David Gallaher and Steve Ellis ’ ongoing scifi webcomic The Only Living Boy follow Erik Farrell , a 12 - yr - honest-to-goodness lost on a strange alien reality after he runs aside from home . Writing for io9 , Gallaher reveals the personal calamity that animate Erik ’s taradiddle — and how being diagnosed with epilepsy transform the way he wrote comics .
My Winter Beard had gone from “ aphrodisiacal faller ” to “ backwoods survivalist ” in a way of days . When I used to work a steady agency job , my byssus was like a giant sweater , it would protect my delicate face from the savage metropolis winds and arctic temperatures . These day , I function from home and have no need for such robust facial follicle - ry . But since the Groundhog forebode an other Spring , I opted to go to the barbershop to rid myself of the face fungus before it jeopardize into “ ocean sea captain ” territory .
The shop I go to is a very traditional , family - owned place that serves a glass of Bourbon dynasty with every hot towel shaving . I walk in , say my hellos , and take a hind end . “ Shave the beard , ” I secern the hombre before he even asks . I pause to take off my lid . “ And shave everything up top too , ” I secernate him , point to my head . The barber stands silent for a minute of arc . “ This cicatrice ? How did you get it ? ”
I hate it .
What do I say about a scar that launch the entire breadth of my skull ? Do I lie in ? Say something adventuresome and clever ? Parachute chance event ? CIA experiment rifle wrong ? Do I say nothing ? Try and ignore it ? nonchalantly , people have come up to me assuming it was a cancer wound .
“ My chum has a scar like that , from a landmine , ” he profess .
“ Skull surgery , ” I relent as I let him take a straight razor to my aspect .
It was n’t just a mere skull surgery . Doctors call it “ craniosynostosis . ” It ’s a birthing flaw that result my header malformed . I had life - economize disciplinary surgery , but it leave me with womb-to-tomb scars , developmental delays , and head damage . It also leave me with a seizure disorder — temporal lobe epilepsy — that color and inform so many of the stories I tell for a support .
Before my epilepsy was diagnosed , I did my best to keep the symptoms surreptitious from other hoi polloi . My inattentiveness was blamed on daydreaming or ADHD . My nausea was blamed on a spastic colon or food allergies . I ’d have to pack spare underwear in my book bag because I never know when I would accidentally stool my pants or urinate myself . To avoid the mocking and the name - calling , I ’d do my ripe to try and wrap up thing up . I was too ashamed to acknowledge that I had no controller over my body . I allow the pity alienate me from forming any endure friendships .
As I grew up , I learned how to advantageously bluff my way through memory loss , fortuity , or unexplained conduct . I ’d trip up my way of life through schoolwork , get defeated at my instructor , and get wild at myself for leave assignments or spacing out on a test . administrator would threaten my parent with aim me in Special Ed classes or trying to get me home somewhere else entirely .
But , everybody has a tough time in high school , right ? Puberty does foreign things to all of us . I did my good to rationalize my inconsistent behavior , but never palpate comfortable talk about how it made me feel on the inside .
As an undergrad , I major in neurology and education . I became fascinated by author like Oliver Sacks , who helped put a typeface on neurologic disorders with book like An Anthologist on Mars and The military personnel Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat . I take upper - level course of instruction on biopsychology , psychopharmacology , deportment alteration , and unnatural psychology . I learned a lot about how the brain worked and even got to cut a few of them candid to study the outcome of tardive dyskinesia . course of instruction in education lead me to teach Special Education classes to children with autism , childhood schizophrenic disorder , and disintegrative psychosis . I spent five years teaching before make up one’s mind to survey another passion of mine — writing .
“ publish what you know , ” is the clichéd piece of advice first - time writers get . The the true was I never felt like I bed or understood myself . And I was certainly in no topographic point to write about it . My breadbasket pains and cramps worsened . MD surmise Crohn ’s Disease , ulcers , and food allergic reaction . I had intestinal surgery to treat the suspect trouble . I had hallucination , visions , and impulse restraint problems that I ’d attribute to having too much umber . There ’s this mythology that writer are supposed to be a minuscule peculiar or eccentric , but it was all a short too much for me , but I kept on keep back on .
One nighttime , after a engagement , I hap out . My head smashed up against the windowpane of the Gramercy Dinner . I woke up several days later at NYU Medical Center . Doctors and nurses plane my nous , wire me up to a political machine , secure me into a bunch of monitor , strapped me to a bottom , and placed me in the Epilepsy Ward , where I was monitored for over a workweek for unnatural mastermind activity . Because of HIPAA laws and infirmary regulations , my family , my roommate , and my protagonist had no musical theme where I was or what had become of me . I was declared a missing person .
Inside my hospital way , I felt like a missing person . As the Manchurian Candidate played on public television system , I found myself filled with delusions and incapacitating anxiety . What was happen to my body ? What was chance to my nous ?
When the nurse moved me from the Epilepsy Ward to the Cardiac Ward , I was capable to reconnect with my kinsperson and friends . Thankfully , most of the wires and straps were gone , but the anxiety was still there . My experiences left me changed .
For the next two weeks , I drop a line from my infirmary bed . I scribbled down the overwhelming sense of isolation and paranoia I felt . I save about the dubiety . I wrote about the ugly food . The speedy weight - departure . The unsounded nanny that would parade around my bed during gloaming hours . And about the time I flatlined in my room . Those experiences became the origination of BOX 13 — the neo - noir thriller that Steve Ellis and I make grow for comiXology .
I entered the hospital on August 1st , 2004 ; I was released 25 solar day later . I entered librate 200 pound . I left weigh 130 pounds . I came in wearing the clothes on my back , I left with a packsack full of narcotic and pharmaceutical and a copy of Ender ’s Game that was given to me as a gift . I was banned from swimming , video recording games , driving , alcohol , and coffee . I was open a diagnosis tabloid that was 17 pages long . I would have sense broken if it was n’t for one man , Oliver Sacks , who make out to speak with me a few days before I was discharged . I do n’t even call up what all we talked about , but he say something overnice that stick with me , “ I think you ’ll do great things . ” Maybe he said that to every patient role . Maybe I ’m misremembering . All I know is that it made me smile .
Two weeks after I was empty , I was back in the hospital . Two days after that I was in the infirmary . Four days after that I was in the infirmary . From August of 2004 to September of 2005 , I pass a full 155 days in the infirmary . When my epilepsy was at its worst , I was having up to nine seizures a day . I was n’t gestate to see my thirtieth birthday . Things got very bad for me .
My recovery did n’t come about overnight . It happened over the course of several geezerhood . Physical therapy help with the pain direction from the damage the seizures did to my body . Cognitive therapy help improve my discernment and executive director functions . Counseling helped me deal with the worked up challenges I would look render to adjust to my condition .
The side - issue of multiple traumatic brain injuries was a red ink of long - terminus memories , include nearly all of my childhood memories . While I could remember sure name and landmark , I had difficulty recalling event surrounding those multitude and those property .
When it issue forth to continue my writing career , I found myself make more mistakes , typing wearisome , and often miscommunicating . I found it difficult to make multiple musical theme in my head at once . I became depressed and heartbroken at how my life had become so disrupted . I wrestled with tremendous forcible , emotional , and genial reverse , some comical … others not so much . It was difficult to find any meaning or use in life .
Journaling my progress became the lighthouse to my recovery . I start capturing , through words , the moments when I was memory - less . Without the gist of memory , I happen myself enjoy life a little more . My recovery blockade being a slog and became more like a telecasting game , where I ’d spend every twenty-four hour period leveling up .
A calendar month after a major infirmary least sandpiper , I find myself well enough to rejoin the run human beings . I took a position at an ad house , where the solar day - to - day structure facilitated my recuperation . As my health recuperate , I found myself working manus - in - hand with the New York City Police Department . On my way from the NYPD focus chemical group , I find myself wondering through the film set of I Am Legend . I found myself fall behind trying to piece together my memories of the write up . Was it related to the Vincent Price movie or the Charlton Heston moving-picture show ? As I tried to make sense of my surroundings , Paul Simon ’s “ The Only surviving Boy in New York ” kill up on my iPod .
The birdcall triggered something fundamental in me . I found myself lose in my imagination , in a mankind that was equal percentage Jungle Book , The Island of Doctor Moreau , and Flash Gordon . A fantastical landscape litter with monster , alien locales , and esoteric alien races . And the zep ? The Only Living Boy left in the world .
When thinking about Erik Farrell — the protagonist of the series — Steve Ellis and I went back and away on his eld . After a series of conversation , we settle on 12 , which we felt would be the right age developmentally for many of the storey challenge we had in computer memory for our hero . Being a pre - teen is tough — you ’re incessantly filled with anxiousness about produce up and feel charge between being fledged and still being a nestling . And when a youngster experiences something traumatic at this age ? It can pull their whole world apart .
take deeper into The Only Living Boy we know the grandness of having a villain , who was riddled with scars of his own . Doctor Once became that character reference — a medical monstrosity who metamorphose others into hagridden colossus . He ’s gnarly in visual aspect , and plays into our fear of medico and the cicatrice they leave alone behind .
When people ask me about my own scar , I sample to not dwell . I test not to feel broken . I try not to feel like a monster . People do n’t require to hear unpleasant thing . So , I deflect , downplay , express joy or squirm my way out of babble out about it when I can . I void sing about the impression , the frustration , and the anger I have over my own medical condition . When I do n’t talk about my cicatrice , these are the things I do n’t speak about .
I write about them instead .
The Only Living son : Prisoner of the Patchwork Planetwill be released in bookstores today . you could read a previewhere .
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