A New Milestone For Me
A New Milestone For Me
I may have to keep doing punny titles just to mess with you all...
This one has been over a year in the works and it’s finally here! Well, almost. Lemme back up a bit…
…I have an affinity for black superheroes. I can’t explain it, wholly, but I’m sure it has something to do with my childhood. I lived in a rough neighborhood in Norfolk, Virginia (near “Five Points,” if you know the area), and when I wasn’t living there I lived all over the place — Kalamazoo (MI), Grapevine (TX), Dadeville (AL), Jersey, back to Norfolk a couple of times — it’s been an experience. I’m sure that shaped me a little. The very first comic book character I ever created was an African elemental mystic named Asa (loosely based on an elemental character I had seen on Bionic Six). In 1998 I asked my friend Andy Smith to do up a model sheet for him.
I actually commissioned my first professional pinup featuring Asa and his arch nemesis, Erlik, in battle together. Steve Ellis did the art (again with Mike Atiyeh on color chores). I’ll republish that some other day... 😉
Fast Forward Nine Years
I was ready to finally publish something. I think.
I had actually written a story for Asa that included Thor, Odin, and the rest of the Æsir from Norse mythology in a tale that bridged both Christian myth (I was a new convert at the time) and the myths I grew up reading and studying. Andy penciled or roughed five pages, inking the first (I have that art hanging on my wall to this day), but when I shared the script with Mike Baron he shit all over it so badly that I asked Andy to stop and I paid for what work he did complete (he was so cool about it all).
Yes, Mike is a dick, but he’s also a comic book legend and he was 100% right in this case. My script was clunky AF, and just nowhere near ready. I was far from ready to write comics (I’m still not anywhere near “ready”, but I’m a lot closer and a lot better today than I was in 1998… or even 2012. We’ll get there…)
I updated that script a little, enough that then-Image Comics Publisher Erik Larsen agreed to publish the book. I spent a few hours on the phone with Erik discussing comics in-general, my script, his comments on my storytelling (which I still reference as my own writing gospel), my title (it was too lengthy for comics at the time), and how to market it. I was in the magic-tech-hybrid LOTR style genre not unlike Battle Chasers (published later that same year!) which he thought appealing to Image Comics audiences. I was ready to go! BUT…
…Eric Stephenson entered the picture. Now, before you read any further, Eric isn’t to blame for anything. He’s a bystander. My book was this close to being published by Image but when Stephenson came in it required a shift in publishing philosophy and anything — anything — that wasn’t actually on the publication schedule was subject to a restart or rejection. I was back to Square One.
Sometimes Rejection is the Best Thing
But, like I said: I wasn’t ready. I’m glad that happened because I don’t know that I’d be where I am today with my comics. Obviously, Image never published anything from me (even up to this very writing), but I learned a lot during those prevailing years. So, I scrapped everything and started over.
The next character I created was both an homage to the classic Pérez-Wolfman Teen Titans comics that I grew up with -and- a love letter to my failed attempt at creating Asa. This character would also be everything I wanted to be: the perfect leader, the strong hero (physically and morally), the fast, responsive paragon who focused on community first. Thus was born, Bluechip.
Now, to be fair, I’m a white dude creating a black dude. Aesthetically, he fit my own personal model which wasn’t necessarily the best design for a black, teenaged, street-level hero. I mean, the do-rag (which wasn’t what I was going for) is a big “aw, hell naw.” The Carolina Blue didn’t help (I’m a UNC fan, so there’s that).
Eventually, I recognized some terrible decisions and unintentional stereotypes in this design. Through multiple iterations, we ended on this design as his final (again, keeping in mind that his “era” of operation is intended to be the 1990s).
Bluechip was that character that I wanted to be. But, he was missing something. Eventually I realized that Asa was someone I needed to revisit. At this point, I had met Sean Izaakse and we were working well together. I asked Sean to take my original design and modernize/update it completely. I explained my thinking on the original design, and specifically asked for the “90s metal shoulder pads attached to nothing” to go away. 🤣
Sean gave me this:
WOW! Yeah, I’m sold. From this, I wrote and designed dozens of characters who ended up drawn by Andy, Sean, and a host of other individuals for my eventual production: The WatchGuard Sourcebook. Bluechip also received an entry amongst the 40+ characters contained therein.
Asa will probably get his own book (one-shot or mini-series) at some point because he’s my original. Time will tell, but it all goes back to Asa in some way, shape, or form…
Okay, What Are You Getting At…?
I’m glad you asked!
Fast-forward to the production of Spider-Squirrel Volume One. This was the single-most personal character I’ve ever created. I had him designed by my friend Ray-Anthony Height to specifically, intentionally look like me. But, that same thing that drove me to create Asa and Bluechip was still unresolved. I needed to scratch that itch. I love Asa. I love Bluechip. But they weren’t enough.
I proceeded to figure this out. He exists in my brain somewhere but who is he?? Yes, spoiler alert: it’s Milestone. Smart. Strong. Powerful. Personal. I wanted the power of the Silver Surfer with the loneliness of Daredevil with the intelligence of Mister Terrific (Michael Holt, c. 1997). All the things I was (lonely) or wanted to be (powerful, intelligent). I worked with Drew Moss, explaining the character to him and what we came up with wasn’t unlike the Blue Marvel from Marvel Comics (Dr. Adam Brashear). In fact, Blue Marvel debuted that same year and Drew originally used my favorite color scheme of blue/grey/black/white which we decided that this now would be a very “look-alike” problem. Shit happens. We changed colors. Life goes on.
And so I finally figured out how to scratch that itch from almost two decades before — and I decided that I cannot be the one to write him beyond a general, first appearance.
Milestone makes his shadowed, cameo debut in Spider-Squirrel #2 (one panel). He goes into full action in Spider-Squirrel #3. How he escaped Doctor Aeon’s capture is a story that I’ve yet to fully tell (this will be teased/mentioned in the Milestone mini-series). Trust me when I tell you that some things will seem confusing, but we’re playing with a pre-scripted time travel and dimension(s)-hopping issue that is far more complex than I can put into a few pithy paragraphs. Give us time, and enjoy the ride.
Ready for Launch!
So, with all of that unnecessary backstory, I now announce that the Milestone mini-series is ready for launch and you can be notified FIRST by signing up via Zoo’s pre-launch page signup:
https://zoop.gg/c/milestone
As you will see, I opted to let a terrific writer, and my bother, my personal and dear friend Vito Delsante write this tale. Mexican pro Ariel Medel is supplying some GORGEOUS line art with Omi Remalante and Saul Shavanas working colors for us. This is a story that is both mine and not mine. I’m so very proud of what this team is doing, and how much Vito is [intentionally or unintentionally] pulling at those strings of loneliness and frustration and exhaustion that I feel so often.
For as badass superhero cosmic cool as this book is, it is also sincerely personal and deep and introspective and individual.
I could NOT have been blessed with a more perfect writer and partner in creating this character than the people working this book. Period.
I hope you’ll follow this campaign, join us in this continued #Renaissance for Indie Comics, and let Milestone be just that: an historical marker in the fabric of independent comics chronology that leads to so much more from Xion Studios (and others).
Let’s f*cking rock this!!!
~Charlie~
👉🏼👉🏼👉🏼 Milestone #1 coming soon to Zoop! 👈🏼👈🏼👈🏼