I’m going to link to this post from my comics’ pages, until I can design a better website.
Harmless Free Radicals
Harmless Free Radicals is a series of comics about a band of legendary heroes and their role in determining the fate of humanity and the Earth itself. It is also mostly about trying to afford the next cup of coffee while attempting to make sense of the crazy people who populate the world, and work, and school, and the local music scene. It is, in the end, about the struggle between imagination and reality.
The story begins when Ian Robertson, in 8th Grade, made a sort of magical literary contact with Fenmere, the Worm, the author of these comics. This part of the story isn’t finished, and there is at least one more graphic novel planned to complete the prequels. However, you can begin reading it with The Dragon & the Radical.
It picks up again, when Ian is 24 years old, and begins to reconnect with friends who had left for college or work. This is the very first page of Harmless Free Radicals ever published. On a whim, they form a band called “The Harmless Free Radicals”, but never really make any music. Instead, they are recruited by Fenmere to begin work on some sort of mysterious scheme or plan of his that involves the publication of the comic itself. Unfortunately, it goes awry and most of the story has been lost to hard drive crashes and life getting in the way. Putting himself into a holding pattern while he recuperated, Fenmere started writing gag comics about general life in Fairport. These are contained in the main archives of the comic, here.
12 years have passed since then. Ian and his wife, Brenna, are now 38 and have a daughter. And it turns out that she is likely going to be the real hero of the story.
The Epic of Sally Robertson
In the Pacific Northwest, halfway between the Canadian border and the land of dreams, resides Jam, a town where the dreams of its residents can come true if they only believe hard enough. There in Jam, Sally Robertson, daughter of the Harmless Free Radicals, begins fifth grade with a new adopted brother. Her parents are heroes of legend, their exploits chronicled by an ancient poet of a forgotten people, and her new brother is a refugee from their latest adventure!
This does not bode well for the concerns of a fifth grader with dreams of her own. These are the ongoing comics of the latest chapter of Harmless Free Radicals, the Epic of Sally Robertson.
About the comics! originally appeared on Drawing Contraption on 2013/08/01.