Part 1 of 3 articles on the background to this project and The Human Fly

By Christopher Sequeira

Jim Krueger was always the guy we wanted to do the second arc of new Human Fly stories, and, as Jim is not just a pal—he became a pal because he started writing terrific prose horror stories for IFWG Publishing anthologies that blew our socks off—we knew he could do something cool with the Fly once we’d set the first arc down and established a few basics. 

So, let’s touch on some of those basics. First-up, is our Human Fly the exact, same Fly we saw in the pages of Marvel’s 19-issue run? Well, in a bit of meta-textual magic that rivals Howard the Duck escaping the Marvel Universe at one stage, the answer is, he definitely could be! But, wait, doesn’t that make him 70 or more years old? Answer, maybe he is, if he’s the exact same guy all the time. And here’s where things will get weird and unique. In REAL-LIFE, in the 1970s, there was more than one person under the Human Fly mask. One was allegedly a sometime outsider-to-the-law. One was in the music industry (if you have that old Human Fly Marvel issue where he goes on stage and sings, maybe, at that moment, the music guy was THAT guy). There may have been others, too (we’re not telling—yet).

But, what we ARE saying, is that the Human fly you see in IPI Comics comes from that situation, but we are telling you it’s BIGGER than that: If there was a Fly in ’77, and there’s a Fly now in our comic (AND there was a costumed sidekick / apprentice named Mercury in real-life) then could the tradition, the whole role and motive of the Human Fly and trainee, be more sensational yet?

Oh, my sweet Lord, yes. The Fly persona isn’t a few decades of a ‘calling-to-duty’ position; try CENTURIES. We dropped some nice juicy hints and visual clues in the first Human Fly series (trade paperback coming soon!). This character’s origin goes back hundreds of years and is shrouded in mystery.

Then Jim suggested: Well, then, if he’s multi-generation, what about a bunch of Human Fly standard-bearers take on a nemesis that also does that, by instead being IMMORTAL?

YES, we shouted.

Enter Dracula, or, as history knows him, Voivode (aka Prince) Vlad Dracula, aka Vlad III, aka Vlad the Impaler, aka Count of the Szekeleys Dracula. Indeed, ANOTHER real-life historical person. A real life person meta-fictionalised forever by the genius of Bram Stoker (who, very weirdly picked up on things that seemed impossible to know when he wrote his novel, like the general locale of Vlad’s Poenari castle) who revealed him as a vampire.

Our series is one-of-kind. Where else are you going to see the comic-book versions of two actual personages in all or nothing opposition? And, remembering that while the 70s spawned a Marvel Fly in his own titular comic-book, it also spawned two successful Dracula comics (TOMB OF DRACULA and DRACULA LIVES). You getting enough? How about:

• History-turned-comics good guy vs history-turned-comics bad guy. 
• Marvel headliner good guy vs. Marvel headliner bad guy.
• Written by Jim Krueger, no less, and I have to say—as a guy who’s read Jim’s script, this is KILLER.

You haven’t backed this Kickstarter? What are you waiting for? You will LOVE this.

Christopher Sequeira
Editor-in-Chief, IPI Comics

Our Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ipicomic/human-fly-and-dracula-conflict-across-centuries