Here’s a fun fact. I once contributed to a comic. Well, technically, one release of a comic strip, and it never went anywhere despite the illustrator and me having “big dreams” about our work. I was the writing talent, and my friend, Bryan Fyffe, was the very talented illustrator. We worked very well together because we shared the same sense of humor, liked the same things, and agreed that I could not draw myself out of a wet paper sack, let alone draw something resembling one.
While my dreams of being a successful comic book writer have fallen to the wayside (for now), it was not a total loss. From our efforts, an interesting comic emerged featuring a unique hero with terrible dialogue. The central figure is a superhero named Señor Tex-Mex. His powers are undocumented, fully unknown, and are still something of a mystery to the world at large. The source of his power (according to the never-published backstory) is a mystical pepper known as the “La Muerte de Pimienta” (Death Pepper) that was supposed to kill our hero rather than transform him into a blue-skinned, invulnerable mutant who looked a great deal like a luchador (I absolutely adore lucha libre as both an art form and sport). It gets stranger from there…
By day, our hero is an overworked entry-level public accountant who spends most of his time filling out forms to request more forms and so on. In short, a dead-end job (sorry, CPAs) and has no real chance of being promoted. This sad fact (and career choice) becomes inconsequential when he takes a trip to New Mexico for a seminar and stumbles into a back-alley shop that sells strange and exotic ingredients. He tries a sample of the La Muerte de Pimienta hot sauce and promptly falls into a coma. When he awakes, he has the ability to turn himself into Señor Tex-Mex, a champion of justice! Sadly, his broken English (which was part of the gag) does not improve, but his overly grandiose speeches do.
The end result? I’ll leave it up to you to decide. Personally, I am sad the comic did not continue, but I am very thankful I had a chance to work with a talented friend to create it.
If you like Bryan Fyffe’s work, give him a peek at Instagram.
Illustrations published by permission. Copyright of Bryan Fyffe, 2012.
Crime!
Written by Cyrus Kirby
Illustrated by Bryan Fyffe
