do you remember The five forgotten? Probably not, the reason is Five forgotten It’s actually a brand new comic that was launched this week via Patreon.
It’s written by the team Alex Secure and Sarah Centurywith works of art Pat Kennedy, letter chas! spot, edit Priya Saxena, and logo Travis Escali. The first chapter of debut is now on, and it’s a fun and fun superhero setting to frolic.
I was so interested in the concept and opening Salvo that I spent some time sitting down with the co-author and learning more about it. So you can find my recent interview with Segura and Century below… Enjoy!
Alex Segura and Sarah Century
Zack Quaintance: How did this fit together? You two want to work together for a while?
Alex Safe: Sara and I became friends with Cerebro – an excellent X-Men podcast from Connor Goldsmith. I’m just a fan – I’ve heard her say, like Jean Gray and Rachel Summers. Ultimately, we became good friends and just started talking about different comics we liked and found a lot of overlap. I forgot if it was me or Sarah saying, “Okay, if they all go into the blender and become a comic run for a while? ”But it’s a springboard.
Sarah Century: Yes, the Cerebro connection is real! I already know Alex and I believe in reading the book Arana and Spider-Man 2099, but I think our first actual conversation must be about the X-Men. We both like 1980s comic cliches such as Claremont prose, thought bubbles and characters with too many questions. My clearest memory is that when we came up with this idea, I was texting vegan Thanksgiving in 2023, so I will always connect early on with my favorite topics besides the X-Men. Tofu! I personally am very interested in this project because there is a chance to include a middle-aged version of the character. If we were to introduce a new set of teen superheroes, I like the idea of having my age self-participate in my own ongoing arc, like Yellowjackets or Stephen King’s It, that’s it. This is one of the first parts of the story I clearly remembered about our chat, and in my opinion the rest dropped from there.
Zack: How did Pat Kennedy get involved and what made him a perfect fit for the project?
Sarah: Pat is Alex’s very right advice for the book. I’m just a big fan of Pat. It was a dream to see the TFF page appear in my inbox. He is really incredible.
Alex: I’ve known Pat for a long time – he and his brother Tim rest in peace, two of my favorite “modern classic” Archie artists – that’s to say they made classic stories for “Abstract”… today. But when Pat turned from the summary to jughead, my eyes really opened: Hunger, this is one of the Archie horror books I’m going to edit. Not only can he evoke Decarlo and Lucey, but he can also do more adult and genre things with strength and talent. I remember just submitting it. We talked about working with it over the years, but it wasn’t until then that’s when we found the right fit, Pat poured himself into the project. His designs are spectacular and he gets pride. I think the three of us do want to create a series that feels modern, but it also goes back to an era when series can last for a while, readers are used to detours, sub-pictures, and ongoing plot threads that are not naturally solved in a mini series or a single problem. This book isn’t retro anyway, but we took the time to figure out a business model and hopefully we can extend it.
Zack: I love the impact you can feel in these pages from the beginning… Can you take me some?
Alex: I think the language we’ve been using – not to say we’re even on these running courts, but we often think of them, the Clairemont X-Men, especially the Inland Age and Hell, Jaime’s Locas, Giffen’s 5yl Legion, and the early Drake/Premiani Doom patrol…, their overall theme not only involves not only the problems they’re involved in not only the problems they come out, but have not approved themselves, but have to approve themselves, and they will come up, but have to approve themselves, and have no problems, but have to approve their own problems, and have not approved their own problems, and have not approve their own problems, and have not approve their own problems, and have not approve their own problems, and have not approve their own problems, and have not belong to their own problems. Not as sexy or cool as JLA or Avengers.
Sarah: It’s definitely a big polishing stone for our comics. We each have several forgotten five playlists, too. I remember Mazzy Star’s “Blue Light” in one of them, Alex answered with a crying emoji, so I’ll add that song to our influence. I listen to a lot of Kid Congo Powers, PJ Harvey, ESG, Grace Jones and TFF packages. I’m playing a lot of cult or indie movies from the 90s, and even a teen horror cycle like I know you did last summer. Don’t let that be weird, but I think Alex’s work qualifies as one of my influences here, too, as I’m reading Alter Ego while researching the details.
Zack: What was the initial scope of the project? How long have you seen it run?
Alex: We’ve finished planning for the first two years, and Pat, Sara and I are on a long trip. So hopefully it stretches well. We will never consider it as a mini series or a limited work. This is the kind of book we can hope to put any kind of idea into. And if we find some success on Patreon, we can collect the colors (the comics are black and white on Patreon) and distribute the printed version to the direct and book markets every year. At least that’s hope.
Sarah: Our first task is to keep it sustainable and then we will see how much we can add. I think one of the biggest downfalls in serialized storytelling today is that writers usually have to divide the entire premise into eight episodes or six questions, because a lot of time is all the space you get. So, because this story is so front, many great performances or comics can lose momentum. For TFF, we intentionally don’t want to condense such stories even before we start scripting, and the only way that really seems like it’s a crowdfunding project. Our main TFF document is like a hundred pages, so we have been thinking for a few days (probably decades). We will see how far we can go. Currently, the goal is to make every page absolutely explode.
Zack: Finally, the tag on Patreon says, “There are a lot of friends’ contributions”… Can you elaborate on that? Are we particularly interested in any friends?
Alex: Yes, for sure! chas! I’m Pangburn, my first editor on Dick Tracy, is working on lettering, Priya Saxena is editing, X-Podcasters Supreme Connor Goldsmith and Chad Anderson are reading our work and chatting, and my old wake-up collaborator Dean Kotz will help with some special one-off units. We definitely want to keep the team nervous, but the biggest atmosphere is that we are making comics with friends and enjoying the journey.
You can now read the five forgotten by Patreon!
