BTB 3: Billy Origins Part 1 of 2
Welcome back to another Behind the Bones. Where we look at the making of and history of Bone Boy Billy, it's characters, it's world, it's weird lore, all the good stuff. Today we're gonna open the curtains on the early days of the series and describe it's slow transformation before it became the beautiful (?) butterfly we all see today.
So first up as mentioned previously, Billy began as a doodle mistake. An attempt at drawing the Xenomorph from the Alien franchise (please don't sue me Disney) that I kinda botched and turned into a weird alien skeleton monster. I liked the image and when trying to re-draw it, could never get the angle right and was never really happy with it. So I quickly decided to ditch the alien design and go with him being a normal skellington.
The only holdover from the alien idea was how he revived. I figured the alien crashed into a mystic lake that could things back from the dead. Now, not only was he an alien on a new world, he was undead as well! While the alien bit got axed I still liked the lake idea. It was very Pet Semetary of me. I figured a few plot points could revolve around it.
Once Billy was a human it changed a lot of things. Early, early on, the comic was going to be something akin to a newspaper strip. It would be four panels, or so, and follow the basic structure of those classic comics. You can actually still kinda see this in the very first published comic, using only four panels. Though you can also tell I was trying to break out of that boundary before I even settled into it.
I was still in high school at the time. I recall a school trip to the local newspaper and I asked on the tour about how one might pitch a comic to the newspaper. I was genuinely considering it at the time. Though the idea of it being a newspaper strip really never went any farther than that. An idea with nothing concrete. Not even a real story developed at that point.
From there Billy's world slowly filled out and I would just write down every idea and character as they came to be. First up was Georgie, at the time just called George. Named after beloved director George Romero for the character's use of zombies as goons/minions. George was the main antagonist, trying to conquer the world for the devil. Though I remember even back then, the devil didn't want to actually conquer Earth and discouraged little Georgie from it.
Georgie was the bad guy and only Billy could see he was part demon. Their own mother just saw a normal cute baby. I think this idea kinda sprang from Calvin and Hobbes, how it was never clear if Calvin was the only one who could see Hobbes for what he really is, or whatever the reality of their story was. Eventually this idea got dropped but it was a large driving force for the story, that Billy could see and interact with the supernatural stuff around town while others couldn't. It was what had him playing hero often.
Billy would have a love interest, Mindy, a demon girl who was trying to avoid her demon father's influence. Somewhat Raven from Teen Titans coded, I guess. Mindy never developed much besides love interest and struggling with her demonic powers. I do recall she was going to be fiercely protective of Billy and even then she was going to be a bit stronger than he was. She eventually morphed into Nancy, though Nancy's role is vastly different.
Billy's Mom had no name, she was just generic sweet and nice mom. What was a big difference is she had remarried in the time Billy was dead. George being the son of her new hubby, who was a lawyer. Because I thought a lawyer being the father of a devil child was hilarious. Her husband was never too developed either. He didn't like Billy and the beef he had with George, but that was it, he was generic clueless guy.
There was one good friend character Billy had, a boy named Jack. Jack lived on a nearby farm with his family. In an accident, the boy lost his head, and Billy...for some reason...I'm not entirely sure why he would do this, fills a carved out pumpkin with magic lake water and uses it for a new head. Yeah. Very, very grim, too grim even for my liking. He lives, but now has to have a Jack-O-Lantern for a head.
Jack was a bit more developed than most characters. Billy was going to be fairly fearless but Jack handled near-death very differently and is more paranoid than ever. Jack was the more cautious character where Billy was eager for adventure.
While Jack eventually got axed his character evolved into Oltan.
One of the few more fleshed out areas of town and stories was around the comic book shop. It was going to be owned and usually manned by cantankerous old Frank. Along with his lovely younger wife Stella. Frank and Stella were going to be a bit more familiar with the supernatural. They both had histories with this stuff before, though they never talk much about it. They both had weapons they used that were specialized for fighting monsters.
Frank was very blatantly inspired by Frank Miller, specifically the main character Marv in Sin City. At the time I was a huge Miller fan. I especially loved the character of Marv. My idea was he was named after Frank and looked like an older version of Marv. I even imagined him in Miller's blockier style, standing out from everyone else.
Stella was named after the character from 30 Days of Night. Loved that comic and was really big on reading the sequels. Stella was a standout character for me so I kind of just transplanted her into my comic. She had a gun named Eben, after her ex.
Frank and Stella were going to be sort of a rock for Billy and crew. When they needed supernatural info, Frank could tell them. Frank was also something of a surrogate dad to Billy who he'd go to for all kinds of advice on life. Stella often helping there as well. I vaguely remember something about Frank liking older comics and Stella liking newer ones, but that's about it for them. Other than them fighting some zombies in this one big invasion story idea I had.
Beyond the characters there was only a handful of story ideas I had in mind. By far the biggest story I had in mind was the zombie invasion of town. Back then the town had no name. I didn't come up with the name Serling until years later. This was also how we explain young George has so many zombie goons. What zombies didn't get destroyed in the invasion were what remained to serve him.
It was a fairly straightforward story. I recall at one point the plan was to make it a single one shot and it was going to be the series debut. My early idea here was try to make Bone Boy Billy into an annaul series of one-shots. Telling big stories every October. My first story idea was titled The Hellish Halloween, clever, I know, and was the invasion story that sets up a lot of our characters and dynamics.
All that really happens is the bodies from the graveyard were being moved, and a bunch of them fell out of a truck in an accident, dumping many, many bodies into the magical lake. All those bodies at once overloads the magic and makes them revive right away as zombies. George takes advantage of this, enchants them with his magic and sets them on town to destroy it.
Billy and team then beat the zombies. Great story. Very original.
While I remember vaguely a couple of other story ideas, the only idea fleshed out enough worth discussing was the introduction of an evil God. Spidra Dio, Spider God in Italian, was a fun idea I still kinda like but don't think I'll ever use.
I can't recall a ton of what the story was all about. Essentially he was a long lost God who covered a skeletons in spider for a skin. I liked the visual. I remember him being a lonely, sad character and Billy was able to talk him down with words. It was the first time I ever thought Billy could help the bad guys instead of fighting them. Something that would evolve much later.
Billy was originally going to be a fighter. He would have a stretchy neck that could extend as long as he needed. He could breathe fire and curl into a ball to hit guys. I only retained the curling into a ball attack and it's purely for self-defense now. Billy being a fighter defined a lot of his character and he was a big super hero fanboy. I pretty much wrote all of that out. He still likes comic books, mostly horror comics mind you.
Never did this story get any farther than ideas, I admit. Sketches and doodles for possible characters and stories. Never anything concrete. Never any actual panels or pages were drawn. Back then, I had so little confidence in my art I was planning to find and pay another artist to draw Billy. It wasn't until the 2018 revival (which we'll cover next time in the 2nd half of the Origins look back) that I decided I'd have to draw it myself.
Bone Boy Billy is one of the few story ideas from my younger days I never really gave up on. Some have changed and grown into new things over the years but none of has been as persistent in my mind as Billy. So much as this little guy wanted to exist he would not let me alone. Now, he's in the real world. It's almost scary after all this time of him just being in my head.
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