December 21st, 2023
One of the taglines I used for A Dream… was: “The sequel to everything, real and imagined.”
Anyone who read the book found out exactly what I meant: while I used most of the major characters I’ve introduced in my published stories over the past ten years, they shared the stage with other players I had been creating over my entire life, but never shared before.
This is a deeper dive on those deep cuts.
THE GRIBLIX: I created these half-cute and completely disturbing creatures in 1994, when I was 8 or 9 years old. Upon rediscovering the notebook pages, I thought I had been writing about something that existed already; Googling them in the present gave me no relevant results, so this was all from my strange kid mind, totally peak me. In A Dream…, the Griblix become guides and guards and akin to the Oompa-Loompas from Willy Wonka’s factory. I used all their abilities and was even able to update them; for example, instead of being capable of mere warp speed, they’re able to move at the speed of thought in the dream world. The only thing they don’t do in the book is eat my sister, Nina. There’s always the sequel?
DYING DEVILS: These characters were a blast to write as an adult, and a love letter to 90’s shows like Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, which inspired the creation of them. My childhood friend Danny (Hi, Dan!) and I used to run around our backyards, having adventures and fighting monsters under this name. The initials of the Dying Devils — DD — were also our initials, Danny and Dennis. I kept our names intact in the book (changing Dennis slightly to Denny).
LUCK: A character that increases in importance as the story rolls on, Luck is a mutant; more specifically, Luck is me, if I were a mutant who co-existed with the X-Men. For a while, as a kid, I was convinced that I had luck powers; I could vaguely see the future and sense both good and bad things to come (turns out, this is just what we humans call “instinct” and “gut feeling” and I was wrong a lot). I wrote and drew tons of X-Men stuff at that age, and Luck was an original character that just stuck with me.
DAZZLING HOLLOW: In a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo, a white fox and armadillo appear out of a black portal. That is Lauran and Niko, the stars of Dazzling Hollow, an eight-page all-ages comic I created for Free Comic Book Day in 2019. Those have to be a collector’s items now, right?
MAXIM: One of my favorite appearances in the book isn’t even my character! My good friend Steve has been writing a book for something like 50 years now, so as a nod to his story that barely exists (and a hopeful push to keep on going), I put his main character, Maxim, in the I.D.E.A; last I heard, Maxim was still there.
JOJO: This is a character I have actually kind of introduced to the world, as he’s the main character of my next graphic novel, Jojo’s Time Machine. He’s been around since at least 2001, and I have spent so much time with him, especially this year. Jojo is a middle-aged rabbit who owns a coffee shop and moonlights as an inventor. I’m in a really weird stage with him right now; he has occupied so much of my mind and heart the past few years, but he still feels like an imaginary friend, because none of you have seen a page of it yet. That’s going to change soon, and I’m getting excited to just feel able to announce and share more about this project in the ever-so-close future.
This is a good list, and there are even more appearances, dramatic and subtle, throughout the story; part of the joy of telling a story that spanned my entire life to now was being able to use every chapter of it. For me, it elevates what could be a novelty into something deeper, more vulnerable and infinitely personal.
The Den 