In Medias Res
Part I
What if one person was two superheroes? ALTER EGO is the story of the smiling champion WHIZ-BANG, the prowling vigilante THE BLACK DOG, and the man behind both of their masks. This weekly newsletter is a behind-the-scenes look at the making of Alter Ego, by Nate Cosby, Jacob Edgar, Kike J. Diaz & Rus Wooton.
PART I: The Itch
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The problem was, I had this stupid itch.
Growing up? I loved superheroes. Liked the idea of somebody pulling on a costume and jumping off to help. It went beyond being a fan of comics or movies for me: I wanted to BE a superhero. All pics of me before age ten include either a Superman logo or a makeshift cape around my neck. My uncle referred to me as “Bats” til I was in high school. Every trip in the car required a stack of comics at my side and five action figures, or else I’d be inconsolable.
DC had my favorites...Robin, Nightwing, The Flash, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, Captain Marvel, Blue Beetle, The Legion Of Super-Heroes. But mostly, especially, there was Superman and Batman. My FAVORITE favorites.
A baby comes from a faraway place. He can do stuff other people can’t, gets raised right, decides to help people. Not because he has to. He wants to.
A kid loses his family. Beats him up inside. So much so that he’s gonna dedicate his life to making sure other people don’t have to go through what he did.
To me, every other hero revolved around those two giants. I loved the idea that they existed in the same universe...a smiling champion bounding around all day, a brooding vigilante prowling at night. And they were (usually) buds. Totally different methods, with the same goal: They were there to help. But similarities too: They disguised themselves, so they could have “normal” lives when not punching bad guys.
I read tens of thousands of superhero comics as a kid, dazzled by the stubborn determination of colorfully clad adventurers determined to stop all sorts of bad, then changing clothes to get on with their “normal” lives. And by the fourth grade, I realized being a superhero was broadly impractical, so I decided I’d make comics about superheroes instead.
A decade-ish later, I was an editor at Marvel, where I got to work on dozens of superhero books every month. The Fantastic Four! Pet Avengers! Thor The Mighty Avenger! The Incredible Hulk! Agents Of Atlas! Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane! I was like a kid in a candy store!
But a few years went by, and I started feeling a little burnt out on superheroes. I’d become a kid in a candy store that’d tried everything in the store and lost their sweet tooth. It was my own fault...I’d gorged myself on a genre. Couple that with the ever-growing omnipresence of superhero movie and tv adaptations outside of work, and I decided to step off the super-train.
But I still (and always will) loved the comics medium, so I went off to mix it up. Started a production company, overseeing a few hundred books featuring cowboys and barbarians and ghosts and spies and Martians and zombies and gods and vampires and demons and assassins and ninjas and robots and detectives and magicians and birds and fruit.
But this stupid idea kept itching in my brain…
What if there was a person, who can do a little more than the average human, with a strong motor, with a stubborn attitude, determined to help everyone, day and night. What would that look like?
“A superhero,” I replied, to myself. “What you are describing is a superhero, which is the most unoriginal thing in the world, dummy.”
And like most stupid ideas I have, it was quickly considered and swiftly discarded. But the stupid itch kept coming back. I’d scratch it away but it’d ping on all sides of my brain...
A person...determined to help everyone, day and night. What would that look like?
“It would look like a superhero! Y’know what the world is not at all desperate for? More superheroes.”
But this stupid idea, this stupid itch wouldn’t go away.
Help everyone, day and night.
Finally, I indulged my stupid brain’s stupid itch. I thought of what it would look like, if you had someone that was a little strong, a lot determined, and chose to help people all the time. I thought of what I’d do, if I wrote that superhero. And maybe it was because I’d not read a superhero comic or watched a superhero movie for the better part of a decade, but all these touchstones started coming back to me, all these things that’d meant so much to me…
-Seeing The Rocketeer for the first time, in a theater…
-Crying at the gentleness of The Iron Giant...
-Being wowed by the world of Astro City...
-Watching Batman and Superman: The Animated Series on Saturday mornings, seeing these humongous interpretations of my favorites in gorgeously deco-meets-timeless settings...
-Laughing like an idiot at the Guy Gardner/Blue Beetle/Booster Gold-era of Justice League…
-Poring over Darwyn Cooke’s DC: The New Frontier pages over and over and over and over...
Time away from all things superhero allowed me to nurture the one superhero story that was in my head, inspired by my favorites. The story that I wanted to develop with a like-minded creative team, that’d make a reader feel how I felt, when I read my favorite stories.
And soon after, it dawned on me…
Day and night.
My brain wasn’t trying to create a superhero. It was creating one person that’s two superheroes.
I told you all that to tell you this: Howdy! Welcome to our newsletter, In Medias Res: The Making Of Alter Ego. We’re going to be making a comic before your eyes, giving you behind-the-scenes access to the entire process, from idea to plot to script to thumbs to pencils to inks to color to letters. We’re calling it In Medias Res because you find us very much in the middle of things...25 pages completed, out of 100 (give or take).
It’s a weird sensation, returning to a genre I’d left behind, but it feels renewed to me, refreshed. I’ve overseen SO many superhero comics, but I’ve never really written one. Kinda weird, sorta scary...but luckily, I’m not doing this alone.
-Jacob Edgar and I have collaborated together for a few years now, on creator-owned and for-hire comics. He’s my co-creator and co-storyteller on this thing, and it doesn’t exist without his collaborative enthusiasm, his thoughtful approach to the premise, his ability to make what we’re doing feel fresh and familiar in equal measure.
-Kike J. Diaz is a coloring dynamo that’s worked on dozens of books for me as an editor. He does incredible work over David Lopez for Panel Syndicate’s Blackhand Ironhead. He did beautiful work over Jacob’s art on an Army Of Darkness series.
-Rus Wooton. I mean, the guy’s lettered The Walking Dead, Invincible, Thor The Mighty Avenger (my personal favorite). Unbelievably thoughtful designer and a dang good artist in his own right. Perhaps there are equals, but there are no letterers better than Rus Wooton.
Putting a new comic out into the world is equal chunks thrilling and nerve-wracking. You write and edit and tweak and sketch and rough and revise and ink and flat and tone and recolor and draft and revise and revise and revise and revise and you don’t “finish” so much as surrender. It’s an incredibly fun, sometimes-excruciating experience. Usually, I revel in the small collective of creators that bang their respective talents together to make a comic, only showing the final product.
But this one time, for this one comic, Jacob, Kike, Rus and I are gonna put you in the middle of things. Take you step-by-step through our “process” (cringe), show you the how and why. Check back every Wednesday, and please tell your friends to sign up for this newsletter too, if you know of anybody that might like our vibe!
And with that, I’ll close by introducing you to Whiz-Bang, aka The Black Dog, aka a fella by the name of Ace Adams. Welcome to the making of Alter Ego.
Talk atcha next week…
-Nate
Here we go!
Looks FABULOUS!