Hello fans of fiction!

My name is James Ninness, writer of Mythoi, lover of the Bootie and closet fan of Heroes (don’t tell Mr. Wolff).  I’m flattered that Ben, Mr. Wolff, Ash, Street Fece and Akatzen have asked me to write a little something-something in preparation for our departure to Long Beach for the first annual Long Beach Comic Con this weekend!  Ben tells me that we’re getting t-shirts to wear with the Semantink logo, so if you see us meandering about please feel free to come up and say hi!

I’ve known Benji for a while and I knew that he’d been talking about starting/running a publishing house for some time, but I was honored, elated and nervous as hell when he asked MYTHOI to be Semantink’s premiere property!  I’ve published a few short stories and some poetry here and there, but writing comic books has always been a dream.  All I have to do now is make out with a midget and I can officially die a happy man.

I was born and raised in San Diego, California, but I got my degree in English: Creative Writing from Cal State University Long Beach.  I did a bit of traveling and-  Okay.  This is boring.  How’s this:  Once I hog tied a crazy, drunk girl and threw her in a trailer because she threatened to stab me in my sleep.  True story!  She wriggled her cell phone out of her pocket and called the cops, but didn’t know where she was.  When I checked on her an hour later she was still on the phone with them so I took it and found out that several cop cars and a helicopter had been scouring Irvine looking for the motor-home she was in!  I gave them my address and when they showed up they asked me to keep the girls phone so she didn’t bug them anymore.  What does that have to do with comic books?  Nothing.  But it’s more fun than knowing anything about my education, publishing history and/or travel experiences.

So, as you’ve hopefully heard, I’ve got this title coming out through Semantink called MYTHOI.  I actually wrote MYTHOI almost four years ago while I was in college.  The idea for the premise came out of my fascination with mythology, legends and all things supernatural.  So, I picked elements from my favorites and created my players…  Combining ghosts, Buddhism, dragons and yeti, I got Yuki (our only femme fatale).  Vampires, werewolves, mummies and zombies gave me Vito, the oldest 10-year-old-bodied vampire ever.  The Terminator movies, Universal Soldier (yeah, Lundgren and Van Damme), anything post-apocalyptic and ninjas helped to create Touch.  Wiglaf arose from ancients texts like the Bible, Beowulf and Norwegian texts.  And last but not least came Taros, birthed out of my love of Greek/Roman mythology.  Now take all of those parent-ideas and all of the concepts, ideas and beliefs about each of them, throw them in our world, right now and shake it up — that’s MYTHOI.  Actually, let me introduce you to one of the minor characters, Cat — This is a sketch from my amazing artist, Jed Soriano (ironically, Cat is a werewolf):

MYTHOI is 60 issues long.  That’s it.  After 60 issues the story is done.  And while I can’t give away too much of the plot, I can lead you with a few questions…  If all gods ever conceived actually existed in today’s world where they are forgotten and cast aside, don’t you think they’d be a little upset?  If so, who would protect us humans from the big, angry gods?  I should also tell you that there are no superheroes in MYTHOI.  That’s it.  I’m afraid I can’t say anymore.  If you want to know more you’ll have to pick up issue #1 here.

If you haven’t already bought you tickets for the Long Beach Comic Con then you should do so immediately.  Even though it’s their first year, they’ve rounded up a pretty kick-ass line up:  Stan Lee, Jim Lee, Thomas Jane, Berkeley Breathed, Seth Green, Tim Bradstreet, Jeph Loeb, Jon Bogdanove, George Lazenby and many, many more!  I’ve been poking around the people who set the whole thing up and I have to say, they seem like a good group to be throwing this shindig.  I’m sure Benji will do a write-up of the whole event when we return, but if you care at all for comics and are anywhere near the Long Beach area you should definitely roll out this weekend (10/2 — 10/4).

I think that’ll do for now.  I hope I’ve piqued some of your curiosities about the comic and haven’t bored you too much.  If you want to write me, feel free to at jamesninness@yahoo.com.  Otherwise, enjoy MYTHOI and I hope to meet you soon!

James Ninness