The People’s Publisher

This week, we interview Dylan Edwards, known to many of you on the Z2H site as “Crackwalker”. Dylan is the writer and mad scientist behind the comic Hero High, currently in production, with about half of the pages pencilled at this point. We asked Dylan some direct questions which he answered in a most eloquent and loquacious manner. Read on:

1. Tell me about yourself
My name is Dylan Edwards. I live happily in Halifax with my wife, three kids and a cat-shaped devil sent to torment me. I’m 37 years old, Taurus, 6’2”, Haligonian, Thespian, vaguely Gnostic, completely comicaholic, dramaturgically challenged, musically afflicted, poetically unlicensed, and trying to gainfully employ the squatters on my intellectual property.
I’ve been a dishwasher, street vendor, librarian, salesman, graphic designer, musician, illustrator, camp councilor, actor, director, teacher, busker, children’s entertainer, theatre technician, set designer, artist, sound guy, dance studio manager, house painter, canoe race course maintenance staff and animator – but right now my core identity is father, husband and writer (in that order).

2. How did you hear about and start working with Z2H?
I found out about Zeros2Heroes through invitation – about six months ago I was ranting on the message boards at Zuda and someone messaged me about Z2H – I believe it was SheaKoshan. So I had a look and was immediately hooked. The site was the answer to a lot of my desires with regards to webcomics and writing. The internet is a great place to find an audience, in theory. You can create what you want, and share it with the world, but to make a success of it all on your own takes a hell of a lot of life energy. Z2H provides a lot of resources to help emerging creators find an audience. I saw the potential in their vision immediately and jumped on board with both feet.

3. How did you find the process of the Comic Creation Nation competition
Terrific. If there’s a better way to run a competition like this, I can’t think of it. I’ve been involved in other contests that are similar in concept, that being an ‘american idol-style’ voting system, and there are big challenges to deal with. A big part of the problem with the internet is that of anonymity. Online contests are very susceptible to abuse from fake ID’s and multiple accounts, but Z2H has a very ingenious approach to this. Giving more voting power to more frequent and prolific Z2H users balances out the mix. People that have invested more of themselves in the community have more power to chart the course. It may sound elitist, except that it’s open to anyone. There’s no way I can see for a clique to gain a stranglehold on the site. There’s nothing stopping someone from joining in at any point and working up their own level of influence.
My own experience with the CCCN competition has been rewarding, not just because I won, but also because of the others that have won, and continue to win. The charts are very exciting to watch, and having access to the creators is so great. As a community, we’ve really taken partial responsibility for each others success, since we encourage each other, critique each other and ultimately select each other’s work for production.
The competition aspect of the CCCN has been very healthy and positive – sportsmanship, respect and excellence have resulted from the competitive spirit. Individually, I feel that we all benefit from striving to prove ourselves to each other, and gain each other’s votes. Collectively, we’ve created a community that’s supportive and resilient that’s continuing to get stronger every week.

4. Tell me about Hero High
Hero High came about from a desire to give superheroes back to the kids. Sounds corny I guess, but it’s true. As a kid I loved Batman, Spider-Man, Superman, X-men… I had a dog-eared pile of comics in my room and I read those things until the newsprint was falling apart. Now as a father, I want to share that culture with my sons, but find it challenging at times. It seems like a lot of comics are written at a juvenile level, but with adult sensibilities. 
In recent years, Marvel and DC have come out with ‘all-ages’ versions of their flagship titles, and let me say that as a parent, it’s much appreciated. Nice to find something that I know isn’t going to give me an unpleasant surprise when I’m reading it with my kids. 
So a few years ago, I was trying to brainstorm a bunch of ideas I could pitch for my own series. I was working as an animator at the time, and there would occasionally be producers passing through, touring the studio, and I thought to myself, ‘What would I do if someone important turned to me and said, you’ve got one minute – hit me with a pitch.’ I know it’s a far-fetched scenario, but I wanted to be prepared all the same. If by some miracle I happened to be sitting at a table next to Jon Favreau, or Steven Spielberg, or James Cameron, I wanted to be ready to jump into action. A missed opportunity is a terrible thing.
So I decided to brainstorm a bunch of ideas for pitches, the idea being that I would have a stack of folders sitting on my shelf, ready to go. Hero High came from that, so it was initially conceived as a TV series. 
So when coming up with it, I knew I wanted it to be kid-centric, and the best way to ensure it’s good for children is to have kids in it. If it’s something that can happen to a kid, then it’s suitable for kids to read about. I still wanted it to have real drama and danger, because those kinds of stakes are the most rewarding to read about in adventure/fantasy fiction; saving the world.
One of the things about kids is that they are still very much attached to their immediate family. They are not their own people yet. So the parents and home life of the characters are crucial to the story. Parents all want the same thing for their kids – they want them to be able to stand on their own feet someday. If I knew my kid had some sort of superhuman ability, my concern would be that they learned responsibility, and that they didn’t look down on normal people. If a kid grows up in a superhero-saturated environment, there’s a real danger that they will be completely out-of-touch with basic realities of life; a similar dilemma to the children of the wealthy, who know only privilege.
As I started to sketch things together, the heart of the story came into focus. Adolescence is about identity; fitting in, standing out, making moral choices, taking risks, standing up for yourself, finding your own way… all themes that really work well with the superhero genre. The pressure to be ‘normal’ is very real to kids, so I took that element and amped it up. The superhero parents have made a deal with the government to properly protect and educate their super-powered kids. They selected a town that they all agreed was ‘the most normal town in the world’ and built a special school, outfitted with gadgets and defense systems and staffed by highly-trained secret agents. The normality of the town is key, so every effort is made to preserve their ‘normal’ way of life, like it’s a wilderness reserve or something. No one in the town must find out, so all the heroes and their kids maintain secret identities.
The kids are forbidden to have super-hero identities, or use their powers until they graduate. Only then will they be deemed ready to be heroes. Naturally, the kids all feel that they are ready now, and so they all have costumes and use their powers, and keep it secret from everyone – their teachers, their parents, and for the most part, from each other.
I want it to be playful, but earnest. The old Jack Kirby and Stan Lee comics existed in this special dramatic place; a magic combination of innocence and grit that strikes a chord in the adolescent mind, as well as the minds of adults, when they shut off their ironic reflexes. Hopefully that’s the magic I’m tapping into with Hero High.

5. How did you feel when you won?
I can’t stop smiling. It’s been weeks now, and I’m still laughing at random times. The week before the win, when Hero High was sitting at #1 on the chart, I kept expecting someone else to swoop in and knock me off at the last minute. I couldn’t sleep. It was torture. But in the end, the community pulled through, and I won’t forget that. We all help each other out, because we’re all in the same boat. Such a thrill to see my little pitch in the winner’s circle, so rewarding to know the people responsible for its win.

6. How have you found the process so far?
It makes me feel good to see the new winner each week. These are people that I’ve come to know over the months I’ve been active on Z2H, and those connections get stronger as our work takes shape. Writing is all about networking, more so than any other area I’ve been involved with. There’s no telling what the future holds, but making myself known to these people can only help me, and hopefully I can help them.
The process of working on the comic has been strange and wonderful. I’ve lives with these characters for a long time, and now other people are asking me about them, and drawing them, and bringing them out of my head and into reality… that’s a bit trippy to be honest. I could get used to it though.
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I’m so happy with the pages I’m seeing. The artist I’m working with has the exact right sensibility for the story – the right playfulness and awesomeness that I think will grab kids by the eyeballs and pull them into a world of fantastic adventure and intrigue.
Everyone at Z2H has been positive, professional and focused. They make me feel like this work is important, and that it will have every chance of success.

7. What would you say you have learned about how comics are made?
I’ve learned about how to communicate with professionals when you’re ‘the guy’. I’m used to the other side – I’ve worked with people where my job is to help them realize their vision. I didn’t really understand the difficulties of being in the captain’s chair before. I’m still learning.

8. Further comments or questions??

      Keep doing this.