The Art-Deco Project

Gerard couldn't stop fidgeting, his fingers kept dancing against the desk and his eyes kept darting around the room. He had come up with an idea, a crazy idea, but an idea nonetheless. He kept pulling at the tie around his neck trying to remember the last time he actually wore a tie.

His idea, if it worked was short of brilliant. Gerard had been drawing for days, turning his new found hero into a twisted comic book filled with a plot that forced to question if the hero was really a hero or a villain. His creation was the definition of an anti-hero. Gerard had never seen anything like this in any comic books before, he hoped desperately he could convince Isaac Perlmutter, the executive officer of Marvel Comics that his idea would be literary gold.

He hadn't expected much when he had sent off a few pages of his new idea to a couple of companies. He figured if anything he could somehow pitch an online comic, or even put it online on his own. Gerard never in his wildest dreams expected to get a phone call from the head of Marvel himself. He glanced around at framed photos posters on the wall, he looked at the covers of comics he himself had read as a child. X-Men, Spiderman, Iron Man, Captain America-they were all here, starring at him.

Gerard's main intentions behind this comic was to use the royalties-if he even received any-to help My Chem start their own label and record their next album. Many would question why Gerard would even need the extra money, surely he was rolling in it? In fact he wasn't. He could easily survive without working for the rest of his life, but he couldn't start his own business without some form of income to help him get it off the ground. This comic was the key to it all, and it was all because of his idiotic neighbor. Gerard thought about Silver, about how they were so much a like yet so different. They shared the same habits-albeit Gerard had long ago stopped his-but they were still connected by it.

This thought made Gerard feel a twinge in his heart, he couldn't let her just self-destruct, he knew she was out of the hospital, the music alone told him that. He also had a feeling that she had slipped right back into what she was doing before. He was determined to stop it.

Gerard was startled away from his thoughts by the sound of a door opening. He looked up from the chair he was in to see Isaac entering the room. He gulped, seeing the man who held the fate of his future in his hands.

Isaac sat down in front of him and pulled out a copy of the pages Gerard had sent to Marvel a few days prior. His face scrunched up as he read, and Gerard feared the worst. Isaac took his time, looking over every detail and mulling in his thoughts.

Finally, after what seemed an eternity to Gerard, he looked up and smiled, "It's brilliant really, It's a perfect mix of good and evil, all inside the hero, one would think that it could easily be referenced to other comics like the Hulk, or even Wolverine from X-Men. But it's not, it's another animal entirely. She almost seems to not want to do good, like it falls in her lap and she just lets it happen only to return home and rip off her disguise and become a bad guy herself. The actual villain isn't the person terrorizing the city, but rather the girl self-destructing while trying to save the world-I love it."

Gerard couldn't help but stare, the head of Marvel said he loved it. He could've squealed like a school girl, this was almost better then performing in Madison Square Garden. This right here, sitting in the office of Marvel comics being told that his comic was brilliant was his dream. Before there was music, there was comics. He could almost feel his grandmother smiling down on him.

"Well Gerard, do you want to become part of Marvel Comics?"

Gerard could barely contain his excitement, and almost screamed his response, "Yes, oh yes, it'd be an honor, a dream come true."

Isaac chuckled, "The work isn't over yet, this is only the first couple pages, I want a complete first issue by next week, and two more issues by the week after that. We need to get this in production then circulation. Can you handle that?"

"Yes, thank you so much," Gerard shook Isaacs hand vigorously before leaving his office. There was just one problem though, how could he write a plot? Surely he would need to get to know Silver more, and find out what her villains truly are.