Greenfield Comic Writer Brings Alien Alive Online

What started out as a doodle in the margin of a class notebook about 14 years ago has transformed into a popular online graphic novel about an alien who works as a private detective.

Greenfield's Mark Van Handel and co-writer and artist Brian Ellis released the third edition of Ross Wellington, the story of a former Roswell alien, this spring.

"It was essentially an alien in a fedora," Van Handel said of his early doodles. "I played with the idea for a time and did a few drawings before forgetting about it."

Van Handel met Ellis at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design while studying industrial design, and Ross Wellington went from concept to reality.

"Brian is a great artist and we worked really well together, so after graduation I asked him if he wanted to work on the book and we started developing the detailed story from there," Van Handel said.

"The story is really inspired by things like Big Trouble in Little China and Firefly, where the extraordinary and science fiction elements are brought down to a very human and personal scale. That's why Ross is not entirely heroic, we wanted to show off how tough fitting in and being a hero is for him."

Ross Wellington's third free online edition was released in late April and Van Handel and Ellis recently did a Q & A with the Shepherd Express to share the exciting details about the series and its future.

According to Ross Wellington's Facebook page, more the most recent edition had more than 100 readers in just over a week and according to rosswellington.com, the series' fourth edition will be out this summer with eight more editions planned for future release.