Sometimes an idea takes a long time to become reality. Agent ’79 is something I’ve been noodling with for over 40 years. Now you might say, “damn that makes you old,” and you wouldn’t be wrong. But more to my point is that this idea has been with me a very very long time. And I am truly thrilled that it was finally able to get its start here, alongside a brilliant story told by Konstantine Paradias and the incomparable E.V. Cantada.
Let’s start at the beginning.
I have always been fascinated by the interaction between humanity and machines. The concept just captured my imagination in a way that few other things have. Whether it was the idea of the Cyborg – as Martin Caidin so brilliantly developed in his novels and later in the television series The Six Million Dollar Man – or the machine that is more human than most organic people like the titular hero Machine Man in the Marvel Comics, I was truly taken with these outsider heroes. What made them special? Was it the machine parts? Or was it something else? A spark of humanity that was amplified by the unusual circumstances of their lives. And that’s where the idea started to take hold…
What if there was a man that didn’t know he was a machine? The idea stayed with me for years and eventually would become Agent ’79. Right now, you have only seen the smallest of glimpses of our hero and his peculiar circumstances. And if I’m honest, you may not be that impressed just yet. He looks old. Run down. Obsolete. On the verge of packing it in and shuffling off this mortal coil. But not everything is as it seems. “Old Bo” has a story to tell and one you may find quite interesting.
We have some amazing artists here at American Mythology and I am excited to share their interpretation of Agent ’79 with everyone. The epilogue chapter was illustrated by E.V. Cantada who always delivers glorious horror and action in his artwork. He captures the grit and the grime next to the glitz and the glamour of these stories. And the amazing Gerardo Gambone did the brilliant character design work of our hero in his youth and now in the run-down present. Gerardo gave Bo a wonderful look for his younger self – one that captures the strange and colorful style of the late 1970s and early 1980s. I couldn’t be happier with the depiction of Agent ’79. And things are just going to get better from here.
This first mini-chapter is the beginning. Just a tease really. The bigger story is coming soon and will reveal the past, the present, and set up our analog hero on a collision course to face a horror far more advanced and dangerous than he can handle. It is a story of old versus new. Of the force of will against unimaginable odds. It’s David and Goliath with circuits and nanobots instead of slings and daggers. Man, I am getting excited about telling the story more than ever. And I’m glad you’ve chosen to come along with me.
-James Kuhoric