Posted in: Comics | Tagged: amazing spider-man, Brian Middleton Jr, Comics, entertainment, kickstarter

A Place That Feels Like Home

Published Sun, 05 Oct 2014 16:00:23 -0500

Brian Middlton Jr. writes for Bleeding Cool.

A Place That Feels Like Home is a story about a boy named Joiner, his robot Jake, and the journey they go on to find…a place that feels like home. Along the way they make a friend, and an enemy, and they have an awesome adventure.

I've been an avid comic book reader for more than two thirds of my life. I remember to this day the first comic book that I bought. Amazing Spider-Man #383. Part one of "Trial by Jury". I was hooked from the first page. The story was a decent one, and of course, ended on a cliffhanger. As did the next issue (it was a 3 part story). I remember being naive enough to believe the hype at the end of issue #384, where the copy read "Oh, no! The (gulp) LAST SPIDER-MAN story?!! Be here in 30 days to find out!" I thought to myself, "Great, I just found this great new thing and it's going to be over next month!" I will treasure that memory forever because that's when I fell in love with comic books, hook, line and sinker.

It was an easier time for young readers to get into comics then. The prices were lower ($1.25) and it was the nineties, so there were comic shops everywhere. I lived about ten minutes walking distance from my local comic book store, plus they carried various titles at all of the grocery stores in town. Now I have to drive 45 minutes to get to a comic shop. Times have changed. Comics are marketed to men my age now, and while I don't think that's a bad thing, I do think we are missing some of the younger generation.

One other thing that that early Spider-Man comic did for me was put a fire in my heart to learn how to draw. I remember redrawing Mark Bagley's Spider-Man over and over again, learning the muscle placement and the intricacies of Spidey's costume. That too is something that has stuck with me. I've grown up to be a comic book creator and I'm proud of it. Recently I put together a warm-up sketch that I immediately fell in love with. Here, I'll show it to you in it's original incarnation:

I posted this drawing to my instagram one night and then went to bed. The following morning though I found myself still hung up on it. I wondered why the boy was building this android spaceman suit. What was in space that he needed to find? Why was did he make the suit a robot? And so on. And as I started to wonder about it, a story came to me. A story about a lonely boy who decides to literally "make" a friend. About a boy who feels like he doesn't belong, and decides to do something about it. And I decided that it was a story that I wanted to tell.

Long story short, I wrote a comic-book influenced storybook. I settled on a storybook format because I am so pumped to share the story of Joiner (the boy), Jake (the robot) and Sarai (the space princess) with my daughter. But I brought my comic book influences to each page, not only in the art, but with the dialogue as well. I'm hoping that it's a book that will light a fire in her, as well as in others, the same way Amazing Spider-Man #383 did for me, all those years ago.

I'm funding this book on Kickstarter right now. I'm going to show you some pages from the book down below, or you can check out the first 8 pages, in video form here. You can also e-mail me with any questions at bmiddleton(at)gmail.com, and check out my webcomic, as well as daily sketch blog at www.colesmithcomics.com.

I'm also going to add something to sweeten the pot. Anyone who pledges $5 or more this weekend will get the "Bleeding Cool special", a sketch card drawing of one of the characters from the book!

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