Axiom-man™ : The Middle Years (Axiom-man™ Origin Story Pt. 2 of 3)

In grade eleven I enrolled in Drama class and, to my discovery, so did an old friend of mine, Kyle Zajac (who would, almost ten years later, lend his skills to the fantastic coloring of the cover to the Axiom-man novel). He and I had been friends when we were kids, but up until that first day in Drama, he and I weren’t all that close. Not only was that day the beginning of a remarkable friendship, it was also the beginning of my “coming out” era in regards to superheroes.

See, Kyle at some point prior had developed an interest in drawing and it was during one of those early Drama classes that I got a look at his material. Though the majority of it was simply copies of various Spider-man comic covers, I was enthralled by them immediately. I also don’t know what made me more happier: his art or the fact that he was a superhero fan, the kind of person who had been missing in my life since that day long before when I couldn’t find my action figures.

It was during the beginning stages of my friendship with Kyle that I, too, took a renewed interest in art (I used to love drawing as a kid) and that I made my first-ever trip to a comic book shop with him. I remember buying the first issue of DC’s Final Night miniseries and a Spider-man comic (I may have also bought Nightwing #1, though I can’t be sure). It had been a cloudy day and in spite of the gloom and the rain that began to break free just as we waited for the bus to go home—it was the day of a new dawn, one that would set me on a path that continues to this day.

I rushed home and made it there just before my folks arrived back from work. I hid the comics in my night table, afraid of what they would say if they found out what I had in my possession. And when I finally found some time to myself and read them, I was tickled inside with the thrill of indulging myself in a guilty pleasure I could call my own.

The months wore on and Kyle and I made more and more trips to the comic shop. I began drawing and spent every spare moment during all of my classes doodling Superman and Spider-man, Batman and others. It got to the point, however, that my night table drawer was getting full of bag-and-boarded 22-page wonders. It was then that I made a decision: I left my comic books out. Terrified of the lecture I would get, I was instead surprised to find out my parents didn’t really mind and that they even showed an interest in my drawing. (Though, later, they weren’t too thrilled with the idea that I wanted to draw comics as a career.)

Time passed and I enrolled in Art for the following semester. Kyle was there, too, and all we did was work on the projects assigned and drew superheroes.

And it was then that I drew a special character for the first time, with a costume that bore an uncanny resemblance to a Power Ranger. But he needed a name so, using the handy-dandy thesaurus on my folks’ Mac, I began plugging in words—heroic words—trying to find a name that would suit my new creation. I inserted the word “law” into the search box and host of alternatives popped up.

One stood out: axiom.

And so Axiom was born.

During the rest of that year and into grade twelve, Kyle and I took Multimedia, where we learned about Photoshop, Premiere, Acrobat—Adobe’s finest. One of the earliest Photoshop projects was to create a magazine cover using whatever images we wanted. Being a fan of Wizard by this point, I decided to create my own version of the famed comic magazine and came up with Coscom (which stood for “Cosmic Comics”). Little did I know that that name would later become Coscom Entertainment, a small publishing press that would bring indy superheroes to readers sometime in the future.

Looking up to the likes of DC, Marvel and Image—and one day wanting to compete with them—Kyle and I knew that each of us having one character under our belts wouldn’t be enough, so we went about creating a whole slew of characters, many of which I’ve now forgotten, which is a shame as I know there were a few gems in there. Just wish I could remember what they were called.

At that point, I was enamored with Todd McFarlane’s Spawn, namely the idea behind what that character stood for, and that was one man’s vision being told how he wanted to tell it. And so, after many doodles and so-so tries, I designed the light and dark blue costume you find on the Axiom-man book cover. Yet this particular character wasn’t Axiom-man. His name was Trinity, symbolized by the triangle on his belt. He was meant to be more of a supernatural type of character, one who battled demons and other creatures. For my final project for my grade twelve Art class, I drew a 20-or-so-page comic featuring Trinity battling demons, all rendered in black and white. The story wasn’t all too hot, but even now when I stumble upon the old project, a certain swell of pride always surfaces.

Later, due to the first Matrix movie, I changed Trinity’s name to Messenger because “Trinity” was being used in the film and since I’m such a stickler for originality, I couldn’t bear the thought of my character’s name being shared with Neo’s love interest. And then later still, I discovered that the name “Messenger” was also used somewhere in comics (can’t remember which one) and so my blue hero was stuck without a name for a long time.

I never forgot about Axiom, though, and eventually merged the Axiom and Messenger character into one, thus Axiom was born, blue cape and all.

He became my hero, and I drew him whenever I got the chance.

After high school, I took a year off and tried to get Coscom Entertainment off the ground. It never panned out due to a variety reasons, and for a time any hope of a future in the comic book field was gone.

From 1999-2000, Kyle—who had also taken a year off to figure out what he wanted to do with his life—and I enrolled in a local vocational school and took a 10-month course in 2D animation, the goal of which was, if we could learn how to draw characters in motion, drawing them standing still in a comic book would be a snap. What we didn’t realize was how much of an arduous journey those ten months would be and that about halfway through the course, the school would stop teaching the curriculum as outlined to us on Day One and each day would be us coming in to draw whatever we wanted, sleep, or not show up at all. It was during this time that I developed a strong distaste for all things art-related and had lost hope in one day drawing comics for a living. Yet this setback was also a blessing in disguise because it was during this period of shattered hope that I began writing comic book scripts for guys in the class to hone their penciling skills with. One of them was Justin Shauf, the gentleman who would one day provide the pencils and inks for the Axiom-man book cover. I eventually moved from comic scripts to a couple of short stories. And from there wrote the first batch of short stories that would later comprise the prologue to my novel, A Stranger Dead.

I still never forgot about Axiom, but by the time June, 2000, rolled around, the character was nothing more than an idea that would remain only that: an idea.

To be concluded...