Origin

By Brian Koscienski and Chris Pisano

Are you tired of the rejection letters? Have you thought about self-publishing? Did you ever wish that you could read about a couple of knuckleheads trying to start their own publishing company to see what's really involved? Well, you're in luck. We're those knuckleheads.

As with any set of characters involved in comics, we have origins as well; here are the reasons for our actions and motivations to elicit a sympathetic reaction from the reader. I'm Brian, the self-appointed mouthpiece of the group. Chris and I have been friends for well over a decade, but we had to muddle through the first seven years of friendship before we realized that we both shared dreams of becoming writers. "Why'd it take seven years?" you may ask. Well, we're men and we share our feelings as often as Sally Struthers shares a sandwich with third-world children. And to be up front with you right now, expect "because we're men" to be used as an excuse for many of the dumb things we'll do during this arduous journey.

Just so you can truly understand the characters better, let's just say that I'm the type of guy who would talk Chris into wearing capes and climbing to the roof of a two-story house, convinced we can fly. Chris is the type of guy who would talk me into trying it from the second floor balcony instead. I'm the type of guy who would then push Chris off the balcony to see if the whole flying experiment will work. Now, I'm not mean-spirited, mind you, just very driven, very zealous, and often very misguided. Chris' job is to fix these things.

Upon discovery of our shared desire to write, we decided to partner up and write a novel. As with any great idea, it was hatched after a few brews at the local bar. During a surprise moment of clarity, we decided to write a fantasy novel (the swords and horses, dragons and wizards kind) and quickly came up with settings, plots, characters, and the dream cast of who should star in the movie version. Things were going very smoothly for us. I would write a few pages, inadvertently place the characters in precarious situations, then send the script to Chris and say, "Your turn." This process worked, and worked well for more than eight chapters, until one fateful day when my wife gave me too much free time, allowing me an opportunity to stroll to the "back issue" section of the local comic book store.

Forgive us, but to continue we must briefly revisit the Dark Age of comic books. Yes, the nineties. Marvel had all their "X" titles do a seventeen part cross-over three times a year; the Avengers were fighting whole wars underwater, in space, and through time; most of the other titles struggled to remain comprehensible (seriously, did anyone really understand the whole "She-Thing" idea?), all finally culminating in the "Onslaught" fiasco. What was going on over at DC? Superman died, Batman broke his back, Robin laid an egg while the Bat-mobile lost its wheel and Joker got away. Independents weren't much better with their plotless stories of T & A cloned "heroines" and heroes so large they'd make a Mr. Olympia contest look like a junior high chess club. Like some of you, we thought the industry let us down and wore us down, giving us no other alternative to stopping all subscriptions and pray that one day the industry would refocus on writing. Well, as we found out, some prayers can be answered.

I never truly walked away, though. Thanks to eBay, I was able to feed the addiction of collecting, needing only a cursory glance through random issues to remember why I stopped reading them. Thusly, I only needed to visit the local comic store for bags and boards. One day, I had two hours to spare before I had to meet my wife for something. Two hours is a long time for a person all too willing to don a blanket-style cape and jump from a roof to fly. Curiosity pulled me past the "supplies" section of the store, right to the letter "A" of the back issue section. There it was-- my radioactive spider, my gamma bomb-- "Alias #1."

Within minutes of finishing that issue, I went online and ordered the complete series. With a Galactus-sized hunger, I went back to the comic shop and devoured every Max title I could find. So enamored with the imprint, I went to Marvel's website to learn more, however, only one word caught my eye-- Epic.

Like so many aspiring writers out there, I couldn't help but find, and click on, the menu option labeled "submission guidelines." Can you see where this is going? Yep, my brain flooded with so many ideas that it would have given Charles Xavier an aneurysm, and immediately called Chris to convince him to veer off the novel path onto the road of comic books. Having learned there is very little difference between a jump from the roof and a push from a balcony, Chris quickly agreed. In fact, he kind of liked the idea.

Then came Gabe and Jac (pronounced Jake). Since the idea behind Epic was to submit ideas from a preformed team, we needed artists. Chris brought in Gabe while I brought in Jac, each with a unique style. Holding up our end of the bargain, we penned three scripts, one for a Ghost Rider idea, a Guardians of the Galaxy idea and a Moon Knight idea. Both Gabe and Jac fell in love with the Ghost Rider idea with such vigor that we had to write a second script to keep the artists from fisticuffs. All of us were proud of the scripts and had high hopes for the future. Unfortunately, reality has a habit of taking good feelings away from non-established writers.

Three rejection letters later, Epic folded before we could come up with any more ideas. However, we didn't need to-- our own thoughts and ideas took over. Completing script after script, original ideas were popping up faster than mutants in the Marvel Universe. Unfortunately, so was the phrase, "We are not currently looking for writing submissions at this time" on every publisher's website. Finally, we had it. We couldn't take it any more. We had another great epiphany, again hatched over a few more brews at the local bar: We're going to start our own damn publishing company.

Fear not, intrepid reader, for we will certainly keep you abreast of our situation. Every folly and foible shall be well documented for your information, or amusement for those of you sadistic enough to enjoy watching the turmoil of a butterfly attempting to escape a spider web. If all goes well, then we hope other aspiring writers will take something from our example to blaze their own trail. If we fail, then at least a few lovable losers from Pennsylvania will show you in great detail what not to do…

Next Issue: "Assemble!"

Brian and Chris reside in south central Pennsylvania where Brian is often chased by angry villagers wielding torches and pitchforks due to his uncanny resemblance to Sasquatch while Chris can often be found in newspapers and magazines under the headline "Cro-Magnon Man Found." Their obsession with writing is pretty thorough; their compositions range from stories to novels to articles to comic books to poetry. They even went so far as to start their own publishing company called Fortress Publishing. Their main mission in life is to simply do what the screaming voices behind their eyeballs tell them to do.

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