INCEPTION. We have to go deeper...

I wanted to draw a comic book. I knew I would never finish something in full color, so past ideas, imagined in vibrant cel-shaded deliciousness, were out. I had a character concept floating around in my head for a while of an unassuming, timid kind of kid surrounded by crazy people, so I started there.

The character started in this idea I had for a story about a 3rd grade boy whose best friend was an over-the-top evil genius. The evil friend I mostly cut out, leaving only the boy behind. But he couldn't be in the 3rd grade, I wanted the story to be a sort of coming-of-age sort of ordeal as he entered his teen years, in the wake of some huge upheaval in his life.

Which made me think of my experience as a freshman in highschool. Instead of going to the same school my friends did after the 8th grade, I decided on an art school further from my home than I had ever been on my own, in the heart of the city. The experience, to save you a lengthy description, was traumatic. My view of the world for the first fourteen years of my life meant precisely dick the minute I started at CAPA, and trying to figure it all out made me crazy.

I wanted this boy to go through the same thing I did. I wanted him to narrate and analyze and philosophize in the way I had imagined him, in the way I can only do in retrospect. However, I wanted him to be unassuming and pensive where I was kind of loud and opinionated. I ran through some of the memories that stood out most in my head and said 'What would he have done...?'

Maximilian Palmer was eventually born.



(His head is too long, his eyes are too big... but I do intend to have him roll his pants up like that.)

... but teenage dramas are boring. I had plenty of other ideas floating around to make things more interesting, thankfully. Exaggerations of reality that my friends used to believe, like possessed, devil worshiping teenagers who gather in the forest and sacrifice pets. Monsters living in the creek by my house. Also, aliens. I wanted to include aliens.



The combination of these ideas is what I'm working with now. Max Palmer is a fourteen year old boy who has to keep the supernatural at bay while he tries to sort out his suddenly chaotic social life, as well as never bring home any D's. It's still a work in progress... I'll update when I have something worth mentioning.