Badgerhazard is the product of pent-up suburban boredom. My friend Russell, whose father is a comic book connoisseur, and I dreamed up this modern-day superhero…or monster rodent. The name Badgerhazard came from the vast reserve of badly brainstormed band names – my band used to consider a name change every month or so – and we said, “wow, that could really be a comic.”

So I went to the sketchbook and started drafting. It took us an hour or so to get the concept down, and another hour to draw the cuts on the left. I never was very good at drawing backgrounds, so I figured I’d use some photoshop magic.

Our hero is an experimental badger in a cancer research institute, where badgers are injected with human DNA for testing purposes. He spends most of his time in his cage (cell 1) and his captors only refer to him by his subject number. The badgers are given a daily radiation therapy, and we see our protagonist developing human-like cognitive capabilities even before his full-out mutation. He longs for freedom and builds up anger, until one day he grows into his humanoid form. The scientists are flabbergasted (cell 2) as the confused badger himself plots for his escape (cell 3). Once out of the institute, he finds that with his superhuman strength, there is no way to fit into the world. His solution? Revenge. Our badger declares a vendetta against the scientists that have turned him to a monster (cell 4) and starts brutally murdering everyone at the institute (cell 5).

Graphic novels were just starting to catch on at the time after Sin City came out in the theaters. We wanted to create something more up-to-date, pooling in my science background and Russell’s vast comic-book knowledge, yet maintaining that classic noir style of Frank Miller. It was also hilariously far-fetched.