Mares in the Night Author's Notes: "The Man from A.B.Y.S.S."

The Man from A.B.Y.S.S.

             First, the Hollywood, high-concept pitch: “It’s James Bond by way of H.P. Lovecraft!”

            Okay, so now that’s out of the way, we can talk about the real influences for this initial tale featuring the introduction of supernatural superspy Aleister Max. Obviously, Jim Steranko’s Nick Fury was always on my mind, but what I took the most inspiration from was Robert E. Howard’s “Worms of the Earth”--possibly the best pastiche of his friend Lovecraft’s work that Howard ever wrote, which also featured its main character gaining victory over his enemies at a price far too high. Aside from that, there’s a smorgasbord of other influences: Warren Ellis comics, classic John Carpenter, Mike Mignola’s Hellboy, etc.

            When I originally wrote this story, I had grand designs for an entire trilogy of Aleister Max novels, that would start out in the hip spy-fi mold of Steranko, and then take a turn for the trippy and enter a more cosmic, Jim Starlin-esque territory. All these years later, and I haven't written another word for Agent Max outside of this story. It's something I would still like to get around to eventually, but there's so much more I have to write in the meantime...

            Maybe some day.

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