Monday, September 20, 2010

aka THUNDERSTORM

I created Thunderstorm in high school (that'd be in the 1980s) as a standard superhero strip and self-published two THUNDERSTORM comics, portions of which will NOT be posted here. My next comic, the anthology BEAT COMICS (1985-1990) featured a revamped version of the strip, focusing more on the hero's alter ego and his relationship with his wife. When the strip next appeared in the Lancaster PA free monthly, 13 MAGAZINE, from 1994-95, it had evolved further into AKA THUNDERSTORM, now almost solely about how being a superhero affected the character (named, heh, Alexander Hitchcock... no, really) and the small group of friends and family (mostly his wife Laura) who shared his secret.

The strip predated the whole "superheroes in real life" genre as Thunderstorm didn't really have supervillains to battle, he mostly used his powers (flight, invisibility, the ability to generate lightning bolts of varying intensity) to put bad drivers in their place and run errands more easily. I may get around to posting some of the later strips here, and I also have a big file of layouts and scripts for a never-finished graphic novel / screenplay (wasn't sure which). Whether or not TS remains in limbo remains to be seen.

This drawing shows a costume that I never got to use for the character, with the shirt turned into a heavy pullover (seemed to me that tucking in a shirt would be very cumbersome to a crimefighter).

1 comment:

ripskeleton said...

Loved Beat comics and Thunderstorm! I would love to see a return of the character!