People sometimes ask us how we came up with the unique and unusual names for our characters. Well, I came up with the idea of Brilliant Boy during my last year of university, where I was studying Visual Communication Graphic Design. I’ve always enjoyed my Typography classes, and had developed a tremendous respect and admiration for the Typographic trade. When I realized that I wanted a motif for my comic book creation, I decided to name my characters after Typographers and Type Faces that I liked, as a way to pay homage to the people who’s work influenced how we perceive the printed medium. So as an underlying theme, I’ve made it a point to name all the inhabitants of Baskerville after Type Faces.

The list below shows the Type Faces that I named my characters by:

I like to share with you a promotional illustration we did for Brilliant Boy when we were still self-publishing our comic books. It captures the essence of the “Drake” storyline (BB#2-6), a vampire tale inspired by Bram Stoker’s Dracula. I still like the illustration for I think it shows everything that I want Brilliant Boy to be: adventure, mystery, excitement and fun.

In fact, we still use the image today to promote our comics at book fairs, as seen in this photo of a home-made point-of-sales display.

–David

When we first developed the Brilliant Boy concept in the mid-1990s, the easiest way to distribute an idea was on paper. Fast forward to 2009 and technology now allows us to digitally publish an idea to a potentially global audience. The world has changed. But some things will always stay the same, like our love for comic book art and story-telling.

So it is with great pleasure that we are relaunching the Brilliant Boy website, and with it a Brilliant Boy comic strip. There will be a new strip every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and it will follow Brilliant Boy, Bookman, Stymie and Poetica on their daily escapades in small-town Baskerville. We hope you enjoy.

We welcome any comments on the comic or the website. We will do our best to reply. Thanks for reading.

–David