Jeff Adams on Adventures of Jake #1

Guest post by Jeff Adams ...

Adventures of Jake #1 holds a special place in my heart. It was the first story I got a contract for. The story came about because of a call for submissions I saw that wanted stories with nerds/geeks at the forefront. Since I’m a bit of a geek myself -- with a love of computers, superheroes, and sci-fi, among other things -- it was a fun exercise to come up with a geek of my own.

It didn’t take long for Jake to be conjured up. He’s a smart college guy. He holds down two nerdy jobs to pay for school -- working in a comic book store and appearing as a superhero at a theme park. I gave Jake at bit of confidence, which falters for him at times, because I wanted him to embrace his nerdiness as well as his gayness. But, like everyone thought, he can fall into shyness when he’s staring right at his crush.

The major challenge in this story wasn’t writing a geek and a preppy jock, but in coming up with the superhero universe that was required for Jake’s job. I obviously couldn’t tread on the copyrighted superheroes and theme parks we all know so well. I didn’t need an entire superhero mythology, however, since the story didn’t directly connect to the superheroes. All I needed was something that had enough backbone so it could be a conversation piece in the story.

Hence the creation of Elemental Force, or E-Force as it is sometimes referred to. Its inspiration is a bit of X-Men as well as some things from Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends (one of my favorite Saturday morning cartoons as a kid), The Galaxy Trio, and Herculoids. The theme park setting is pretty generic and it could be part of any Orlando-based theme park.

Of course, Michael, the preppy jock, has his geek side too since he cops to liking E-Force too, but for him it’s more about Jake than Jake’s superhero thing. I’ve often considered how their relationship might go. Does Michael make Jake more preppy or does Jake make Michael more nerdy? Or do they transform each other equally? Either way, I’m pretty sure there’s a time or two, at some point after this story occurs, where the two are role-playing something with Jake wearing his hero costume. Maybe that’s the basis for another adventure for Jake?

You can download it for FREE for today only: Adventures of Jake #1.

Jeff Adams