Well, roughly 28 years ago I created Phineus and Sara. They were not the same Phineus and Sara that we see today. They weren’t married, they didn’t work together, per se and Phineus wasn’t even human.

The characters came about from watching too much “Highlander”, playing too much Dungeons and Dragons and reading too much of Matt Wagner’s “Mage”.

Initially, Phineus was supposed to be some sort of extra-dimensional, magic wielding hero. He was sent to our world to track down and destroy demons whom had some to our planet to take over.

Sara was to be an innocent bystander, stuck in the middle of this battle, that Phineus was there to save, which is bullshit, because Sara doesn’t need saved by anyone.

but, you can see what my fevered, 17 year-old brain was grasping at.

Aside from random sketches and character designs, the Phineus story didn’t get very far in this vein.

During college, I had a few false starts. Phineus as an art student who discovered he had powers. A street mage who fought bad guys, randomly. A half-assed super hero, of sorts.

It wasn’t until my senior year of school, when I took a comic drawing class that I found where Phineus would go. I was introduced to Will Eisner’s “Comics and Sequential Art” that everything just started to fall into place.

I was required to draw an 8 page story. I did a 20 page issue that ended up being the very first Phineus issue “Dismember Me When I’m Gone” (a nod to Bill Willingham’s Captain Cadaver from “Elementals”).

I did the story, for class, to finally get it out of my head. It turned into a 24+ year obsession.

As I continued to write about these characters, I borrowed the “Big Trouble In Little China” method of throwing everything cool you can think of into the story and it’ll probably work. So far, it’s worked pretty well.

Going forward, I worked on other stories, with other people. Brian Babyok was a long-time contributor. I worked on many stories with him Pan, Khosian Protocol, The Creators and Weirdlings. I’ve worked with Mike Woods on Creephunter and Pack of Lies: A Pocket Pulp Mystery. I’ve done other people’s art, sketch cards and have always come back to Phineus.

This world is my Star Wars or Hogwarts. I have a very long story plotted out. I will always tell in, because I can’t NOT tell it. It’s hard-wired into my brain, at this point.

My characters grow and age. The world changes. My art and writing get better. It’s a road map of my growth as an artist. It’s fun and I hope everyone enjoys it.

Edit Again: I will be posting commemorative guest art from other comic artists as they get it to me. I have some exciting stuff coming, so watch out!