SUPERDUPER

volume onewritten and il l ustrated

by steven lewis

chapter one

DAN:

FRIDAY NIGHT

My older brother was right. this is the best pizza in the world!

fucking delicious!

yeah, and i hear they have great

fries too.

this is way better than the cafeteria shit.

hey, did-uh-did you guys see that chick

dancing on everyone in the basement earlier?

dude, who didn’t see that slut

fishing for men.oh who are you

kidding? you would have tried to get her home to your new dorm if she

had given you the chance.

you mean with my awkward, nerdy roommate who never stops

playing his xbox?

no thanks.

is he that bad?

i met him earlier today and yeah, he seems like one giant,

unintentional cock-block.

damn, man.

oh my god, will you just leave me alone!

hey now, that’s not very nice.

hang on guys.

well i’m not nice!

i think you better leave the lady alone

there, big guy.

look, drunky, this isn’t your business, ok? i’m just messing

around here. no harm.

oh, i get it.

you got turned down by all the girls at the bars, so now you’re trying to pick up girls at the pizza shop?

you better back off, buddy, you don’t know what you’re

talking about.

no, i think YOU better back off, guy.

i’m not your ‘guy’, buddy.

and i’m not your ‘buddy’, FRIEND.

what are you anyway, a freshman?

the freshest.

.............uuuhh

wwwwhhaaaaat

is this?

what the fuck?

aaaahhaaahgaahaag!

phew

a a a a a a a a a a a h h h

aaaaaaaaaaaahhh

holy shit dude, did the pizza fight back? no-not exactly.

that pizza place is pretty crazy, man.

there was this-guy-bro-jerk who was harassing this girl, so i said something to him.

then threw him through a wall. oh, and somewhere in

there I grew a beard.

he’s not chasing you is he? because i swear if he busts in here and messes this room up that i jusT might- wait

what?

i pushed this guy-not even that hard-and he just went FLYING

through the wall of the pizza place. i have no idea what happened, but i

didn’t mean to do it.

uh huh, and then what?

yeah, you’re right. I’m probably dreaming. i’m probably too DRUNK.

i prob-

i ran the fuck away, man! i wasn’t staying around to explain how i did

that to anyone, ‘cause i have no idea what i would say. maybe you just need

some sleep, man.

this happened. i swear.

i’m not saying it didn’t man, but you’re home now so just relax and

get some sleep.

and you’re talking about beards.

guuuhhh

what- -the hell- - happened?

‘morning, dude.

so you wanna try out the dinning hall? we may have missed breakfast, and by

“may have” i mean “absolutely,” but i’m curious what

concoctions they cook up for us at that place.

oh. hey, man.

SATURDAY AFTERNOON

yeah, that sounds pretty good. my head hurts too much to cook for myself.

no, i’m excited as HELL, dude, but you gotta

admit it’s a big change.

i mean, i suppose. i think i’m more scared

of the change that comes after college.

I say we just coast through this like we did in high school. we keep our heads down, we try to stay out of everyones drama-soaked shit, and keep our eyes on the

prize-getting out to the world.

yeah, but i mean-we gotta enjoy this time, you know? we’re not stuck at home with our parent’s

anymore. we gotta start-doing stuff!

well, i didn’t say i’m against “DOING STUFF,” but i feel like everyone

is still focused on who’s fucking who. I just think there’s bigger stuff to

worry about now.

unless they’re fucking YOUr someone.

well if i don’t HAVE a “SOMEONE” it won’t be a

problem, now will it?

ok, dude, good luck there.

what?

oh, come on. you’re just gunna stay away from

girls now?no, dude.

actually, i met a girl this morning.

you-met a girl?

yes. a girl. her name is jessica.

how exactly did i miss this?

well, i haven’t exactly had time to tell you about

it. it happened like-three hours ago.

you’ve been up for THREE

HOURS?

WHY?

some people still get up before

noon these days.

prove it.

well, i met this girl jess outside our

place this morning. she lives next door.

and you’ve even had time to give her a

nickname. look at you go, early bird.

well, she seems pretty interesting.

how about pretty? is she pretty?

yeah, i would say she’s pretty? she had this weird vibe to her though. i couldn’t tell if it was good or bad

though. just-different.

well, can you show me? pull up her facebook

or something?i guess. i don’t have my

lappy or anything though. i’ll introduce you to her

at the party.

party?

OH! shit. right. jess invited us to a party.

jesus, dude! did you go on a date with this chick already? are you guys dating now? what the hell was all that talk about not

having anyone to get in your way or whatever the hell you

were going on about?

I was outside having a cig, she was walking by, we got

to talking, and it eventually ended with her inviting me

to some party at her place.

so she invited YOU? not US?

actually, i told her i had a roommate, and she said she really wanted to meet you. besides, what are you, a vampire? you need your own personal invitations now?

no. settle down.

i think even in Buffy they can’t come in somewhere until they’re invited.

and there it is-the final plot twist: my roommate is a

fucking Buffy fan. do you have all the seasons on DVD?

there’s a comic, too. man, there’s just no end with you is there? so when is this party anyway?

she said it’s around 10.

what does that have to do with vampires? i still

go by BLADE rules, man.

well, this is pretty cool. we have a place to party, and we only had to walk

like-20 steps.

yeah, but jess seemed pretty chill, so this might not

be the rager you’re looking for.

DUUuuDE! AND OTHER DUDE!

GET IN HERE YOU

GUYS!

SATURDAY NIGHT

ok dude, it’s a good thing this party isn’t very big, ‘cause i feel kinda drunk already.

what? did you sneak like 4 beers when i wasn’t looking? well, it’s not drunk.

it’s different. it’s like- my body feels so-weird.

and my face is itchy.

nope, i’m pretty sure that’s just called

“drunk”. you need to man-up, college boy.

ok, i dont see jess anywhere.

if i find her, i can introduce you.

dude, i’m a little more concerned

with...

10 MINUTES LATER

...dude?

oh come on, man! how did you just sneak away in this crowd of-shit, i’m alone now!

‘the fuck?whatever.

10 MINUTES LATER

chapter two

DUCRO:

SATURDAY MORNING

morning.

oh, hey there. good morning.

yeah. i couldn’t sleep. i don’t

usually have one first thing like this.

first cig of the day?

hey, i’m not judging here.

so-you live here?

yeah. well, actually i live in the one next door to you, but it’s

the same guy that owns them. Tony is

your landlord, right?

yeah. I’m actually a Freshman, but i have an aunt that lives

nearby, so i just put her address as my home, and said...

you’re local, got it. so, you tricked the

system and skipped the dorm-room stage?

yeah. exactly.

my best friend from high school and i took a semester off, but now we’re here and ready for college, i guess.

well that’s

interesting.

what’s your name?

so, i’ve never seen you around here

before. did you just start this semester?

so, do you just have one roommate then?

yeah, his name’s dan. he’s still sleeping. He apparantly got in a fight last night or something,

but he was pretty drunk.

oh yeah?

oh, sorry, my name’s Ducro. well, it’s andy, but ducro

is my last name.

i’m jess.

cool.

yeah, i don’t really know what happened. he came in yelling

about throwing a guy through a wall, but like i said, he was really drunk, so who knows.

that’ll happen i suppose.

but hey i think i’m going to get moving along. i have some homework to tend to before

the party tonight.

a party, eh?yeah, it starts around 10. you

should come by.

that sounds like something i could do.

oh, and make sure to bring your roommate.

i would really like to meet him.yeah, will do.

so when is this party anyway?

I just told you, it’s around 10.

alright, i can handle that. i guess worst case scenario, it’s super lame,

and we just leave. true. who knows? we might even meet some

cool people.

SATURDAY AFTERNOON

actually, Dan, i gotta head to the library real quick. i have to make copies or some nonsense

for my one class. have you been in the library yet?

nah, man. i’m gunna see how long i can avoid that.

you know, books aren’t THAT evil.

prove it.

well, i’ll just come to the dining hall when

i’m done, cool?

yeah man, i eat way more than you anyway, so i’ll just get a head start.

alright. later, man.

later.

aaaaaahhhhh!

aaaaaahhhhh!

aaaaaahhhhh!

Dude, i’m hearing voices!

woah. ok, man. what happened?

i went into the library, and was walking by all the

computers, and they all had these crazy kind-of-digital voices coming from them!

well, maybe some people were just watching

videos or something.

HOW WAS THE LIBRARY?

THREE MINUTES LATER

but it was coming from almost every machine, and then i walked by the starbucks line, and there

were voices coming from everyone’s phones.

people use speakerphone, man. maybe they had those stupid little bluetooth thingys.

NO, DUDE.

look i’m not sure what it is, but it didn’t sound normal. it was so loud, and no one else

seemed to notice or think anything was wrong.

well, fuck, i dont know.

here-

do you hear anything?

no, man. yours seems ok.

see dude, it’s just some weird craze.

maybe you’re not as geeky and cutting edge as you think.

READ THAT!

jesus, ok. it’s just a text

dude.

what does it say? did you hear that?

are you serious?

ok. it’s just one of the guys i hung out

with last night asking if there-

-is anything fun happening tonight!

ok. so you’re-psychic?

dude, i heard you’re phone say this message out

loud before you read it. did you seriously not

hear it?!

no, man. just the ring.

it seems like-i can hear what people are saying digitally,

anytime i’m near a computer, or phone, or whatever. that could

explain the library.

oh, yeah, you’re right. that totally explains everything.

you have techno-e.s.p.

well, you supposedly threw a guy through a wall last

night, so maybe we’re both just going crazy.

hey! you convinced me that didn’t

actually happen!

well, now i have no idea what’s going on.

look, why don’t we just go home, relax, watch a little t.v. or something, and then go check out

that party at your lady-friend’s place?

yeah, ok. maybe we just need a little socializing or something. i’m sure

it’ll be fun.

chapter three

JESS:

CAM! are you ok?

FRIDAY NIGHT

what the fuck?!

what the hell happened? here blah blah blah blah blah blah!

dude, the guy just blah blah through the

wall blah blah.

yeah, i’m - fine actually.

jesus, let’s get out of here.

why the hell is everyone running away from this?

well, it’s a good thing i have super-powers.

i’ll fucking say. what the hell was that?

i have no idea. did you tell anyone?

about our “powers”?

no way!

did you?

of course not! but how the hell did they know?! are we suppose to fight

them or something? where did they even go?

i don’t know, they ran away. which is weird, because if they were after us, i feel like they would have stuck around to

finish what they started.

and honestly, his friends didn’t look like they had any clue what was going

on. maybe it was just him.

maybe he doesn’t even know yet.

well, i bet he does now.

you think he really didn’t know?

i honestly don’t know, but, it wasn’t that long ago WE didn’t know we had powers. he said he was a freshman, so it probably

only started when he came here, like it did with us.

yeah, but i realized i could mind-control people or

whatever people in the first few days of being here. it’s

the middle of the school year.

who knows.

LATER FRIDAY NIGHT

i just want to know who they are and what’s going on. it’s one thing to have powers and just keep it a secret, i can handle

that.but now there are others who might have them too.

all i really know is he was very rude. i wasn’t even being mean to you. we were just joking around!

I hate getting in fights with people, even if I do have super-powers.

i know you do, babe, and that’s why we’ve been trying to keep it all to ourselves, but, it looks like there are other people out there now with similar abilities,

and i really don’t think we should just ignore it. We should figure out who this guy is before he

comes after us again, or something worse happens.

i don’t know. i didn’t sign up for this, and i have no

idea how it happened. i just want everything to go

back to normal.

dude!DON’T PUSH

ANYONE!

wait, wait, WAIT. is THAT jess?

SATURDAY NIGHT

yeah, dude, and it’s her roommate you pushed

through the wall.

this is their place.

actually, i’m her boyfriend.

let’s go talk somewhere else,

shall we?

wait, what?

you think we have WHAT?

ok-cam and i believe you two have super-powers of some kind, and we’ve never met anyone else who did, so we wanted to find out more. specifically

if you were on our side or not.

i’m pretty sure we’re not on any sides, but we both have noticed some weird stuff

going on since we moved up here.

wait-so, what you’re saying is that you guys

have had “super-powers” ever since you came here?

more or less, yes.prove it.

shit man, fine.

probably ‘cause you can’t.are you serious? you pushed me through a wall and i’m fine. what

more proof do you want?

so are you trying to recruit us to

your team?

look, there is no TEAM. it’s only the two of us. we really have just been keeping it a secret, but we wanted to know if you were -

evil, or something.

oh, just because you have super-powers means those other guys must be evil.

ok. i need a cig. i’ll be back in a minute, and we can keep having our

little “super-friends meeting.”

i’ll come out with you, man.

so, what do you think?

i don’t know.

come on, you’re suppose to be the smart one.

well, i mean for as much as it doesn’t make logical sense,

it’s the best explanation we’ve got really.

yeah. oh hey, i think that’s steve and - that other kid.

hey, guys!

hey, dan! dude, dan, that was crazy last night when you pushed that guy!

who knew the walls were so thin. good thing you wore that fake beard though, man. they’ll

never know it was you.

uh, yeah. that was pretty crazy.

yeah, well how is your saturday night going, man?

oh, it’s been just super-duper. hey, are you guys going

for pizza now?

Dear Readers,

Thank you for reading the first story arch of SUPER DUPER!

It means a lot to me. In case you weren’t aware, this book

was actually the result of a year-long independent study

at Edinboro University. Before I get carried away talking

about the comic itself, I’d like to give some thanks to a few

people. First up is Shellie Barron. She was the head of my

supervising squad, and a very important part of this

project. She is the reason I’ll never look at fonts the same

way again. She taught me that passion counts, and that

everything truly matters. Every letter, every space, every

mark, intentional or not, is important to the process.

Next, is Brigette Marshalla. She was my professor for

Intro to Graphic Design, eventually became my advisor, and

is currently leading me to the finish line of my time here at

Edinboro. She taught me that just when I think I’ve found

the absolute best answer imaginable, I should probably

come up with twenty more, just to be sure. She taught me

how to make mind-maps, which is the best way to think

through a problem I have found so far. She taught me that

excuses are really worthless and just a waste of everyone’s

time. Essentially, she taught me to be tough in this tough

field that I’m hoping to enter.

My last committee member was Jeremy Sideris.

Jeremy was my English professor during my freshman

year, and really was my first indication that I wasn’t in

high school anymore. He taught me to always be thinking,

always be asking, always be learning, no matter what,

because there’s something to be learned everywhere you

go. He taught me to do my best to avoid the word “that”.

He taught me to elaborate for hours, but then boil it down

to one sentence. Finally, he taught me that the more input

and feedback you can get, the better.

The final thanks I would like to give are to Rhonda

Matthews and Jean Jones. After all, this was an honors

thesis, and they have both directed the Honors Program

since I’ve been at Edinboro. Dr.Matthews is partially the

reason this is a comic book at all. She taught me that

disappointment and regret are totally useless emotions,

and are just a waste of everyone’s time. Dr. Jones has been

amazing in the short time I’ve known her, and has shown

me you can change a lot in a short amount of time.

***

So, this comic you just read, did you like it? I sure hope

so. I put a ton of thought and time into it, and I’m pumped

to be sharing with you. I’ve loved comic books ever since

I was a little kid. I’ve always been a visual person, and

to have half the story told through illustrations always

seemed like such a good idea to me. Although, as much

as I liked comics, I didn’t truly love them until I met Cam

Howard. He and a few buddies from home took me to the

comic shop in Erie, and within a week or two I was hooked.

Since then, I’ve gotten all caught up on Bruce Wayne and

his crazy life, or not-life, or whatever. I fell in love with

Umbrella Academy. I told everyone within a hundred mile

radius about how pumped I was they were making Scott

Pilgrim into a movie. What I’m trying to say is the idea

of making my very own comic become quite the dream of

mine in the last few years.

Turns out, making a comic book is really, REALLY

hard. I learned several lessons about actually pulling off a

“dream project”. It took quite a while before I was able to

wrap my head around such a large project, especially one I

was taking on alone.

At the end of the day though, I think this book

did become what I had hoped it would be. It’s a comic

book, and I made it, all by myself. How many people can

say that? This was my first attempt at telling a story in a

whole new way. Even though it was tough, I’m so glad I did

it, and I hope you enjoyed my little story.

Steve Lewis