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Behind the Name Change

Some of you may have carried over from the old days when I was doing a webcomic that I hand-drew with colored pencils and sharpies (oh how far we’ve come). One of the biggest changes that you might have noticed if you remember those days would be the name of the comic was different.

Back then, I published online a story called American Legends with a precursor story of American Legends: Origins. Many of the characters from back then have found their new life in this script, but with a different name: Shadow Agency. Let me give you some details as to why that changed.

When I originally started writing the series, I had searched for a name fitting for the team that I was planning to create. I fell on the Legends and at the time I thought the name was original, but needed a qualifier to better distinguish the book, so I decided to call it American Legends. At the time, no one was using that name.

In fall of 2011, I had begun to write the book, but hadn’t uploaded anything onto the internet until early 2012. I had a blog where people would read the comic online and it started to get traction.

Shortly after that though, I reached a point where I was starting to burn out.

It was hard to make the comics the way I was, especially since I wasn’t writing anything down before I started drawing. It was even harder since no one was taking me seriously and I didn’t have the money to elevate what I was doing. I got some good advice and I set out to write a script for a graphic novel that I would have someone else do the art for.

Sadly, in the time it took me to write the script while going through school, when I got around to now, the name had already been published under as a comic book. Now I could have maybe tried to sue or something, but I actually think that book had a better use of the name, so I went back to the drawing board and came up with ideas for a name.

After brainstorming with my family, my artist, and some of my close friends, Shadow Agency seemed to be the best fit for what the book was going for. Personally, the art that Charles did for the book required a more dramatic name than what I had previously assigned and the name being in use just gave me a good excuse. I can’t tell you how many days I sat with names or words of teams that I tried to create with no avail, but I think this one fits best.

By this time of course, the story had also changed too and I think the new name fits it better. The Shadow Agency are super-powered people who work to take care of the problems that the world doesn’t need to see, so it makes more sense.

I cannot tell you how excited I am as things continue to come together! I have more things that I’ve been holding close for now, but I’ll be posting them all in due time. Stay tuned!

THE STORY CONTINUES.

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