Welcome to the unplanned end of Reckless Life.
I have a complicated relationship with Murphy’s Law. It was originally supposed to be three acts rather than two, and the reason for that is started to hate it about halfway through, so I cut it short.
Murphy’s Law comes from my love of superhero comics and that most important of superhero stories: THE SECRET ORIGIN. Of course, Locke had to have one too! This had always been part of the plan for Reckless Life since day one, and in fact, one of the characters in Murphy’s Law appears in a dream sequence in Dinner and Robbery, and Locke references his time in New York more than once over the course of the series.
Unfortunately for Murphy’s Law, it came out around the same time as ORIGIN, the super lame tell-all origin of Wolverine. This is not be confused with the amazing Weapon X by Barry Windor-Smith, which was all the Wolverine origin we ever needed. And that’s what struck me about Murphy’s Law as I was drawing it. (It had been written for a while.) I felt like I was giving a pointless backstory that ruined the mystique of the character and added very little.
In retrospect, I think that was unfairly harsh. My editor at Graphic Smash, T Campbell was the first to praise this story as something different for Reckless Life, and I think time has treated it well. At least story-wise. You can still see where I started phoning in the art in part two.
As I said at the top, this wasn’t supposed to be the end. In fact, it was supposed to be a new beginning. Reckless Life was intended to take place in three places, in three times. The stories you just read and more in Las Vegas, a series of prequels set in New York, and a third post-Vegas chapter that I think I’m going to keep to myself. You never know… maybe I’ll get to that someday.
One thing I won’t fault my former self for is that I did feel ready to walk away from Reckless Life at this time, regardless. Comics was my full-time job at this point, but as an editor and digital innovator. It wasn't what I set out to do, but it was still work in my chosen industry, and achieving that is something that is right up there with Reckless Life for points of pride in my life. Either way, when my days were all comics all the time, it was harder to make it my nights. Champagne problems that I’d love to have back to be sure.
Will I ever come back to Reckless Life? I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about it. I considered a reboot at one point -- (Which was an idea ahead of it’s time for a comic series, given how often the big publishers do it now.) – but that never felt right. I also strongly considered a continuation after an unpleasant divorce as a catharsis that would have ruined several characters so let’s all be glad that didn’t happen. Rest assured if I started RL again now, it would be a direct continuation, and I know exactly how I’d start it.
I guess the point is I still think about it sometimes. If you enjoyed reading this, drop me a line via quixotim.com, on social media, or leave a tip here :), and let me know. Part of the joy of this work was knowing it was so well-loved by so many I’ll never meet. If anything will bring Locke back that would almost certainly be it.
Until then, thank you again for reading Reckless Life!