Lost Legends took 2 years to complete. I wanted each panel to look like a painting. It was a strenuous and challenging process because I was working full time and at times wondered if all the effort I was putting into the project would be worth it. I didn’t have a distributor so what was I doing this for?
I took a gamble on myself. I wanted to make comic books the way they were when I was growing up in the 1980s. Back then, I could relate to characters like the ones in The New Teen Titans. They were older than I was, but their predicaments seemed to matter to me more than the adult heroes that first introduced me to the world of comic books like Superfriends, Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman. Perhaps because TNTT had character. They had a soul.
Around the early 1990s something was lost. Something was amiss from the emotional truth that made me be so absorbed by comic books, specifically those written by Marv Wolfman or anything drawn by George Perez. The genre had become mechanised into something unrecognisable to me. Instead of being character driven, it became a world of worlds colliding and improbable situations that were unrelatable.
I wanted to challenge the way comics were made. Do it in my perspective as an artist would. I missed the double entendres, the underlying messages behind characters like Superman and Batman. The meat, the soul that made them so dangerous that at one point in history, comic books were the subject of an anti-comics movement. Thus, I established Integrity Comics in 1989. It started off with many names but Integrity stuck. I stopped doing comic books in 1996 and came back into the scene in 2004 with Crimelords, which I will talk about in a later blog.
Lost Legends came to be in 2008 but was started 2 years prior. It is based on a simple question: What would really happen if eight year olds gained super powers?
The story takes place in east San Jose, California in 1978. I conducted a lot of research especially from older friends growing up during that era to help the book be grounded in some reality or a semblance of the world it’s supposed to convey. One of my questions were if storage places existed at the time as it will become a significant part in this comic book tale.
It’s mainly a story about bullying in elementary school, but also goes further into other issues I wanted to address like child abuse, racism, and many social issues I have always been interested in incorporating into my work. The reason I do this is to educate kids like me who looked into comics for some kind of information and instill hope that life can get better. That a person can strive to be better. That a comic book can really put across into the mainstream the idea of heroism.
The medium I chose for the book are pencils and the faces of the characters are entirely from my imagination. I was first introduced to this style of drawing at San Jose City College when I was studying beginning painting under Eve Page.
Lost Legends is an anthology composed of 2 stories. One a nostalgic super hero tale set in 1978 titled The Invincibles and the other set some time after World War II called Winterland.
The Invincibles touched a lot of people and I credit it for getting me a job at Intel, which was a very pleasant environment to work in. Some people like my sister was not so happy to read it. For copyright purposes, I only have her read it for feedback. I don’t want any spills or leaks to any project I do. It would devastate me. It stifles my motivation to create. My sister wasn’t too keen on it. She didn’t want to be reminded of that time, because it hit too close to home. But she did love Winterland. She suggested I put more energy into promoting Winterland.
Winterland was created by Martin Fernandez. We met at Office Depot. I think I was making copies and he just started talking to me. He had a backpack on and we hit it off. Two people just chillin’. He got me, I got him and you want to collaborate? Yeah sure. His wife became my realtor upon selling one of my houses.
When I was finished with the comic book, I sent it to Diamond and I got a rejection letter saying that my anatomy wasn’t correct and the story was not marketable. I was mystified by the feedback on my anatomy wondering if it was the Rob Leifeld anatomy or the George Perez anatomy, or Frank Miller anatomy or Todd McFarlane, because each one has a different set of guidelines they stand by. From loose to tight ink rendering every artist is different.
The story is about bullying in elementary school and the consequences that ensues from it. It’s an interesting proposition and seeks to challenge the consumer into seeing something new and different like when Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Spiderman, X-Men, Teen Titans, The Avengers, The Justice League, Peanuts, etc. were created.
I stand by this comic book to this day. That given a chance it would have been a smash. Unfortunately, with the way the business environment has changed, that wasn’t the case. However, it did net me the opportunity to have worked with an elite group of people at Intel, so it wasn’t all that bad. I even helped get a patent or two approved!
I printed these in China at a very high cost per copy even back in 2008. It cost me about $3,000 to print and it is on glossy, heavy weight paper, black and white and just beautiful. It runs at 79 pages with a color cover and black and white interior pages. The cover price is $5.99 with free shipping. If you’re interested in purchasing the comic book, you can email me at realintegritycomics@gmail.com for payment information.
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