"Alex Wanderer"
graphic Novel Story and Pitch Book

Before there was Stranger Things I created and pitched a graphic novel called Alex Wanderer. It’s a Stephen King meets Goonies supernatural thriller/adolescent coming-of-age story.

Check here for finished pages and pitch treatment.

Three years ago Jessica Morning took her own life.  She left behind two children, Alex and Midge, and a husband, Bill.  A community mourned, a family struggled to cope and life went on…

            At our story’s open we find the Morning family living in the long shadow of tragedy.  Bill is wasting away under the weight of a terrible secret.  He ignores his son and belittles and emotionally abuses his daughter.  With no mother and a father who hates her, Midge has developed “selective mutism,” a condition whereby the afflicted person cuts herself off from the world, and only speaks to Alex.  Alex soldiers on and does his best to shield and protect his sister from his father’s abusive onslaughts.  The Morning house makes for an interesting battlefield.  Alex and Midge create their own world in the upstairs of the house, separate from their father.  The downstairs belongs to Bill.  To venture down there is to risk an encounter with him.  The attic, secured by a padlocked trap door, is a mysterious no-man’s land.  What lies up there, Alex and Midge can only wonder…

            As answers come to the surface new questions arise about the Morning’s dark and mysterious past…

            What if their mother didn’t kill herself? What if she was still alive? What if she was being held captive? What if their father knew about it the whole time but was powerless to stop it? What if he was behind it? What if their father, their teachers, the townspeople all were part of a cult bent on finding an object of both terrible and wonderful power? What if that object was hidden in the attic?

            Alex and Midge, with everyone against them and not knowing where to turn, embark together on a harrowing journey to discover what awaits them in the attic and to uncover the dark secret of what really happened to their mother all those years ago…