By Gavin Pugh | Editor-in-Chief
San Antonio junior Aaron Cobbs’ passion for super heroes didn’t die with the end of “Batman: The animated series.” In fact, Cobbs’ own comic book series has been in the making since he was seven. And though many comics are moving online, Cobbs is somewhat of a purist.
Tell us a little about you. What’s your thing?
My name is Aaron Cobbs, I am a junior professional writing major, and I like to write.
With so much content being digitized, are you interested in moving your comics online, or do you like hard copies?
I would like to keep things on paper. I understand there are digital comics out there. The thing is, there is nothing like the feeling of a hard copy in your hand. I know that for a fact.
Whenever I got the first comic in the mail and my roommate was sitting next to me, he was like “Aaron, let me hold it!,” and I was like, “that’s so cool!” It was cool to hold the comic in my hand. It’s something about print-tangible — it makes you feel like it’s more real. Whereas with digital, I have hundreds of digital copies, but they’re not as real to me as a collection or a stack of comics.
What does the art of storytelling mean to you?
The art of storytelling for me is character. I don’t do any story without having a strong character in the back. Too many times, I know from past experience, I’ve gone to plot first like, “Oh, I can create this amazing plotline,” and then I realize there is no plot. Why is there no plot? It’s because there’s no character.
I know for a fact that when it came to creating the concept for Indigo and the world I’m building with this series, I knew that I had to create a strong character first. There’s not going to be any sort of story or plot or motivation without a strong character.
So in your comic, who is the character? What is his name and what is his super power?
The character’s name is Andy Indigo. When his mother was pregnant with him, she was stricken with cancer. His dad was a scientist, and his dad was trying to find a cure to save his wife and child. And he did. What he found was that the cure amplified the body’s natural kinetic energy to strengthen the immune system. Now, I’m not a science major, so I’m just working with what I have, but it works enough to where in the series, he succeeds. His wife is cured. But what he didn’t realize was that the cure bonded to Andy’s DNA because he was just an embryo, and so as he grew up, he found out he could control and redirect kinetic energy …
I like to keep it small, focused, centered on the character. This first volume, Begotten Son, is mainly about this life, his adjustments his coming to terms with his identity and who he is as a man, as a post-human and as a black man. This is one of the few stories that the character is an African-American male, especially in a starter role, which is unfortunate.
Where can people buy these comics?
As far as publishing, like where people can buy it, Ka-Blam Printing works through a service called Indy Planet, which ironically enough has a similar name to my series, which I thought that was pretty funny. Indie Planet is the larger digital comic book store. So if I say I want this to be showcased on Indie Planet, they can do that. And if you get enough comics, you’ll get your own brand, per se. So our brand is Quest Entertainment on the website. For instance, if you search up Indieplanet.net and then look up Quest Entertainment in the search, you’ll see our comics. And that’s where you can buy from us.
