Written by Alas Tarin & Illustrated by Tess McDonald
In the beginning, Maynard lives in isolation without purpose. He floats through life, arbitrarily deciding to eventually become an accountant. Passionless and bored, he is caught completely off guard by his love of geology (more specifically, micromounting). On a rockhounding excursion to find more specimens to micromount, a giant ball of alien nanotechnology strikes, transforming both Maynard and Oklahoma into the world’s most unlikely superheroes. The nanotechnology (known throughout the galaxy as Antiminerum) bonds with them. It chooses them, and unsavory creatures throughout the galaxy will stop at nothing to figure out why.
We like to think of Maynard Sheckles as a children’s story for adults about embracing one’s own pure, unadulterated nerdiness. It’s a tale of unlikely friendship and unexpected adventure. Its goofy and violent and totally absurd, but truly a labor of love.
The wild tale of Maynard and his sidekick/teacher Oklahoma Smith was born during a strange and rather entertaining college geology class in which we were introduced to the idea of the ‘micromount.’ Micromounting is well known almost exclusively to the amateur geology community, so we joked about raising awareness about this obscure hobby. We were quite entertained by the idea of a young man finding such a specific calling, and we contemplated what it would be like if he suddenly became the most powerful person in the universe.
It’s easy to scoff at a person like Maynard who fixates on a particular hobby or idea that other people judge as useless. In this ‘useless’ hobby though, Maynard finds himself, gains immeasurable power, and maintains a relentlessly optimistic outlook on life. Even post-transformation Maynard and Oklahoma are not average heroes. From their personalities to their superpowers they are deeply nerdy, and readers can expect them to never fully lose that.
We are currently planning on the first Maynard Sheckles book being a three-part graphic novel. The first portion is the origin story, the second introduces the Antiminerum, and the third focuses on the first villain, the diabolical-genius alien-queen, Chartreuse. We are currently working on the second draft of the script and refining the style of the illustrations. We are very serious about the project and have been putting a lot of work into developing the concept and figuring out the most effective way to execute it.
Included are some character concepts, one scene from each section of the book, and a full-page concept of Maynard and Oklahoma. This should provide some information about the style and quality of the artwork and how the narrative plays out.