Long ago, when I was a wee lad living down in the Ozarks, a small town boy with larger than life dreams, I at one time wanted to become a comic book artist. More than anything. My best friends and I were highly influenced by the formation of Image Comics back in the gods-forsaken '90s: when the big-gun artists of Marvel Comics broke away from the "mainstream" to start their own "independent" company to work on characters of their own creation. Although some would argue now that this was a major deathblow to the comic book industry, back then we were entranced and figured, why not? Why can't we start our own creator-owned company? Why can't we have our own comic book universe of super heroes?

So, Jason, Aaron, and I formed the idea of New Vision Comics: our version of Image Comics....but, you know, it was going to be bigger and better! It was going to be, of course, highly original and take the world by storm! We were going to change the world!

Take for example one of my favorite characters from that period below: Oracle. We three boys had an entire pile of intergalactic bounty hunters to fill up the cosmic section of our New Vision Universe (in fact, it might have been nothing BUT intergalactic bounty hunters)! Notice in this high school drawing of mine the sleek Liefeldian influences in the unnecessary muscular lines and disproportionate body. Don't know who Liefeld is? Most would say the devil incarnate, but certainly he was one of the prime art pimps in the comic book '90s: BEWARE! I even drew Liefeldian shoulder pads (only on one shoulder of course), ridiculous guns, etc. My version of Oracle even had a head band! So, laugh away, I know I am.....

Oracle was special to me though. During high school, instead of taking notes in class I must have drawn about ten issues of his outer space adventures on notebook paper. I since cannot locate any of these gems. However, the piece above was enough to reignite something inside of me lately. 

I have always wanted to complete a full story of Oracle to mark off my bucket list. It doesn't matter if it gets published or not, I just want the satisfaction of knowing I have drawn one full story again, having it in my hands, and being able to share it with my friends and family. And that's the kicker....most of the things I create have never been that suitable for children. But now that I got kids I really want to make a project they can look at and enjoy. It won't be dumbed down by any means, it just won't have all the "iffy" things about comics nowadays that would generally make us screen an issue before handing it to them.

So, I am drawing a new Oracle comic. I think it may be about four issues, but we will see. Definitely black and white, but will probably do the covers in color. I just hate doing coloring, I've never had the talent for it. But, in any case, Oracle will not be a bounty hunter to say the least. Nor will he have shoulder pads. But I may throw a bounty hunter somewhere in the story for good measure! I will be posting pages when I complete them outside of my parental and full-time job duties.

So, without further ado, a glimpse at the new and improved ORACLE!