Adam Lawson is best known for his production and directorial work on music videos for bands such as Sick Puppies, Gym Glass Heroes, The Academy Is, and Cobra Starship amongst others, as well as shows such as Youtube's Escape The Night and Geek and Sundry's TableTop, SpellSlingers, Force Grey, Arcade Arms, TitansGrave: The Ashes of Vulcana, and more.
Currently the multi-talented creator is focused on his comic book, The Eighth. With a story that follows a group of kids who gain unknown powers of Sumerian Armor and decide to use it against the bullies in their town, the series is symbiotic in nature while still retaining complete originality instead of following in footsteps of mainstream titles such as Venom and Carnage.
The Indiegogo Campaign for the project has officially passed its halfway mark, and we chatted with the writer himself to find out more about the inspiration for the strikingly original idea.
Check out what he had to say below!
Joe: Where did the initial idea come from to create The Eighth?
Adam Lawson: The first thing comes from my growing up and the very intense bullying that was happening with really close friends of mine and people around me who didn’t make it out of high school alive because of it. The feelings that you have when you’re young and you don’t know how to change much or process what happened other than the world is out of your control. I remember that overwhelming feeling at the time of what if I had the means to fight back?
And the second thing was Sumerian Myth. I’ve studied it for a long time and I love it and I have been trying to figure out how to put it somewhere. And they seem to fit together because it's ancient and there's just enough known about it that I can create mystery but not enough facts so that I can’t invent things. And it kind of tied in things like the flood of Noah and these events and myths that are across lots of religions.
And so I felt I had the two things I needed to tell this story. I felt like I had the personal reason and I had the fantastical reason.
Joe: Where did your inspiration for the characters in The Eighth come from? Were any of them based on people you know?
Adam Lawson: For Emma, she’s based on a half Japanese girl named Emma Onzai who is the bass player in a band called Sick Puppies which I did a bunch of music videos for. And I’ve always loved the sort of shy violence she has about her and they’ve always stood with me. So she became Emma Hadachi, a half-Japanese girl who grew up without parents. They both share that.
The character of Atticus Apea is based on a good friend of mine named Issaac Apea who is this amazing guy who moved here from Ghana. And he’s a very religious man and so I thought what his son would be like, and that became Atticus.
Those two characters definitely have real marks and real faces to them. And David just became the product of the needs and the feelings that I had when I was younger.
Joe: Were you inspired by any particular comic books or storylines in other media?
Adam Lawson: The thing that stood out to me about that armor -- I've certainly read Venom and Carnage and am familiar with the idea of the symbiote aesthetic. But the thing that really stood out to me was that I wanted a suit that the molecules could be commanded in.
And David commands them via math. I like the idea that mathematics actually created a reality. To get the armor to make a blade you needed to know the math equation. I like Math because it’s just an idea until there's a Math equation. I felt like so much superhero activity had no basis in reality, but Math is the law that allows you to create things. You can create a skyscraper, and you can control the armor.
Will you be checking out The Eighth? Take a peek at the cover art, animated teaser, and synopsis below and be sure to share your thoughts with us in the comments section!
The Eighth is the epic and painful story of teenagers, David Wells and Emma Adachi, who unlock a piece of ancient Sumerian armor, but mismanage its power and end up committing murder. Before they know it, they find themselves on a terrifying journey to change or destroy the world with no going back.
Readers interested in checking out The Eighth can do so by heading to the Indiegogo page here.