Broken Frontier

In March, Nox, a new five-issue mini series by Narwain Publishing out later this month, made the comic book news headlines because the project was first called ‘Threshold’ and had to be retitled. As it turned out, Avatar Press already had a comic in development with the same name. No problem for series creator and writer Shon C. Bury.

“Nox was always my runner up title,” he says. “'Nox' is of course Latin for ‘night.’ In mythology—and in most dramatic structures—there’s always a battle between the vegetative word and the mineral world, summer and winter, day and night, light and dark. Our guys are on the side of light and find themselves lodged more and more into this dark, evil world of shadows: the Nox.

The series revolves around “the deep mythological themes explored by Joseph Campbell's Hero Cycle,” according to the press release Narwain sent out announcing the project and the title change. That must mean that Bury has used Campbell’s theoretic model to structure his story, right? Indeed, that assumption was correct. “I absolutely structured it off the Hero Cycle model,” Bury continues. “You have all the stuff in there. The refusal of the call to adventure. Threshold crossing. Wise men. An underworld. A manifestation of the White Goddess. A boon. I didn’t do every single element because of format constraints, but the main ones are all there for readers to follow along with and identify as we travel along the cycle.

For Bury, turning to Joseph Campbell and his seminal Hero with a Thousand Faces was more a case of wanting to incorporate some of his role model’s outline rather than doing it out of a lack of inspiration. “I’d always been a huge fan of mythology, ever since I was a little kid,” he explains. “When I first read Hero with a Thousand Faces and saw what could be done with that in a contemporary, albeit fantastical world, I couldn’t resist.”

Yet, fantasy and mythology haven’t always been part of Bury’s work. During the early days of his writing career, he did some work for Image, Marvel and DC; his first published work hitting the stands at the young age of 22. “I did a feature in a ShowCase ’95 that was a great learning experience,” Bury recalls. “From there, I moved over to WildStorm when they where still with Image, which was around 1995 or 1996, and co-created Black Ops with Jim Lee and Dan Norton and wrote some fill-ins and one-shots.”

“Around 1998, I started getting a bit of work at Marvel and DC. I wrote Cable and Power Pack for Marvel as well as a shelved revamp of Micronauts with Cary Nord and a really cool mini series that was essentially Professor Xavier’s memoirs. We where five issues into Micronauts when licensing issues tanked the project.

“At DC, I did more fill-in work on Superman Adventures and Impulse. I also worked for Acclaim at this time, just after they abandoned their superhero universe. Over there, I co-created a little gem called NIO and wrote the videogame adaptation of Turok: Oblivion. This puts us in 2000 somewhere, when I basically decided I needed to focus on other things going on in my life as well as creatively refuel myself.”

Bury rediscovered his creative fire by turning away from men in tights and heroes in the strict sense. Instead of putting his lead character in spandex, Bury opted for someone who’s more interested in the ways of the lord than in blowing things up with his hands or eyes.

“Joey King’s a fairly average grad student living in a fairly mundane world,” he says as he describes his story’s star, modelled after a young John Cusack with a little Xander from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. “His world is right outside our window, at least, if you’re a grad student living on Capitol Hill in Seattle. He’s a comparative mythology student who receives a mysterious package in the mail one rainy night. The contents are a staff, an amulet, and a mysterious journal. This opens up a whole new world for Joey and his best friend Bobby, one filled with wise men, demons, goddesses, magical creatures, more magical items, and more demons.

“As the first issue ends, Joey and Bobby—with “help” from a mystical guru named The Nun—beat back an attack from some generic demons.  Joey’s a little confused by the whole thing since his studies in comparative mythology and his understanding of Joseph Campbell’s Hero Cycle have informed him that he is on the brink of ‘Crossing the Threshold of Adventure.’  It’s a big ‘huh’ moment for Joey since his academic studies are unfolding around him in the very real world in which he lives.

“This is one of the first pit stops in the Hero Cycle; the first main one really, where a protagonist decides he’s willing to become a hero or not. We don’t know Joey’s decision at the end of the first issue. But we have a good idea…it is a five-issue mini after all.

“Joey’s like Telemachus, or the farm boy or Ralph Maccio getting the crap kicked out of him in the first act of Karate Kid or Bruce Wayne in the dark alley as a child. As I said, he’s not a hero yet. He’s been studying this stuff all his adult life…and now he finds these events unfolding around him just like they have a thousand times over three millennia of literature and mythology. He fills the archetype of the hero, but you’ll see as the issues move on that archetypes often blend together and split apart depending on the functions required.”

Working alongside Bury on Nox is penciller Allan Goldman. Don’t let his American-esque name fool you, Goldman actually hails from Brazil and corresponds with Bury via their common studio manager, Antonio Martinez Jr. “I first encountered his art when I began representing artists at Sequential Studios , a talent agency [Antonio] has been running for over eight years now,” Bury says about how he discovered Goldman’s artwork. “Allan was just coming off a project as I came on board as a rep. I was impressed with two things: 1) his amazing production output, and 2) his mind-blowing art. The Nox scripts where complete and I was ready to start putting the book together, so I stole Allan for myself. His pages keep getting better and better every day. The amazing thing is that he’s only 23. His dedication and maturity and flat-out skill are years beyond his age.”

Considering his age, it might also come as a bit of a surprise that Allan’s pencils on Nox are not being inked, but go straight to colorist Ed Waysek. Isn’t the pencils-to-colors approach usually a procedure that’s only reserved for the more veteran artists of this business? Not in Bury’s eyes…

“Allan’s so badass I couldn’t dream putting an inker on his line work,” he gushes. “And Ed—another very young up-and-comer—is equally badass on his side of things. He didn’t even blink twice at the challenge of coloring over pencils. I’m amazed because pencils-to-colors is not an easy process, but Ed makes it look like child’s play.”

With an artist and colorist on board, the final step for Bury was the same as the one for many creators hoping to put out an independent comic: finding a publisher. Something that certainly didn’t make that task any easier was Bury’s limitations when it came to handing over his concept. “Mainly,” he says, “I wanted to retain 100% of the rights and have 100% creative control. Everything that sucks about Nox will be my fault. On the spandex side back in the day, there was so much finger pointing when things went wrong and so much credit stealing when things went good. I really wanted this project to be a “buck stops here” thing. Sorry, that’s a little long winded, but anyway, Narwain was willing to offer me this where their domestic counterparts couldn’t.”

So, what if the series does well, both for Narwain and for Bury? Will we see any more of Joey King in that case or is this mini series as good as it gets? “There are no plans for an ongoing,” Bury contests, “because the series is not formatted that way. I have the seed of an idea for a second, smaller mini or OGN, but that all depends on fan interest. I will, however, keep the original arc in trade for as long as humanly possible.

“I have a couple other creator-owned things I’m putting together, but everything is far too early in development to chat about now. I would like to start pitching to the Big Two again, but I have some more stuff to get out of my system first.”