Posted in: Comics | Tagged: A Hero's Death, Comics, kickstarter, mark texiera, Ricardo Sanchez

How Peeing My Pants Led To A Hero's Death With Mark Texeira

Ricardo Sanchez writes;

Mark Texeira and I are working on an original graphic novel titled A Hero's Death, that we are hoping to fund through Kickstarter. I won't mind if you stop reading to go pledge now. The quick pitch: Twenty years ago, The Hero died in a building collapse. Her death still has an impact on the city she left behind and one dogged reporter has decided to get to the truth of what happened regardless the costs. A Hero's Death is about regrets and tragedy and hope. It is a super hero yarn, but it's not like one you've read before.

And it used to have a different name.

This is a story I have never told anyone before. Not even my wife. But it is the absolutely true tale about how peeing my pants led to A Hero's Death. (No heroes were killed in the making of this story.)

I do all of my best work under pressure. I always have. Even when I was an adolescent.

One summer, a long, long time ago, I was playing Defender at a pizza parlor arcade. I had already beaten the high score on the machine, was close to hitting my all time personal best, and was closing in on my buddy's top score. But I had to go. Badly. And I was out of quarters. I mentioned this to my buddy and asked if he could keep me alive, just long enough for me to make it to the bathroom and back. He said no way. And who could blame him? I was about to take him down.

I could have done the smart thing, given up on reaching that score, and ran to the restoom. And probably should have. But I decided to risk it and keep going.

So, pressure building, I kept playing. I blew past my high score. I lost a ship trying to save a human. I was down to my last life. My pal's score was in sight. My ship zigged. It zagged. I danced.

And then I peed.

But I owned him! I played through and I annihilated my buddy's score and I kept going, and going, and going, and going. When the mutant space craft finally downed my last Defender and the human race was lost, I'd posted the best score my friend and I had ever seen. And I was standing in a yellow puddle.

Want to know the worst part of this story? I can't remember what my score was.

So what does this have to do with the original graphic novel, A Hero's Death, that I'm working on with Mark Texeira?

The project is based on a short story of mine that was first published in the Gods of Justice superhero anthology. The original title of the short was Death and Life of the Hero. It received a lot of good press, but the name sucked and I knew it. So while Mark and I were working on getting the Kickstarter ready, I was also trying to find a better title. Any better title. I'd managed to come up with a few that didn't totally suck, but I still hadn't hit on a title inspiring enough to launch a Kickstarter and time was running low.

So, one weekend, standing in line for the port-a-potty at the county fair, in rather urgent need, pressure building, I remembered my Defender high score and decided to make the best of the opportunity. By the time it was my turn to step into that hot, ammonia filled blue box, I'd noodled up A Hero's Death, which, once you read the story, I'm sure you'll agree is just right.

Mark and I don't have a whole lot of time left on our Kickstarter and we still have a painfully long way to go to hit our funding goal. I could try to "hold it" until then to see if that helps, but I'm not sure it is medically possible.

Instead, I came up with a challenge for Bleeding Cool's readers and I've opened a special reward tier on our Kickstarter for it. Here the deal.

1) If this reward tier raises $500 within the next three days, I WON'T show you what I look like wearing The Hero's costume. Trust me, you want to raise $500 to prevent this.

2) If this tier reaches $3500 in the next three days, Mark will paint a special Bleeding Cool watercolor of the Hero that we'll share here first.

3) If you really DO want to see what I would look like as The Hero AND you want to help us reach our funding goal, get this reward tier up to $6000 in the next three days. Honestly, there isn't much I won't do to get this project funded!

It's explained on the Kickstarter page, but this special tier is a "matching" one. It starts at $50 and gets everything the "Collector" reward level gets. Pledge an amount equal to any of the other reward levels and get those items too. Pledge $90, for example, and get the "Sketch" rewards.

So there you go. You have three days to reach $6000 to get me to debase myself. Pledge now! You won't believe what I'm willing to do to reach the stretch goal…

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