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Nobody learns anything. Everybody dies.

The lesson there is what we learn even after everybody dies.

My dad and his friends did comics before I showed up, and I grew up hearing “Sorry, I’m never doing another Planet of the Capes story; that was the point of that one. I’ve said all there is to say about that.” Well, OK, but that’s not all there is to say. I pitched the idea for Safeguard: a story about a kid who, like me, grew up hearing stories of these giants who came before him and wanting to do what they did. Safeguard is the story about the next generation learn ing from the past and trying to do bet ter. Who better, thematically, to write it than the next generation of story tellers? When my dad told Brandon I was working on Safeguard as an experiment he jumped at the opportunity to draw it and I’m so glad he did. The art is phe nomenal and he was a joy to work with. Now there won’t be another Planet of the Capes story. (wink)

What more can I say about the Fillbach Brothers? I mentioned in last year’s Untitled Walker Young Project #1 that when they did all of the art for Going Dark they sent me their notes on it as well and when I say it helped me when writing this issue’s stories it really helped. On the next page you get to see what they gave me. This progress book is about showing people the bones and muscles and what’s under the skin of comics from script to inks and the Fillbachs’ notes to each other are an essential part of that. Reading what they wrote to each other when drawing was a masterclass on visual storytelling and I could not be more grateful.