So The Argus #1 officially hits stores this month, it will be in-store on October 26th.
The Argus has a long and winding journey to get here. The idea came to me from a number of places, as ideas do – from the Ween song The Argus, from the mythological creature the Argus, and from the movie Looper…all these things merged into what would become the comic The Argus.
I started working on this many years ago, like around 2012/2013, and even got some preliminary artwork done by an artist around that time, but it didn’t pan out at the time. Enter artist Darryl Knickrehm.
I actually don’t recall where/how/when I first connected with Darryl, but his art blew me away from the very beginning. When we started talking about this time travel story, I had no idea that it was going to become something so incredible-looking. With a story based on literally one single character, I didn’t think it would be some epic in scope, but Darryl’s art really pushed where the story was going, and made me think even bigger.
We had completed the pitch for the book, the first 8 pages of issue 1, and I think it was Darryl who sent it to Action Lab comics. I’d done some work with Action Lab a few years before that, and they liked what we were doing, and we were off to the races! We finished all four issues of the story, and it was simply gorgeous. The story ended in a more positive light than almost anything else I’d ever written, I was really pumped for it to come out.
February 2020 was when the first issue came out. And then we all know what happened to the world right after that…
This was the only issue to ever come out.
I’m not going to get into the issues that arose with Action Lab comics. A Google search will fill you in, I’m sure. Suffice it to say that after months of nothing happening, and after other, more brave creators came forward, Darryl and I were able to get the rights to The Argus back, and we were able to find a new home for it.
And what a home we found! Source Point Press is making some big moves, and we’re absolutely thrilled to be working with them on The Argus now.
Look at this cover now:
Look so much cleaner, how it was meant to be!
Source Point has said a lot of really nice things about our book, but the honor is really Darryl’s and mine to get to publish this book with such a professional, communicative, and invested company.
Already the next 3 issues are solicited, for November, December, and January, and we’ll see a trade soon after as well.
It’s taken 10 years to get this book to come out how I had originally imagined it, and I can’t wait for everyone to read it and join in the Argus experience!
markbertolini 