August 17 09

Steph' here. Okay, I figure I eventually should write something here. Honestly, it's difficult for me to talk about my work, much less analyze it in words

I had several ideas for comics back in college. Some were good, some were bad. Among them was a "alien good guy goes to Earth to beat up bad alien guys" (yawn), one was about virtual reality game heroes--way before that stuff was everywhere (I got a few pages finished (with awesome amounts of old zip-a-tone, no less!) before I threw up my hands and gave up--more "I hate drawing all this tech stuff" than a bad concept, really) and a 40's era retro heroes concept. After I got in the business, I found out that only a couple of hundred readers, if that(!), are interested in "retro-heroes", ie "new stories but with 40's heroes". As most of you know, I love doing that stuff, having worked on All Hero Retro for AC with Mark and Bill and worked for Gary's Big Bang comics, who were guys who published the retro heroes kinda thing because they liked it and back in the 90's you could get people to buy practically anything for a few issues before they found out what it was. Most Golden Age fans prefer the real vintage comics they grew up with (and I can't blame 'em!) to retro comics.

Predictably, every comics fan in college I threw it at hated the 40's era retro heroes concept, but really liked the characters I had created. "This guy reminds me of my roommate last semester!" There were suggestions to update the characters to the 60's or the 90's, but there was stuff in it that simply wouldn't work with anything other than the 40's. Sure, I could update it, but I'd have to alter and drop a lot of background I'd worked out. It's not like this was something I was working on to please someone else where I'd have to change stuff. The lack of interest in the original concept was daunting to say the least.

So I ditched the project and worked on other stuff, like my grades to graduate. Occasionally, I'd play the characters in some role playing games and I'd dust them off and make a valiant attempt to finish the origin story because some kind soul wanted to help me out or see this unpublished comic in the comics shop, but that's about it.

The 21st Centurions was a separate concept and lets face it, it was pretty basic "tweens with power gadgets become super powered heroes." (thank goodness, someone's come up with a term for "between teen and twenty-something" now. Didn't have that in the 90's.) It didn't hold my interest alone. It needed something. So I pulled in one of the retro heroes that I created back in college to put the kids together as a team. Add a few plot twists. Bingo.

I got to know my art editor at AC, Mark over the phone. We talked to each other for nine years over the phone before we met in person. I fessed up to Mark that I had this really neat concept for a comic book. He was unimpressed. Pretty much everybody in comics has at least one major comic idea that they want to do in comics, whether that's for the BIG Two, or doing their own thing. But, once they get into doing comics they find out that doing comics is a lot of hard work , you have to deal with reality, you have to deal with editors, publishers, distributors, retailers... blah, blah... and people just eventually give up and become bitter about it all.

A few years go by, I'm married to that art editor Mark and am living my fabulous dream of working in comic books (and not slugging away at banal retail jobs or working for the news media). Sure, I'm working some fun stuff, but I still want to do "that" book. An ad catches my eye online. These guys want to publish comics. You keep all the rights, you have creative control, they get the lion's share of the profit for printing and promotion...and they print in color. Other comics publishers put the creators on the hook for printing bills and advertising. These guys say they won't do that. Unbelievable.

Mark's sceptical, so we wait until the first two books come out and they look great! We send them the 14 page color ashcan, talk to them and get the book lined up tentaively as part of their line-up. They want the book finished before they solicit. We work like mad on the book. We are two pages away from finishing the book, everything else is complete when we get the news that they are no longer publishing outside material. As of 2009, they're still publishing their in-house material, so it was probably the right business move for them, but it was a devastating blow to me.

End part one.

21st Centurions creator/writer/artist Stephanie Heike and her inker husband Mark bring this creator-owned property about a team of kid heroes, supervised and guided by a super-powered mentor with a mysterious past. A Sci-Fi/superhero title that focuses on personality and character development without skimping on pyrotechnics and action with state-of-the-art digital color and quality printing.