Interview with Lucius Cross Artist of "BioWars"

BioWars is an ongoing monthly series from Gabriel Creations that tells the story of Alex Hawking, an ordinary kid who has been infected by an extraordinary germ. You can follow along at BioWars.com as Alex evades The Combine in our world and his body tries to fight of the super infection in the Biocosmos.

Earlier in the week the Comic Crusaders had an opportunity to chat with Lucius Cross, one of the creative minds behind the development of the BioWars property. Here’s what he told us:

CC: What initially drew you to the BioWars title?

I loved the premise; taking real world biology and turning the human immune system into anthropomorphic superheroes? Um, yes please.Â Telling a story within the human body is a concept thatÂ hasÂ surprisingly rarely been explored in media, and I just had to jump on board and help bring Biowars to life. TheÂ world deserves better than Osmosis Jones, you know?

CC: Ha! I do know and I thank you for your efforts. Were the character designs in BioWars a collaborative effort or were you left to your own devices, so to speak, when developing their signature humanoid look?

The character designs were definitely a collaborative effort between myself, Goncalo Lopes and Joann LaFuente. We wanted these characters to feel relatable but still have an otherworldly, alien look to them, and we’re happy with what we were able to come up with.

CC: As a segue from that, was the process similar/the same for the background art?

The background art was mostly done by me, with Joana providing colors on the comic book side of things. When approaching the environments of the Biocosmic universe, my primary goal wasÂ not to make the reader feel like they’re flipping through a biology textbook. These landscapes had to feel like something you might find on an alien planet, something you’ve never seen before. I’ll leave it to the readers to decide if I accomplished that goal or not.

CC: I’m something of a recovering gamer and I understand that you also produce concept art for video games. Have any of the projects that you’ve worked on gone to market? If so, which one(s)?

Well, I did workÂ on a PS3/XBOX360 gameÂ called Reich Downfall that unfortunately never saw the light of day. It was going to be a first person shooter withÂ future-Nazis andÂ mindÂ powers and…look, I wont lie–it probably wasn’t going to be the next Halo, but it had some interesting concepts and game mechanics for its time.

Unfortunately, the game went through sixÂ art directors over a four year development period and had threeÂ complete visual redesigns where we’d scrap everything and start over from scratch, until one day the studio got shut down. Interesting times, to say the least! You can actually find an old E3 trailer for that game on Youtube if you’re curious.

Fair warning: Prepare for some Rammstein.

But hey, enough about games that DIDN’TÂ come out! You know what game IS coming to market? Biowars: Blastor’s Saga! Yep. And I swear I didn’t tell that story just to promote our new game, but incidentally we do have a game coming out soon and we’re pretty excited about it, so yeah! Look for it in the next couple of months on iOS and Android!

CC: Awesome news, glad to hear that BioWars is gaining some popularity.Â Before joining the BioWars team, you worked on Danime…was that a passion project, something more professional, or a combination of the two?

Ah, Danime. Now you’ve got me reminiscing. Danime.comÂ was a personal website I ran for aboutÂ a decade. You could call it a passion project, yes. I was a big anime/manga enthusiast (read:Â nerd)Â for about a fifteenÂ year chunk of my life, and the site was an extension of that. The site had it’s own cast of anime characters that would interact with each other in a non-family friendly, web-comic type of way. People seemed to dig it, as it grew its own little community over the years.

Fun fact: I also ran my own online anime retail business called Yay Anime for a little while. Yep, Yay Anime! Because why not-ime? Eh? EH?? Ehm–It was an interesting and educational experience in my life but I ultimately decided I didn’t want to make retail my long term job and focused on working towards an art career instead. And here we are today! I am now going to focus on becoming a space pirate; let’s see where I am in tenÂ years!

CC: Arrrgh! But before you embark on your new life of intergalactic looting…You’re also a performance artist, can the Comic Crusaders community sit in on any of your shows?

Not currently, but I dabbledÂ in stand-up, improv comedy andÂ a bit of acting in the past. I once played a human iPad in a short film. That’s right, a human iPad. Footage exists but will never see the light of day. I have made…arrangements to ensure of that.Â This is the part where I would turn my back to youÂ in my fancy swivel chair while petting a hairless cat…but I do not have a fancy swivel chair or a hairless cat on me at the moment…and I’m actually allergic to cats, so…I guess you could say thingsÂ probably worked out for the best in the end–I’m sorry, what was the question? Please leave.

I’d like to thank Lucius for taking the time to speak with us.

You can follow him on Twitter: @Biowars

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Adam Cadmon

Adam Cadmon is the pen name for a man who has been writing for a few years. Heâ€™s done his share of straight-laced writing, college press, blogging, some other not very glamorous technical writing to keep the bills paid. Itadakimasu.