In December 2004, with editor Egg Embry’s assistance and feedback, I ironed out a detailed outline for the entire Omega Chase story. Egg then told me to find an artist.

 

I found Julio Molina-Muscara in early 2005 on a comic book messageboard showing off his work and website. At the time a lot of the work Julio presented on his website was “cartoonish”, but there was a Spider-Man versus Green Goblin pin-up that convinced me that Julio could draw in a more "naturalistic" style that would be perfect for Omega Chase.  I contacted him, presented the Omega Chase story and asked if he’d be interested in being the series' artist. Julio eagerly accepted the assignment and got started.  After he drew some character designs which I was very happy with, I sent Julio some script pages, and here’s the first page he drew for me.

 

In June 2007 I visited Ron Marz at his home in upstate New York. (Note: this is officially the first instance of obnoxious name-dropping that I'll be resorting to in these pages.) While Ron's wife occupied my two daughters with the horses they own (why the hell else would I drive all the way to upstate New York?), Ron sat me down and spent two hours "dissecting" the first issue of Omega Chase.  I mean, he focused on every creative aspect (panel layout, dialogue, coloring, lettering) and didn’t overlook the most minute of details.  For me it was a two hour education, and I’m very grateful to Ron for taking the time to provide me with his detailed feedback.

 

Anyway, I relate that because Ron argued that I shouldn’t have had a close-up of Mack's face on the first page. He argued that I should have scripted a close-up of Mack's hand alongside his holstered pistol. He felt that would have been a more dramatic opening to the story.

 

I respect Ron's point (I mean, let's face it, the guy has written about 5,000 more comic book scripts than I have), but my intention with the first page of the first issue was to introduce immediately the hero of Omega Chase.  There he is with those wonderful blue eyes, providing that oh-so serious glare.  Julio admits he used famous Italian spaghetti Western actor Terence Hill (who I remember from Super Fuzz, a movie I had to have watched 10,000 times on HBO during my youth in the early 1980s) as a model for Mack Baron.  But looking at Julio's headshot, one can easily see my "muy guapo" artist could easily have used himself as a model.