Guest Post Week: Origin

Our next guest post is from Friend of the Geek Larry. He's currently working as (in his own words) "an all-around guy (director-art director-video editor-motion graphics artist-storyboard artist-producer-copywriter-internet freeloader) for a Cable TV Network". Noice. He blogs at theyoungflaneur and he's got a story to tell about a topic close to our hearts: origins.

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Everyone has his own origin story. And this is how mine started…

Our whole universe was in a hot dense state, then nearly fourteen billion years ago expansion started. Wait...

The Earth began to cool,

The autotrophs began to drool,
Neanderthals developed tools,
We built a wall (we built the pyramids),
Math, science, history, unravelling the mysteries,
That all started with the big bang!

Yeah, I was just watching season 5 (episode 2) and laughing at the nerds. Haha. Nerds.

Unlike common geeks, I do not collect comic books, action figures or rare items from conferences (I’d totally spend my money on movies instead). I’m pretty much the basic type, someone who’s simply an enthusiast. I wander around and fill my head with these interesting stories, giving me fresh ideas as I continue my life as an artist.

I had a pretty standard geek childhood, I grew up reading Spider-man comics, watching classic Fleischer Superman cartoons, playing Metroid on Gameboy, Super Mario Bros and Contra Wars on Nintendo Family Computer, Metal Slug on Arcade, I cosplayed Spider-man and Superman a couple of times, pretended to be Robocop in front of my parents, played Magic and Pokemon cards, finished most Pokemon games (Red, Blue, Yellow, Gold and Silver), joined a comic book society in elementary, believed I was Darth Vader, played Battle Realms and Warcraft, got hooked on Anime, finished Kingdom Hearts, read the whole Harry Potter series, finished God of War and Crisis Core: FF VII on PSP and Divine-Fisted seven characters in Tekken. Eventually fell in love with movies and geek art. Yeah, I had a normal life.

Along the way, a friend of mine introduced me to Alex Ross and Mark Waid’s epic semi-conclusion to DC Universe’s greatest heroes – Kingdom Come. *play heavenly sound* Instantly, I got hooked. It was like having an epiphany. It was glorious. It was 10x better than the time when I heard the news that Pokemons aren’t limited to 151 or the time when I found out that there are other Lanterns other than Green and Yellow ones. My imagination immensely grew and I knew from that moment that something special happened to me. With the addition of death, time and physics (while maintaining rich personality) to the lives of my favourite heroes, I became very critical with the storytelling. Each character had a story connected to another. And with each page of wonderfully watercoloured illustration, I was lured deeper into the imaginary world. After reading the whole thing, I remember pausing for a while as I stared at the front cover. It felt amazing. I’ve never read anything like it before. I soon realized that not all stories (that are told) are worth meddling at, and that mostly realistic ones make a strong impact to the reader. Metaphors became constant to me every time I analyze something. The learning never stopped since that moment. And each day I became more critical.

I got my own copy of Kingdom Come for a short while (until a friend of mine flattened the sharp edges and destroyed its mint condition.. no, his name isn’t Jon David Garcia) and eventually gave it away. I thought I don’t need it anymore because the essence is already stored in memory crystals (similar to Kal-El’s), hidden in my myogenic muscular organ otherwise known as the heart.