By Matt Hirsch
After a successful launch on Kickstarter, Brooklyn College alum Patrick Hickey Jr. and his fellow co-founder John Svedese are set to carve their names into comic book history with Legacy Comix.
With the goal of delivering “fun, gritty, and legendary” comics, according to their Kickstarter, Hickey and Svedese want readers to remember the feeling they had when they got a new comic as kids.
“We’ve seen the state of the industry and we feel like we have something to bring to it,” Svedese told The Vanguard. “Some way to update it and still feel nostalgic at the same time.”
The stories they read as kids left an indelible mark on their goals as creators. Hickey and Svedese want Legacy’s roster to reflect the stories of that bygone era.
“We’d be lying if we said our work wasn’t geared towards people that love the comics of the eighties and the nineties. That’s when we became comic book fans,” said Hickey. “So we wanted to create comics in the vein of the comics that we grew up reading.”
If hitting their Kickstarter goal of $2,500 in less than five hours, and more than doubling it with 49 days left is any indication, comic book fans have taken notice of the dynamic duo’s passion for the industry.
“What separates Legacy, I think, is a lot of them [comic book publishers] talk about community. A lot of them talk about ‘therefore the artist,’ but we’re actually backing everything up,” Svedese said. “Pat and I, when we started this, we set off with a mission to be those support beams for artists, for creators, for writers. It’s not only about making money and getting your book out there, but it’s about supporting creators.”
Alongside his role as Editor-In-Chief, Hickey is writing three books for Legacy: “Condrey,” a Frank Miller-esque noir tale about a New York City orphan looking to get revenge for his slain father; “The Job,” a crime-thriller about “Delicious” Dan Dero, a struggling professional wrestler turned bank robber looking for his big break; and “KROOM,” a first-of-its-kind sci-fi story drawn by Svedese, based on a video game Hickey wrote with the same name.
“The story of KROOM is adapted from the level design. So it’s gonna be a six-issue mini-series…I don’t think that there is a comic book adapted from a design document of a video game. This is the first time in my recollection,” said Hickey. “As a video game historian, I’m excited to do this, but as a comic book writer and a fiction writer, I’m even more excited.”
Svedese is the Chief Creative Officer of Legacy, the artist for “KROOM,” and writes and draws his own story, “Athos.” His comic represents the only “traditional” superhero story on Legacy’s roster. But readers will quickly realize that his powers are where Athos’ similarities to heroes like Superman end. Svedese came up with the character when he was just 17, and the character has grown with him as the years passed.
“Over the years, I went through a period of my life where I was really interested in conspiracy theories. So I worked this conspiracy theory into his origin and switched it to where he’s the villain,” said Svedese. “The evolution of the story is from a very basic, traditional superhero story to something very unique in the sense that, I don’t really think you see many real-world conspiracy theories in books today.”
Without even publishing a story yet, Hickey and Svedese are all set to stake their claim in this larger-than-life industry. Based on a promise to deliver captivating stories, backed up by a lifetime of hard work, just like Hickey’s tagline for “Condrey,” Legacy Comix is coming.
Though Legacy has yet to publish a story, four previously released issues of “Condrey” have already inspired a fan to cosplay the titular character. This excitement for their stories is exactly the reaction that Hickey and Svedese hope to receive in the future.
“He [the cosplayer] told me last night, ‘I just wanna let you know that the reason why I’m cosplaying as Condrey, is because this character got me excited about comics again,’” said Hickey. “And I said to myself, ‘I want every single one of our properties to get people excited about comics in one way or another.’ That’s our goal.”