The History of Special Comics - Part One

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What the fuck is a special comics? That's the question that I'm sure is on all of your minds and you would be wrong because it's not "A special comics"that we're talking about today, it's THE SPECIAL COMICS. To tell you the full story of the company that started it all I need to travel with you in a time machine. Let's get inside:


There's no backseat so it's going to be a little tight but we don't have far to go just back to the year....

2001

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The year Aqua, At The Drive-In and The Pilfers disbanded a young Shawn D. gets a call from a young Dave Kushner filled with ideas for a comic book. At the time I was living in Philly (a story for another time perhaps...) and the prospect of writing a comic with my best friend for him to them draw and then for me to letter and us to publish was to goo an offer to pass up.

That's how it begins. I moved back down to Coral Springs, Fl and Dave and idea start to write. Ideas are discussed and outlines written. We spend many days driving to Tate's Comics, next to Uncle Sam's, eating Taco Bell and writing what will start out being called "The Seventh Angel"©. It's the story of a guy named Max, employed as a mascot at a fast food chain called the Beeef Bus (the extra 'E' is for extra beef), who discovers he's actually the son of an alien king and the key to ending an ongoing battle between two warring alien races. There was an evil priest named Father Violence and a minotaur in a pope hat named Papal-Bull along with an escaped lunatic convict out to kill Max named Jackson Thorne.

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After the first issue was written I began the long process of waiting for the art. This is something I wasn't excepting when I first started making comics and have now come to love/hate the most about making them. It takes artists a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG time to draw. They are easily distracted, especially when you're nto paying them. Other than me only Dave knew how important this book was and that was what motivated him to finish it because there certainly wasn't any money in it for him.

We took these huge art blueline pages to a local print shop and had them scanned in. When I get the disc back I lettered the book and in a few weeks it was ready to be printed. Dave designed a company logo to put on the front cover that he would paint.

Pretty sweet logo if you ask me. (FUN FACT- Until I started the shawnwrites© brand I was specialshawn for years).

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We approached my Grandparents for the money to print the book and incorporate Special Comics. If I knew then what I know now I would never have Incorporated. I'd have saved the money and time and spent it going to conventions. Oh well.

2002

The company was formed (thanks to the fabulous attorney we hired, IRA, everything copyrighted and registered.... miss you Ira) and the book, which ended up getting a final title change and becoming "Savior no.7" was sent to the printers, who required a minimum order of 3,000 copies. I'm not sure if any of us realized how many copies 3,000 actually was until the book were at our door. There were....thousands of them (three thousand) and as exciting as it was to see my first comic book in print a voice in the back of my head cried out,"how the fuck are we going to sell all these books?" Luckily I was so excited to hold it in my hands the answer to that question didn't matter.

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That's the end of part one. Next time we'll talk about Savior no7 issue 2 and some great comics that never were (at least not yet).

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