Longtime Superman: The Man of Steel Artist Bogdanove Launches Strongman

Ahead of the Spotlight on Jon Bogdanove panel this week at San Diego Comic Con International, the veteran artist--who drew more than eighty issues of Superman: The Man of Steel and whose son is named Kal-El after Superman's Kryptonian birth name--announced this morning that he is launching a Kickstarter campaign in support of a new, creator-owned series. Bogdanove will draw the series for co writers Chris Faiella, and Kal-El Bogdanove, video game veterans with whom the artist wanted to work--and not just for the obvious reason.

"I'm very grateful for DC and Marvel. It was an immense honor and my lifelong dream to contribute to Superman. I was also blessed to work at Marvel in a time of tremendous freedom and creativity. But the stakes were low in the comics business when I first started. It still felt like it did when I was a kid. There was a closer connection between fans and creators. It felt like we were all in it together," Bogdanove said. "That's what appeals to me most about Kickstarter. Like the Golden Age at DC, or the dawn of The Marvel Age, there is total creative freedom to explore and experiment with new ideas, but the comics won't happen unless fans want it to. The readers are literally invested in the creativity. It is the purest, most democratic hope for new concepts and enterprises. Crowd-sourced comics foster the most direct relationship between fans and creators ever, because there is no middle man. It is the birth of a new culture. On Kickstarter, we don't have the weight of 75 years of continuity or transmedia franchising. We can go right to the readers and fans, and say 'Hey guys, this is what we want to do.' And if people are excited, they can make it a reality in a very direct way — person to person."

[Kal-El] Bogdanove and Faiella have quite a track record in the world of videogames. As writers and directors, they have worked on some of the industry's biggest hits - like the Fallout franchise, and Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - as well as indie darlings like Skullgirls and Quantum Conundrum.

Strongman actually got its start as a video game idea in 2011. Faiella and The Bogdanoves were coming up with a large batch of pitches for Reverge Labs and Disney Interactive, when they first discussed the idea of a Depression-era Strongman who doubles as a pulp hero. The game project ultimately went with a different idea, but the seed of Strongman had already taken root in the minds of its creators.