The Samaritan Cometh
By Brian Lewis a.k.a Red Vector
Before the change, I was a wheelchair bound comic geek and graphic artist named
Clayton Anderson. When I wasn’t doing advertising work I was working on getting my
first graphic novel published. The name of the novel was The Samaritan. It’s a pretty
dark story of a mysterious antihero with a violent past. It’s pretty standard stuff really;
you know you’ve seen it in other mediums many times before. Of course I didn’t feel it
was “standard” at the time so needless to say the rejection notices began to pile up.
The reasons for rejecting it varied, one said it was “too violent” another said “not
violent enough.” One even said “it’s too mainstream” whatever the hell that means.
After the fifth rejection, to say that I was depressed would be the understatement of
the century. One night I was ready to dump it in the trash when my e-mail notification
chimed. It was from Isaac Mendez, it was down right spooky considering the
circumstances. The entire e-mail consisted of three words: “don’t give up”. What was
even scarier, the next day I got word that he was dead. I had only met him briefly at a
9th Wonders thing a few years ago. Hell, I didn’t even remember giving him my e-mail
address.
So that very night I decided to do a life sized full color character rendering. When I say
“decided” it was more like a compulsion rather than a conscious decision. When I was
finished, The Samaritan was there in all his glory. At first glance it looked like any other
character you find on the cover of a graphic novel. However, there was an astonishing
level of detail to the painting. The hero is crashing through a skylight with massive
guns blazing. The way the moonlight shone on his shaven skull, the mask like tattoo on
his face the color of fresh blood. He was wearing a charcoal grey duster billowing out
behind him as he falls. In his left hand he holds a huge gun, which seems to absorb
light but shimmers like a black pearl, inscribed on its side is the word “chaos.” In his
right, he holds a weapon of equal size that glitters like a newly polished sword, baring
the inscription “order.”
Upon looking at the eyes, those predatory eyes framed by that mask of blood. I felt a
connection, a presence, and an inarticulate longing to be more than a figment of a
crippled comic geek’s imagination. It was a sentiment that made us kindred sprits; I too
longed to be more than an object of pity, ridicule, or worse yet disregard.
It was I who spoke first.
“Is it going to hurt?” I ask The Samaritan.
“Yes, it will. There can be no birth or even rebirth without pain” The Samaritan replies
with a voice that’s much like my own except with the bass cranked up to eleven. His
voice seems to come both from inside my head and from the painting itself in a bizarre
stereo effect.
“Once it starts, there’s no going back. The life you had before will be over.” he finishes.
“It wasn’t much of a life anyway, let’s do it.” With those words I sealed both of our fates.
As a paraplegic, you’d think I would be well acquainted with pain but I had no idea, no
idea at all….