Charlie McFarland flipped the typical script with his original comic The Citizen. It’s about an ordinary man living in a city of superheroes. McFarland, a lifelong Owensboro resident, said he’s been grateful for the support of his hometown on his venture.
“It wasn’t some brilliant idea,” McFarland said of his comic. “It was just looking at every other superhero comic and doing the opposite. But I also think it was just this idea of a guy who feels like he’s surrounded by incredibly talented people doing incredible things and he’s sort of just there. And in an age of Facebook and Twitter when you’re only seeing the people around you posting the high points of their lives, a lot of people kind of feel that way.”
McFarland said he has been writing comics since he was 8 or 9 years old, when he read his first Captain Underpants book.
Back then he was just making stick figures and 10-page stories. But after graduating high school, McFarland decided to take it more seriously and look for a professional artist.
In 2012, McFarland met Aleksandar Jovic through an online message board for creators, and they decided to start working together on a project.
“It never actually went anywhere, but years later he reached out to me again and told me about an anthology series that published short comics,” McFarland said. “So we made three short comics, which got us published in three issues. Then from there we decided to try our hand at making our own series.”
McFarland said he’s just the writer, while Jovic is the artist, colorist, inker … “pretty much everything else.”
The first four issues of The Citizen have already been released. McFarland said some of them can still be found locally at Big Bang Comics at 4786 Frederica Street.
McFarland said they can also be ordered as a paperback collection at Big Bang Comics or most online shops that sell books such as Target, Barnes and Noble, etc.
“I am incredibly grateful to everyone who read our comic and it really means the world to me to have the support of my hometown,” he said.
McFarland said he’s trying to turn writing into a full-time job for me (he’s currently a retail worker). While he’s been featured in a few comics, The Citizen is his first series. He’s also sold short stories to The NoSleep Podcast, which is self-described as “a multi-award winning anthology series of original horror stories, with rich atmospheric music to enhance the frightening tales.”
McFarland also has another comic he’s been working on with a different artist, and they are going to try to pitch to a few publishers in the near future.
“The plan is that we’d like to keep making The Citizen, though whether or not that happens really just depends on sales,” McFarland said. “But if that doesn’t pan out, we’ll just move on to the next comic idea. There’s always new stories to be told.”
