, NOT #180!). Gasp!
Oh, you sweet summer child.
As our conversation continued along these nerdy lines, I remembered something Bentzy had mentioned to me in passing a while earlier.
Me: Wait, tell me again about your superhero that you’re making
Bentzy: The super hero comic?
Me: Ya, go on
Bentzy: The comic is about a hero called Surge…
As he explained his initial concept, one message turned into an engaged discussion on powers, villains, backstory, costume concept designs, and more. We moulded the concept several times over, came up with scenes for the first issue, worried about an artist potentially stealing our intellectual property (lol). I didn’t hear another word my professor said.
And then… we forgot all about it for 5 years.
Superheroes and comic books were a huge part of my life growing up. I had Saturday morning cartoons, action figures, trading cards, video games and plenty of comic books to keep me busy. I owned books, games and toys that today would be worth hundreds of dollars but despite my collector nature for other items, the comic book stuff was just for pure fun.
I took pride in being a self-proclaimed #JockNerd. Despite my affinity and love for sports, I never missed a comic book movie, watched all the shows and often wondered if I’d get back into comic books at some point.
When 2016 rolled around, my life was pretty turbulent. I was getting divorced, was in between jobs and dealing with a lot of family shit. Not exactly a lot of room for superhero discussions. Oh, and Bentzy had moved to the U.S., putting an 8-hour time difference between us.
To make matters worse, in February 2017 I tore my ACL playing football. So I was stuck at home and miserable.
With my leg propped up on a pillow, a few painkillers in my system and tons of time to kill, I had a thought:
“Hey whatever happened to that comic book idea we had?”
Fast forward again to 2020. Bentzy is still 8 timezones away, sigh, and the Coronavirus has forced me to be once again bored at home.
Me: You know what this corona situation is perfect for? Writing surge comics. Bentzy: That happens to be an amazing point.
(Thankfully over the past 8 years we’ve graduated to WhatsApp.)
This time, though, I was determined it was going to be different. It wasn’t just going to be a quick discussion online or adding some ideas to a Google doc. I was going to actually do something with this idea we had.
I started reading books about writing comic books. I watched YouTube videos. I downloaded and devoured tons of epic comic books that I had been wanting to read for years. I added to our Pinterest idea board: character imagery, villain plot points, character development best practices and more.
I bought self-help books on exploring creativity. And, just to put in a measure of accountability, I started this publication.
So, that’s the prologue to this story. It’s been 8 years since that initial brainstorming conversation that spawned what has become known (at least to the two of us) as the #Surgeverse. There’s so much more to tell and discover along the way and I hope that documenting it will help open us up to more ideation, planning and execution.
Follow along on this journey towards making Surge into a reality. I promise that the next update won’t be in 6 years.
