(If you've already read this, new updated material can be found in PART II by clicking HERE.)

PART I

“Bizarre New World” was literally born out of sheer laziness.

Let me explain.

Back in 1999, like I frequently do, I was working the graveyard shift, and I was leaving my apartment. It was probably close to midnight, I was dead tired, and just shy of sleepwalking I suppose. As I turned a corner heading for my car I had a stray thought. I was so damn groggy I suddenly wished I didn’t need to walk anymore. I wanted to float to my car without the need to actually put in any physical effort. Then I looked up.

The night was clear and beautiful. I then imagined not only floating to my car, but skipping the car altogether and flying to work. For a moment, I could actually imagine doing it. I was still half asleep after all.

By the time I reached my car, a silly little idea was formed. Truth be told, not a very original one. Wouldn’t it be cool to tell a story about an ordinary guy who could fly? No typical superhero trappings, no larger-than-life villains, no outlandish costumes, and no aliens.

What really sparked my interest was the ‘ordinary’ aspect of it all. I began to think about a very simple scenario, a regular guy suddenly learns he can actually defy gravity. No radioactive accidents, no magical explanations, in fact I didn’t give a damn at all where the power came from. I was more interested in how the poor guy would deal with this.

I’ve been riding motorcycles most of my life. Anyone who’s ever tooled down the freeway in the winter knows it’s not always comfortable being exposed to the elements. So my first stray thoughts were simple logistics. He’s not a superhero, he’s vulnerable just like everyone else. He could get cold, pelted by bugs, crash into trees, you name it. Flying like a bird may be one of man’s most sought after fantasies, but the fact is, if a person could actually do it, he’d have some pretty big obstacles.

These were fun thoughts, and the whole mental exercise barely lasted me a mile down the road. If those simple ideas were the end of it, I wouldn’t be writing this today. As I headed for the freeway, a second idea occured to me. I’m not big on spoilers, so I’ll have to stop right there. The end result was, I had some fun concepts that to this day have yet to leave my daily thoughts. Cool stuff, but how the hell do I make it work?

There were basic things I knew right from the outset. As much as I love dark gritty drama, this was never going to be an angst-ridden story. I wanted to tell a fun light adventure. I really wanted get up there with him and live out those childhood flying fantasies, but I also wanted him to have those realistic problems someone might face if he were dealing with this.

I tend to have an analytical mind, and I got desperately hung up on a problem with my story. How did he get his ability to fly? I really didn’t personally care, for the purposes of my story it didn’t matter to me. I honestly just didn’t give a damn. But I believed I needed to come up with some sort of credible ‘reason’ to make the story palatable. I didn’t want him to be born to an alien race, find a magic amulet, make a wish upon a star, have some freak accident, be involved in some kind of magical ‘event,’ or any other hokey idea I could think of to simply explain why he does what he does. I didn’t care then, and I don’t care now. But I really believed I needed that pesky ‘reason.’

So I stumbled for a while, then I lost interest. Simple as that. I couldn’t come up with something that didn’t sound like some lame device, or worse, something that had predictably been done before. So I gave up. I threw the ideas into the back of my noggin, and forgot about them. They would bob to the surface every couple of years, I would take another whack at coming up with the elusive ‘reason,’ fail miserably, than promptly stow it away with the rest of my mental garbage.

Flash forward to October 5th, 2005.

I vividly remember going through a very frustrating time. I had this noise buzzing around in my head. I was overworked, and essentially bored. I wanted to tackle something creative, something with spark. I’d had some ideas come and go, but nothing really sizzled like that damn ‘Flying Guy’ idea which I long ago nicknamed “Flight.” I’m not sure why, but for some inexplicable reason I made a decision that day. I was going to really try and make that sucker work. I believed in the idea, I just didn’t know if I could do it justice, but I wanted to try.

I went out that faithful day and bought a pocket Moleskine notebook. I began logging all those loose stray thoughts I had over the years. Of course I came back to the same old question. What was the damn ‘reason?’ Then I took the coward’s way out.

I had a basic plot skeleton. Loose ideas, nothing more. I needed some guidance, but had no idea where to look. Luck was shining on me though. An old cohort I’d worked with before called me out of the blue. His name is Lex Halaby.

I work in television post-production. Specifically I’m in the telecine department where I work on transferring film dailies for television shows. Lex is a wonderful music video director, and he needed a favor, just some 16 millimeter footage, easy stuff. Was I able to help him out? Lex always made inspired work, so I would’ve agreed regardless, but I had motives of my own.

I kidnapped the poor fellow and force-fed him the loose skeleton plot about this schmoe who could fly. I knew Lex was an incredibly visually orientated person who could easily see the story possibilities, and he didn’t disappoint. Lex was amazing. Most people would bark out ideas about doing this or that, but Lex was much more subtle. Everyone has their two cents, their own spin on things, but Lex just kept asking me questions. In a very clever way he wasn’t telling me my story, or his version of my story, he was helping me find it myself. He did have some great concepts of his own to throw in, but the real help came from those great questions. So either Lex is a genius, or he stumbled blindly onto what worked for me. I choose genius.

I explained to Lex my feelings on the whole ‘reason for flying’ dilema. In my mind every time I came up with something even resembling a coherent concept, it derailed the story into territory I just didn’t care about. I don’t watch “Cannonball Run” to learn where cars were invented, or how they work. He agreed with that sentiment wholeheartedly, where this ability came from just didn’t matter.  We decided to meet up again in a few weeks to discuss possible story progress. From there I was off and running. I met up with Lex a second time, he had a couple more loose ideas, and so did I. Nothing was terribly coherent, but it was beginning to take some kind of shape.

I still didn’t know (or care) where this ability came from, but I did have an idea how he was doing it. He was literally willing his body into the air, like telekinesis. To me, it made sense that to lift an entire human being off the ground would take a pretty decent amount of raw force. To take that much weight and fling it into the air at will is no small feat, so I figured that most of your power would get used up just getting airborne. It stands to reason you wouldn’t have amazing speed of any kind based on this simple concept, which was fine by me. Gravity still works, and coming down was another matter entirely, but going up or forward was very limited. That idea I found very appealing. He wasn’t moving at a superhuman ‘bat out of hell’ speed. It was manageable, something a regular person could deal with. None of this was a story, just a nice place to begin.

Lex and I parted, and I headed home. Not more than a couple of minutes after I began driving away, lightning struck. A puzzle piece smoothly fell into place in my mind, the tumblers clicked, the planets lined up, choose your metaphor, it all means the same thing. I had my whole story. In an instant the whole damn thing just came together. Now what?

Was my story a screenplay, a novel, maybe something else? I decided it would work great as a comic book, but I had no idea how to get one made. I knew a cool guy named Blair Marnell who wrote a weekly news column about comics and such. We met up, and I threw the basic plot, and some other ‘flying guy’ concepts at him. He also believed it would work great as a comic, and he led me to an old friend Tone Rodriguez.

I knew Tone from the early 90’s. He hung out at the comic book store I frequented. A great artist, and a damn nice guy, I called him out of the blue, and we hooked up. He was too busy to work on my crappy little idea, he was an established name now, and in great demand. He pointed me to a website called “Digital Webbing.” I put up an ad, found the amazing talent that is Christopher Provencher, and I was off to the races. This all happened very fast, and I completed the entire plot, and first issue script by the end of November.

Tone led me to color artist extraordinaire Wes Dzioba, and things really started to take shape. Tone then hooked me up with Will Wilson, and the both of them took me to the fine folks at Ape Entertainment, but I need to back up a bit.

In November my brother alerted me to possible bad news. A project was coming down the pike about an ordinary schlub with flying powers. The movie was called “Special,” and yes I was irked. I looked into it, and luckily it was totally different, but it did get my dandruff up. Then word popped up on “Dark Horizons” that a new television pilot was being produced called “Heroes.” And dammit, it’s about 'ordinary people' discovering extraordinary powers, and of course one of them flies. I was understandably livid. Tone told me this kind of thing happens all the time, but it didn’t make me feel any better.

I decided to push forward. Who cares about a pilot? Tons get made, most don’t go to series. Then it got picked up. I crossed my fingers and hoped our stories didn’t cover the same ground. What else could I do? Months later I finally got to see the pilot episode, and the damn thing made me ill. It was totally different than BNW, but there were a few familiar moments. The show starts with the ‘flying guy’ on top of a tall building, my guy begins his story at the top of the U.S. Bank Building in Los Angeles. I was instantly fuming, but as the show went on I calmed down. The tone was radically different from mine, there’s was dark and foreboding. Something bad was coming, and the ‘heroes’ were going to somehow band together and stop it. My story was light, fun, no heroes, no villains, thank God. Even the scene on top of the building was completely different in terms of intent and execution. The details would slowly leak out as the plot unfolded week after week, and thankfully as the show went on, our stories turned out to be nothing alike at all. Then came my favorite moment.

The real flying guy, not the younger brother at all, but the older politician brother gets corned by some evil lookin’ dudes, and what does he do? He bolts into the sky fast as a rocket, leaving nothing but a trail of vapor, and a loud sonic boom in his wake! I was thrilled beyond words for two reasons. First, it was a great scene, and by that time I was thoroughly hooked on the show. And second, he flew NOTHING like Paul Krutcher.

Regardless of how “Heroes” or “Bizarre New World” turn out, I’m doing my best not to sweat it anymore. From everything I’ve seen, by the end of the “Bizarre” 3 issue mini-series, I don’t think anyone is going to mistake one for the other. It’s just not the same story at all. But we both happen to have flying guys. Deal with it, I’ve learned to.

There’s a lot more to say about the genesis of my little tale, but I refuse to spoil the details at this time. After the issues hit the stands, I can talk more. Until then, I do hope you enjoy the series. Chris and Wes are doing exceptional stuff, and I actually got to work with the amazing Tone Rod on a short story for “Bizarre” called “Blind.” That particular tale will be featured in a special "Free Comic Book Day" issue from my buds at Ape Entertainment, due out Summer 2007. All the sketches on this page are from the one and only Chris except the last one at the bottom. This is the very first image ever created for “Bizarre New World,” Tone banged it out while I was going over the “Bizarre” plot with him for the very first time. I told him the Paul character was loosely based on me, and this design was passed on to Chris, which he embellished into greatness. It was also a special treat to see the whole thing come full circle when Tone worked from Chris’s designs for the “Blind” short.

Skipper Martin - 1/5/07