City of Nightmares is out today, and I couldn't be happier!
This is a book I've always wanted to write, though I never knew what form it would take. I've always loved action stories that were over the top, full of villains that were increasingly absurd--something I loved about both manga and western comics. And while the hero of those may only face one at a time in a villain of the week style, I always wondered about the background characters who just live in that world. What would it like to be a regular person in Gotham, where the Joker is running wild and the Riddler kidnapped your neighbor and the Scarecrow poisoned your whole building with fear gas? What would it be like to be the npc in that world?
As much as we all wish to be the powerful characters in stories, the heroes who can shoot lasers from their eyes or the billionaire villains who laugh at the good guys as they swoop away on their helicopters, most people aren't. We're the people left to live through the chaos made by the powerful.
This is a book about living in the chaos. About being powerless and scared as the world falls apart around you, and all you can do is keep going and hope for the best.
More than anything though, I wanted this book to be FUN. I wanted to write something that was absurd and wild and ridiculous, but also something wholesome, and empathetic, and funny. Something that took the absurdly chaotic, that took the complete lack of control in your own life and the world falling down around you and chose instead of spiralling into grim dark and depression, to simply reach out and give you a hug.
I hope you all enjoy City of Nightmares, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to share this story with the world.
I hope you all have as much fun reading it as I had writing it.
