Comics Will Break Your Heart

by Faith Erin Hicks

  “Are you running at all?”

  “Yeah,” Weldon said. “I found a running group downtown. They seem pretty dedicated. I’ll go with them a few days a week.”

  “That’s good to hear,” said his dad. Weldon thought he heard relief in his father’s voice, and wondered if maybe David Warrick had felt a bit guilty shipping his son off to Sandford. Weldon hoped so.

  “I haven’t been back to Sandford in … oh, seven years? Eight?” said his dad. “Time flies. I keep trying to get your aunt and uncle down here to California for a visit, but you know how they are.” Weldon thought of his aunt and uncle and their immaculate lawn. How his uncle lovingly tended the grass, driving the riding mower in slow, deliberate loops across the yard. He thought of his aunt in a wide-brimmed hat, her hands sunk deep in earth. Everything they seemed to want was here. Of course they weren’t curious about what was outside their yard.

  “Sometimes I can’t believe I grew up there,” David Warrick said, snorting out a laugh. “I was desperate to get away. I blamed my father—your grandfather—for forcing us to live in the middle of nowhere. I was furious with him when we moved back to Sandford after he was pushed out of Warrick Comics. I thought I was destined for greater things. American things.”

  Weldon sat up, holding the phone tight to his ear. His father never talked about Joseph Warrick being forcibly retired from his own company when his son was a teenager. The whole thing was mysterious; some reports Weldon had read online said that the retirement was Joseph Warrick’s idea, that he’d finally had enough of comic books. Others compared the ousting to Steve Jobs being fired from Apple: the company founder tossed away by subordinates grasping at power. But Joseph Warrick never returned triumphant to Warrick Comics, and seemed content to spend the rest of his life living quietly in his hometown, as his old friend Micah Kendrick battled for the rights to characters they had created decades ago. Years after his father’s retirement, David Warrick left Canada to join Warrick Comics in California, and he’d been there ever since.

  “There’s a bar—Bearlys—it’s not still downtown, is it?” Weldon’s father asked.

  “What street’s it on?”

  “The main street, what’s it called? Vernon Street. Named after an old mayor, I think.”

  Weldon thought of Sandford’s one downtown street, the Starbucks and Running Realm towering over it. He couldn’t remember a bar named Bearlys.

  “I’m not sure. I didn’t see anything called that. It might’ve moved.”

  “It’s probably gone,” sighed David Warrick. “Your grandfather took me there the night I turned nineteen. A little father-son celebration. I remember sitting in that bar, sipping a beer and thinking about how I was going to escape Sandford. How I wasn’t going to be like him, slinking home with his tail between his legs.”

  Weldon listened, free arm wrapped around his knees. Everything about this conversation was strange.

  “Listen to me,” David Warrick chuckled. “I do go on.”

  “It’s okay,” said Weldon.

  “I’m sorry I shipped you off to your aunt and uncle,” said his father. “I didn’t know what else to do, especially after your mother—”

  “It’s okay,” said Weldon quickly. He hugged his knees hard, feeling a lonely ache spread across the back of his ribs. He remembered his father on his phone after Weldon had been suspended from school, talking to his mother in low tones that rose in volume until Weldon could pick out the words. Ugly words, both adults hurling them at each other thoughtlessly. Weldon remembered his father hanging up the phone and standing in their kitchen with his back to Weldon, as though he was unable to turn around. Weldon had known then he would not be going to stay with his mother in San Diego.

  “Why do you do these things, Weldon?” said his dad now. “You were doing well at that school. I thought you were making friends. Then I get a call because you’ve gotten in trouble again.”

  “I don’t know,” said Weldon. Because you don’t see me. Because we used to go to San Diego Comic-Con as a family, you and me and Mom. We used to walk down the aisles of the convention center and flip through the dollar bins. Back then everything was just comics. There weren’t giant media booths advertising cartoons and Doctor Who and vinyl toys. Mom used to pull old issues of the TomorrowMen out of the dollar bins and hold them up, laughing at the ridiculous covers. “The TomorrowMen versus The Broccoli People! Humanity hangs in the balance!”

  They had stopped going to Comic-Con together when Weldon was ten, three years before his mother left. At first Weldon had missed it, and then he hadn’t anymore. But thinking about it now made the lonely ache in his ribs sharpen.

  “Dammit, Weldon. You know that’s not an answer, right?”

  “Yeah,” said Weldon. He could picture his dad in his office at Warrick Studios. The walls were papered with replicas of famous old TomorrowMen covers. The first meeting of Skylark and Skybound. The wedding of Skylark and Skybound, the bestselling TomorrowMen comic of all time. The cover to the issue where Tristan Terrific, old archnemesis of Skybound, joined the TomorrowMen team. The history of the TomorrowMen turned into office wallpaper. The cover with the Broccoli People was nowhere to be found.

  David Warrick sighed heavily over the phone.

  “I want to make a deal with you,” he said. “I don’t know if this makes me a bad parent, like I’m rewarding your past behavior or something, but I’m not sure what else to do. I want you to make me a promise, Weldon, one you’re going to keep.”

  “Okay,” said Weldon.

  “Don’t ‘okay’ me, son. I want you to think about this, and if it’s something you can do for me. You’re seventeen, and it’s time you started using your brain like you’re at least approaching adulthood.”

  “Okay.”

  “Ehhgh,” David Warrick said into the phone, disgusted. He pressed onward. “I want you to promise you won’t be an idiot this summer. No stealing, no acting out. We’ll reassess when September comes around, but right now, let’s just focus on the summer.”

  “Okay.”

  “You be good, and I’ll let you come to Comic-Con. You can join me for the movie preview in Hall H along with the six thousand people dedicated enough to sleep in line on the sidewalk the night before. You get to be up there with me, watching history happen. The first look at footage from the TomorrowMen movie released to the public.”

  Weldon closed his eyes. He could see it in front of him, the sprawling convention center like an alien spaceship crashed on the edge of the San Diego waterfront. The mobs of people in Star Wars and Captain America and Legend of Zelda and TomorrowMen T-shirts crowded around the front doors, bodies pressing forward, desperate to enter. He saw the actors from the TomorrowMen movie, their perfect faces aloof, pretending not to see the scrum of people around them as they were escorted into Hall H, the cavernous room reserved for the most anticipated announcements of Comic-Con. He saw himself trailing after them, his dad a few feet ahead of him. The crowd roared as the actors took the stage, six thousand frenzied voices reaching a deafening crescendo. He was there with David Warrick, who had fought so hard to get a TomorrowMen movie made. Weldon could see his father nearly vibrating with the emotion of the crowd. He turned toward Weldon, his face shining—

  “Yes,” Weldon said.

  “Weldon, I need you to think about this. This is a promise.”

  “I promise. I won’t do it anymore.”

  “Won’t do what?”

  “Won’t be a jerk.”

  Let me come with you. Let me stand on the stage with you. Believe me when I say I want this.

  David Warrick sighed.

  “Okay, Weldon. Okay.”

  They talked for a few more minutes after that. About the weather in Sandford versus California, about Weldon’s aunt and uncle, about the prime minster of Canada, whose name Weldon surprised himself by plucking out of thin air. Eventually the conversation wound down and David Warrick said he had to go.

  “I believe y
ou can do this, Weldon,” he said. “I trust that you’ll make the right decisions.”

  “Thanks, Dad,” said Weldon, meaning it. Maybe them being apart had been good for them.

  “Goodbye, son.”

  “Bye, Dad.”

  Weldon sat on the couch for a while longer, hugging his knees and feeling the conversation roll around in his head. He said he trusted me. Had that really never happened before? Weldon couldn’t remember. His body felt explosive and quivery, energy and emotion spilling over. He stretched and got off the couch. The excitement of the moment overwhelmed him, and he let out a loud whoop that echoed through the empty house.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “Help me with my TomorrowMen script.”

  Mir looked up. Evan was sitting across from her at one of the school library tables, earnestly staring at her over a pile of books. Mir had been at the library for the past three hours, writing her final essay on The Stone Angel. The end of school and final exams loomed, and Mir’s brain felt overstuffed from endless studying. Evan had showed up half an hour ago and awkwardly hung around Mir, obviously wanting something but too embarrassed to come out and ask for it. Mir decided to ignore him until he got the courage to speak up.

  “Your TomorrowMen script?”

  “Yeah!” Evan beamed at Mir, his beard practically radiating light. “The one I’m going to give to Weldon Warrick so he can pass it on to his dad and then I’ll become the next writer on the TomorrowMen.”

  Mir leaned back from the table.

  “Evan, that is really, really unlikely. You know that, right?”

  “Weirder things have happened,” Evan said. He was still smiling, but Mir could tell by the way his gaze dropped to the pile of papers in front of him that her comment had hurt. Why am I so good at hurting him? she thought. Mir, stop using practicality as an excuse to shit on your friends’ dreams. Not everyone wants to put every penny they earn into a savings account so they can go to university. Some people want different things.

  “You’re right,” Mir said. “Weldon told us about how strange the comic book industry was. I’m sure people have gotten hired in even weirder ways.”

  “So will you help me?”

  Mir looked at the piles of notepaper in front of her, photocopied articles from literary journals and the well-thumbed school copy of The Stone Angel. It was not an appealing mess.

  “What do you need help with?”

  Evan moved to Mir’s side of the table and thunked down in the chair next to her. Mir couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen him in the school library. Evan preferred to find his entertainment outdoors, usually something that involved swimming or driving ATVs or jumping off high ledges. Mir remembered Evan complaining as she walked with Raleigh to the local library, telling them it was such a nice day outside, why did they want to spend it inside reading books? Mir and Raleigh had shaken their heads, bonding over their disapproval. Didn’t Evan know books were fun?

  I wonder if Raleigh still goes to the library, Mir thought. I’ll ask her the next time I see her. Whenever that was. The thought of Raleigh made Mir’s chest ache. She missed their conversations about the books they read, series that Stella silently disapproved of, pointedly leaving copies of Anne of Green Gables on top of the stacks of R. L. Stine Mir brought home from the library. Raleigh was so good at finding the grossest part of any Goosebumps book and reading that section aloud in a quavering, sarcastic voice. Mir remembered rolling around on the carpet in Raleigh’s family room, laughing until her sides ached.

  Evan shoved a jumbled printout at Mir. She stared at it, uncomprehending.

  “What’s this?”

  “That’s my outline,” Evan said. “I did a lot of research online, and most comic book writers start with a story outline. Then they do panel breakdowns, figure out the flow of the story, and then they write in the dialogue and stuff. Only some writers don’t even do panel breakdowns. They leave that up to the artists. It’s really confusing, actually. Every writer seems to work differently.”

  Mir frowned at the chaotic mess of words on the piece of paper in front of her.

  “Evan, are you saying you haven’t actually written a script?”

  “Well, not technically,” Evan said. He pointed at the paper. “But I wrote the story down, and it has most of the dialogue in there. The rest is just formatting everything so it looks like an actual script. Super easy!”

  “That doesn’t sound easy,” Mir said.

  “That’s why I need help,” said Evan, grinning sheepishly. “You’re the smartest person I know, so I’ve chosen to reward you with this task. I just … I have everything in there, all the story’s there, I just need help to make it look like a script.”

  It had always been like this with him. He would slide through school, cramming the night before every test, happy with low Cs and Ds. Surviving classes because Mir made him study, the two of them sprawled on the floor of Stella and Henry’s living room, Mir shouting at Evan in mock annoyance whenever he got off track. Which was often. She knew he probably had an essay due tomorrow for his English class, a paper he’d slap together at the last minute. What book would his class be reading? Mir thought. Something easier than The Stone Angel, probably. Something deadly boring to Evan. Something that would further convince him reading anything but a comic book was an exercise in soul-killing.

  Mir squinted at the printout. It was practically unreadable, a solid block of words, no paragraph or dialogue breaks. Mir put down the paper and reached for her notebook, flipping it to a blank page at the back.

  “Tell me the story you want to write.”

  Evan stared at Mir, confused. She smiled, gesturing at the area next to the table they were sitting at.

  “I mean, act it out. You’re good at that stuff. You’re the best at drama class and you’re really good at explaining things. You act it out, and I’ll write it down, and then we’ll go from there, cool?”

  Understanding dawned on Evan’s face. Mir held up a hand.

  “But we’re still in the library, okay? So maybe keep it as quiet as possible.”

  Evan stood in front of the table, eyes closed. Mir watched him, her pen poised above the notebook. Evan opened his eyes and reached his hands toward Mir, his voice stage-whisper low.

  “This is a story about the choices of Tristan Terrific, the only member of the TomorrowMen who is not a hero. Every day he struggles with his gift: his powers are pure persuasion. He can speak to a person and make that person do anything, convinced it was of his own free will.”

  Mir scribbled frantically, the story taking shape on the paper as she wrote. Every moment of Tristan Terrific’s life was steeped in pain. Every moment he lived, he knew what he could do with his powers, how he could control and manipulate the minds of people around him. And in the past, he had. He’d built an empire on the backs of people who had no idea their will was not their own. Tristan Terrific had seen them as ants. Tiny ants, going about their lives, never knowing they were being manipulated. But one day Tristan Terrific woke up and saw what he was doing, and saw that it was wrong. So he tried to be good. And being good was agony.

  Evan’s story was fairly simple. “You should tell a complete story in twenty-two pages for a pitch,” he explained to Mir. “It can’t be one piece of a giant epic space war crossover or something. So I’m doing a day in the life, one day with Tristan Terrific. He saves the world with the TomorrowMen, but he’s always afraid. He’s seen what he’s capable of and he’s afraid that someday he might return to that.”

  Evan leaned on the table in front of Mir, staring at her seriously.

  “He’s addicted to his powers,” said Evan. “Every day he has to choose not to use his powers on people, except when the world’s in the balance. And even then it’s like, should I take that step? Should I manipulate that bad guy? Is the cost of giving in to his powers worth the lives of innocent civilians?”

  Mir finished writing and threw her pen down, massaging her wrist. Evan smi
led hopefully at her.

  “What did you think?”

  Mir stared at the notebook and at her frantic handwriting, the words slanting longer and longer the farther down the page she went.

  “It’s good, Evan,” she said. She liked the idea of seeing a day in a struggling superhero’s life, seeing the moral choices he made in order to remain on the side of good. It wasn’t all giant robot fights and superpowers on display, the things that Weldon Warrick said he liked in comics. It was something she thought she might enjoy. She nodded, smiling to herself.

  “I’d read it.”

  “Yesss!” Evan fist-pumped the air, earning a hissed “SHHH!” from the librarian eyeing them from the circulation desk. He did a tiny dance, feet thumping softly on the carpeted floor before he sat back down at the table, leaning toward Miriam.

  “I know it’s stupid,” he said. “I know that I won’t get hired to write TomorrowMen comics because I give a script to that Warrick guy. I’m sixteen, and there are a million established writers already out there who’d kill to write comics for Warrick Studios. But—” Evan looked up at Mir, and she couldn’t help but grin back, his excitement infectious. “It’s fun to do this, y’know? I’ve never written anything important before. Anything to show someone, I mean.”

  “I’m glad,” Mir said, meaning it. For the millionth time, she wished she felt something more for Evan. It would have been so simple. I have to make everything complicated, she thought. Can’t fall for the guy I’ve known since sixth grade, have to fall for … Weldon Warrick’s smile was suddenly in her mind, his gaze focused straight on her as he leaned on the counter of the Emporium of Wonders. Mir flinched away from the memory.

  “I’m glad too,” said Evan, still beaming. Mir pushed Weldon Warrick from her mind and tapped the paper in front of her.

  “Have you written other TomorrowMen stories?”

  “Oh, yeah, lots. Just for myself, just for fun.” Evan reached in his bag, pulling out a spiral notebook. He flipped it open, the pages covered with his awkward writing, small doodles of superheroes in the margins. He grinned at Mir. “Didn’t you notice me during free period, hiding in the cafeteria, scribbling away?”