My First Independent Comic
An early short story by BKV and two creators he later married.
Hey, happy Friday, you. How’s your week been?
Today, I thought I’d share a real blast from the past, a never-before-seen comic I wrote 25 long years ago.
Back in 1997, an independent comic publisher was accepting submissions for short stories dealing with the legal system for some kind of charity book (sorry, my memory is useless).
I’d written a book or two for Marvel at this point, but I was eager to work on original stories. At this early stage of my career, I knew there was no chance I’d be able to convince any professional creators to collaborate on a project, so I asked my best friend and NYU roommate Jeff Yorkes if he’d take a crack at drawing his first comic story, and my then-girlfriend Ruth McKee graciously volunteered to letter our work.
We had absolutely no idea what we were doing, but collaborating with two people I love was one of the happiest creative experiences of my life. Sadly, the publisher didn’t accept our submission, but I’m happy to finally share our eight-page story with you generous paid subscribers in The Tower today.
By the way, Jeff went on to be an incredible film editor, and I eventually served as the officiant at his wedding (shout out, fellow ministers of the Universal Life Church!). These days, he’s writing on the upcoming Muppets Mayhem, a fucking fantastic new show he helped create.
Ruth McKee and I got married a few years after our first collaboration, and she remains my all-time favorite writer. The daughter of a professional calligrapher, Ruth says she’s mortified by her lettering here, but I think it’s lovely!
If anyone should be mortified by this amateurish early work, it’s me (I was clearly more interested in having a “Barber of Seville” pun than researching what the hell civil court actually is), but now that I have a few decades of distance from it, I actually think this is a pretty sharp little Tales From The Crypt-style yarn, and I hope you dig it…
