Bimini Comics

Frst off is Baxter J. Wronky. He’s essential to the storyline since it’s by his error that the ship embarks on its adventures. “Wronky” comes from a long line of seafaring and spacefaring adventurers. He’d rather be a tapdancing Vaudevillian songster than operate a ship, but he feels a familial obligation to carry on the tradition of exploration and adventure on ships. His family is very proud that he’s a first mate of any sort, albeit on a seemingly uneventful, luxury cruise liner. Wronky does his best, but without inspiration or enthusiasm, and makes frequent careless blunders.

The racy, loudmouthed Estelle Michelle Ronelle BoBelle (a pseudonym), is one of the stewardesses aboard the Veronica. She’s got a checkered past that she intentionally hides from everyone. You can’t really get close to Estelle unless she likes you. And you can tell she likes you if she teases or flirts with you relentlessly. We want to develop Estelle to mimic a real-life friend of ours whose personality and character are unique and memorable. We hope it works.

Syd Borntrager is the captain of the Veroncia. He’s a well-intentioned womanizer, if you can imagine such an amalgam. Syd’s the kind of captain who will misappropriate company funds to paint trashy pin-up girls on the side of the ship just “for flare.” He’s shorter than most of his crew, and he has a bit of a Napoleon complex. This will hopefully manifest itself humorously. I’m tall and have some experience working with short bosses. I will be drawing from those experiences when developing Syd.

Red Wetty is probably one of my favorite characters in this series. Brandon’s responsible for getting the ball rolling with this character. RW is the oldest person on the ship, and he’s older than the ship itself. He’s been an engineer for innumerable years, probably centuries, and though he’s old he shows neither signs of weakness nor the intent to retire anytime soon. Red Wetty tolerates his shipmates, and this is the best one can expect of his interactions with others. He disregards Captain Syd altogether. His voice is gruff, grumbly and incomprehensible and his dialogue will be accompanied by subtitles. One wonders if his shipmates can actually understand him.

Owlsley Jones is kind of a partner or catalyst for Red Wetty, I guess. He’s taking a break from his nuclear physics studies at Girth Planetary University (not on his homeworld) to earn some extra money. With an instinctive knack for electronics and anything mechanical, Owlsley is more adept at ship operations than any of his shipmates, save Red Wetty. This familiarity with technology causes a rapport between the two characters. Owlsley is a bit uptight, prone to obsesses over details, and thus makes few friends. In fact, his relationship with Red Wetty is purely professional and intellectual. I think that’s how Owlsley would prefer his friendships, honestly.

Claude Grenache is a multilayered character. He’s got an incredibly thick history that I can’t wait to reveal as Brandon and I develop the series. Claude’s the head chef aboard the Veronica, but he’s not actually part of the crew. The company he works for, a gigantic and prestigious intergalactic catering and restaurateur corporation, staffs other companies with culinary personnel. Claude is haughty, self righteous, and a ridiculous culture snob. More often than not, Claude is seen sashaying around the dining areas intent on being seen and ogled rather than cooking for the the ship’s crew and passengers. He might seem fey and swishy, but we have reason to think he can hold his own in a fight.

Quality Assurance Inspector Genevieve is a horrible corporate micromanager who becomes permanently assigned to the Veronica after its initial “incident.” Not much is known about Genevieve. She’s kind of a harbinger of death and decay. The crew walks on eggshells wondering where Genevieve might pop up. She’s stealthy, quiet and devious. One mostly notices her lurking in the shadows. You think you’re alone, and then the air becomes a sweetly dank, clammy chill. You turn your head a fraction of a millimeter and see her behind a potted plant or through a window or in the rafters, steely eyes boring into you, tentacles clutching the foreboding clipboard. You draw your breath sharply, turn to confirm what you think you saw, and she’s gone. Was it a figment? Just a mirage? Just a trick of light and shadow? A few days go by and you regain your calm thinking all you saw was a manifestation of your paranoia, until you check your mail and find a report, a citation or a dreaded summons for review. Consider your career over, and good luck ever finding another job, apart from the sharp, sticky papercut refineries of planet Lemonjuice.

Admiral Jordan Alport will be developed more as the story continues. Right now he’s Syd’s superior back at the cruise line. The details of that corporation are forthcoming, but we know they have military ties. Jordan is the person primarily held accountable for the Veronica’s actions by the rest of the galaxy. He’s the face to the name to the ship since the Veronica’s in his fleet. Jordan won’t exactly be an adversary, but he wants his own reputation spared from the Veronica’s notoriety. The crew will do their best to hide important truths from him, thus his deployment of Genevieve to haunt the crew. We know that he hates his job but has lost his wherewithall to change his situation. He’s resigned himself to a life of day-old reheated instant coffee and clumpy, stale, powdered non-dairy whitener next to the moldy file cabinet. I suspect he pockets a flask.

So that’s it for now.

Gosh. It always comes back to comics no matter where my interests pull me. I really love drawing comics. I discovered comic books in junior high, and began to try my hand at the craft soon after, mainly just drawing characters and coming up with story premises. By college I was seriously developing a couple of comic serials. That was a blast. But founded on all that fanaticism and personal research, I want to push the envelope and do something huge.

Screaming “Veronica!” is my second collaboration with a person who writes better than me, and the first one that I think has the potential to be great and earn a significant readership. In the first version of this comic, the cast was slightly different, and instead of a cruise vessel, the crew piloted an interstellar freight and shipping scow. It was still called the Veronica, kind of after my pal Todd’s car, a flashy little red VW.

I love developing characters, but I have a hard time constructing storylines, so I asked my friend Brandon Mise, a really and truly fantastic writer (who, with wife Meighan, co-owns Blue Barnhouse, a letterpress operation here in Asheville) to help me. I’m not exactly sure how the partnership began. I think because I was living with the Mises while I wrote the book, Brandon and I became partners in crime by default. He might remember the facts a bit differently so you can ask him if you get a chance.

The cast, as you see it now, was selected because the characters’ patterns are featured in my book, Stupid Sock Creatures (Lark Books, 2005). When I was writing the book, I noticed that the featured monsters had a noticeable visual chemistry. Without really having to think about it, they became the main characters in “Screaming ‘Veronica!’”