Last week, I wrote about Nowhere Man, a science fiction/police drama comic series by Jerome Walford. Since we’re such fans of comics here on Geeks Unleashed, I thought it’d be cool to interview Jerome on his project.
In order to print the first three books, Jerome is asking for support on Kickstarter. With 20 days left, the campaign is 91% funded. There is still time to get involved and get some great rewards. Click here to learn more or contribute to the Kickstarter project.
Jerome Walford, a fine arts graduate from Cornell University, runs The Blue Griffin Design Studio and his own comic site called Comix Mag. A comic reader himself, Jerome follows “Ultimate Spider-Man and Batman. I’m inspired by stories where the odds are severely stacked against the main character(s).”
The comic series has been a long time in the making. “The idea for Nowhere Man came about in the summer of 2007. For some reason my mind kept going back to my passion for comics. The core of the story is loosely based on a group of characters I developed in high school and did a comic short on in college that got me an A+ in my graphic design class.”
When work at the design studio slowed, due to the economy, Jerome decided to revisit his artwork.
“In the fall of 2009 I was going through my old sketchbooks and realized there might really be something there. So I spent a few months scripting from start to finish, then slowly began cranking out inked pages in early 2010.” This is when Jerome “began posting the black and white pages” of Nowhere Man on Comix Mag.
Realizing the potential of the project, with three initial books in the works as part of a nine part series, this summer Jerome launched a “publishing label, Forward Comix, which will hopefully become a great platform to publish my work.
When asked why he went with a science fiction, police drama, Jerome said, “There is a great blend of themes and directions that are possible when you combine these two genres. I think you see some of that in known works such as Batman, Blade Runner and Karas. Specifically, I like how you can spend a lot of time in the details of the drama that happens off and on the job as a cop, messy relationships, inner demons and so forth; and then turn to have an action-packed adventure. I really love how bringing both of those elements together makes a scifi/police story much richer.”
Jack Maguire is the main character in Nowhere Man, a “working class hero” who would “never call himself a hero“. The idea of the everyday hero is something I think a lot of people can relate to. Jerome goes on to talk about Maguire’s background, “His father died as a first responder on 9/11, and Jack has this line at the start of chapter one where he says “My father was a real hero.” Jack has things about him that will hopefully cause you to love and hate him. The other characters will grow and develop as well as the story unfolds. The deck is stacked against Jack Maguire as the central character but he doesn’t give up. His determination is probably the one trait that excites me the most.”
Nowhere Man has such a polished look, I figured Jerome had probably worked on a ton of other comics. But he said, “I’ve done art that has a comic style for clients such as Samsung and Yahoo, and I’ve done a couple short stories, but nothing on the scale of Nowhere Man. So this project has become a great way to personally challenge myself, both as a writer and comic artist.”
In recent years, Jerome has become “awestruck by comic legends such as Moebius and Joe Kubert.” He draws inspiration for his work from classic artists to film noir and Japanese anime.
He also adds, “My wife, Amy is my muse. Even when I feel I’ve done well on a piece, I know she believes I can do better. And she is usually right.”
“I’m really excited to see how far the entire project has come.” So are we!
Quick Takeaways:
- Eventually, we can expect “a total of nine 40-page books to the series.“
- Jack Maguire, the main character, is a “working class hero“.
- Science fiction and police drama make for an action-packed adventure.
- Jerome is inspired by masters from “Michelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci” to “Japanese print masters like Hokusai“.
Enjoy these sample pages of Nowhere Man that Jerome has graciously allowed us to post.
Mark Brassington 