Last night, I had a dream that I wrote a comic book with another person. They had done most of the writing. I don’t remember who did the artwork. I couldn’t really take much credit for it, given my minimal participation. I think it was a non-superhero comic.

This rhymes with an elementary school memory of mine. I think it was 4th grade. We had to write a book, which actually included a bound cover. I don’t remember how we did that, but that was part of the project.

I procrastinated for every major assignment in school and this was no different. As the deadline approached, I begged two guys in class, Gary and Dave, if I could join them on their project, which was close to being complete and was a bunch of puzzles, word finds, etc. They reluctantly let me. I did a lot of the lettering in the final book, but I never felt I was really part of it, and it wasn’t my book in any meaningful sense. I think this somehow caught in my subconscious and replayed a variation of that in my dream.

Dave ended up going to a different middle and high school from me. His family seemed kind of snobbish, and he seemed like he turned into a snob to me as well, in what little interactions I had with him. Who knows, maybe I was wrong. I can be an atrocious judge of character.

I went to school with Gary up through high school. He was the first person in my high school class to die. He got into a motorcycle (or was it a motorbike?) accident shortly after graduation. He’s been dead for decades now. I don’t know how someone who I knew as a kid could be dead for so long. It doesn’t feel real.

Back to the dream. After the dreamtime comic came out, I was dream talking to this other person who was a successful comics artist and he was enthusiastic about working with me, but in a superhero milieu. I had to look up how to spell milieu. Looking up milieu wasn’t part of the dream, I just did that now while writing this post.

Back to the dream again. I said I didn’t have the full concept and I didn’t want the guy to get ahead of me, but I did have an idea for the name of the superhero — Bruised Ego.

Since I’m not too tight with any comic book artists, here’s a rendering made by a rather questionable and unsavory acquaintance of mine, Art Interior. Spelling is also not his strong suit.

Enjoy! (or don’t!)