Xenon

May 2062. What follows is a transcript of the Hamilton Jeffries podcast from his home studio in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with Wyatt Nickerbocker.

HJ: Hello out there in listener land. Welcome to another installment of “Ham’s Corner” and this week’s podcast. Today I’d like to welcome Wyatt Nickerbocker, creator of the graphic novel series Xenon, to this week’s show. Hi, Mr. Nickerbocker. Welcome.

WN: Hi, Hamilton. Thank you for having me.

HJ: You can call me Ham, Mr. Nickerbocker, everyone else does.

WN: In that case, you can call me Mr. Nickerbocker.

HJ: Umm…okay…

WN: Just kidding, Ham. Go ahead and call me Wyatt.

HJ: Relieved laughter. Whew. You really had me there.

WN: Yeah, I get that a lot. I’m not known for my sense of humor.

HJ: Laughs. But you are known for the Xenon series. In fact, this is the 50th year since it was created. That’s a phenomenal run. Congratulations.

WN: Thank you very much. And, with that in mind, I’d like to add that I’ve got a special announcement to make at the end of the podcast that your listeners might be interested in hearing.

HJ: So, stick around to the end, right? Laughs.

WN: That’s right, Ham. I promise it’ll be worth it.

HJ: Well, you’ve certainly piqued my interest, Wyatt. Now, let’s go ahead and get started with today’s show. For those of our listeners who don’t know your work, could you please fill us in on how the series originated?

WN: Sure. Like you said, it’s been going on for 50 years. It all started back during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021. That was probably before your time. Chuckles.

HJ: Laughs. You got that right, Wyatt. I was just a twinkle in my parent’s eye back then.

WN: More chuckling. I’ll bet. Anyway, as you probably know, I lived in a small house in Minneapolis with my parents and three older brothers and four younger sisters. Times were tough for us. Dad had trouble finding work, and then staying employed once he did. To help make ends meet, Mom worked two jobs, one cleaning offices and one as a checkout at a local grocery store. When the pandemic hit, and we had to go into lockdown, it was pretty crazy around our place. Especially for us kids.

HJ: I can imagine.

WN: At the time, Dad had a job hauling trash for a sanitation company, and Mom cut back to just working at the grocery store. Us kids were supposed to do distance learning for school, but that didn’t work out too well since we didn’t have a lot of adult supervision. I was twelve. My brothers were older than me and they spent most of their time playing video games. My sisters were younger, and they were pretty good about doing their classwork. We had three school-issued iPads for our family, and I used one to do my homework. But, still, I had a lot of free time.

HJ: And that’s when you started your series?
WN: That’s right. I made a space in the mechanical room in the basement where the furnace was. I set up a small table and lamp and chair and just started writing with a pencil and a spiral bound notebook.

HJ: Hold on. Just like that? You were twelve years old and you just started writing a series?

WN: Kind of. I liked reading graphic novels. My mom was a reader, and she had some old books of hers laying around that I looked at. Like Huckleberry Finn. I remember reading that one. And my Manga books. I liked those a lot, too.

HJ: So, they were your inspiration?

WN: Yeah, they were, Ham, an inspiration, and an escape. Let me tell you, it got a little nuts with three older brothers around. They had a lot of pent-up energy.

Laughter from both of them.

HJ: So, Xenon was born in the basement so to speak.

WN: Chuckles. Yeah, he was. I just started writing. My idea was to have a time traveler who went around making the world a better place. Then I expanded his adventures to include the Milky Way galaxy and then the entire universe.  Later, I made up alternative universes like Ylantan and new galaxies like Roostilandau. It was fun.

HJ: How’d you come up with the name Xenon?

WN: Well, I’ve always been interested in science. Even as a kid I had a poster of the Periodic Table of Elements on the wall in my bedroom. Xenon is a noble gas, element number 54. I just liked the name, so I decided to use it. I’m glad I did. People like it.

HJ: It’s a great name. (Pauses and shuffles some papers, then continues…) Getting back to the series, you did the writing and the drawings yourself, if I’m not mistaken.

WN: Yeah, the writing came naturally for me. I had a pretty good imagination. The drawing was something else, though. I had to work at it.

HJ: Nevertheless, those first efforts were amazingly well done considering how young you were.

WN: Why, thank you. Early on, I switched from pencil and notebook to writing on the iPad. Then I printed the stories and left spaces for the drawings and drew them in. Then I scanned the pages into my parents’ computer and combined them all into a booklet. I sold those first Xenon stories to my friends, both hard copies and the online e-version.

HJ: How’d that work out?
WN: Really good. One of my friends, Louis, suggested I set up a YouTube site and read my stories out loud which I did. That worked out great. I started getting lots of views and sold a lot more of my booklets.

HJ: By then you’d hit it big, right?
WN: Sort of. What helped was when that heavy metal band Rotgut from England started reading Xenon. The lead guitar player, Zeke Hackelmore, became a huge fan. They wrote a song called “Xenon Saves the Universe” and it was a big hit in the underground heavy metal scene.

HJ: After the pandemic was over, I heard that you met the band.
WN: I did. They came to First Avenue in early 2022 to play a gig. Their manager got in touch with me and my parents. He even picked me up at my house to take me to the show. His name was Alan. He was a nice guy. Had a lot of tattoos.

HJ: And it was onward and upward from there, right?
WN: Chuckles. Well, not really. I was twelve, remember—well, thirteen by then—still pretty young. The pandemic had abated in the summer of 2021 and things sort of went back to normal. I had school that fall and for the next few years I just went to class, came home and worked on Xenon when I could.

HJ: He was a warrior, wasn’t he?

WN: Yeah. Like I said, I got my basic idea of him from graphic novels and manga books. I made him a warrior who would join forces on the side of Good and help them defeat the Evil bad guys. I was happy coming up with the stories and doing my drawings. I had my YouTube channel and made a little money.

HJ: What changed?
WN: What changed was that I met Shane when I was going to college at the University of Minnesota.

HJ: I read that she became your muse.

WN: Laughs. Yeah, you could say. And eventually my wife.

HJ: She was an artist, right?

WN: Yep. She was a graphic artist and could draw anything. She was very good. She knew about my series and, in fact, was a fan. She had lots of ideas about the characters and scenes and stuff. They were great suggestions. I’m glad I listened to her.

HJ: I agree. No offense, but her drawings really kicked the series up a notch.

WN: No offense taken because I totally agree. Her drawing and skill as an artist helped immensely by making the characters look more like I imaged. She helped with the background scenes, too, by making them more complex than I ever could. Whatever my imagination could come up with, she could draw it.

HJ: To me the drawings were a lot more professional if that’s the right word.

WN: I completely agree.

HJ: And the character changed.

WN: Yes, instead of Xenon being a warrior and fighting and killing people even if it was under the guise of doing Good, he became something else.

HJ: He became a Healer.

WN: That’s right. He became a Healer. He didn’t fight anymore.

HJ: And that’s when the series really took off.

WN: Yes, it did. I went from writing for a twelve-year-old boys’ mentality to writing with a more mature voice, if you will.

HJ: You began putting Xenon into more complicated situations and had him delve deeper into his soul and psyche to help deal with problems that other people were experiencing.

WN: Wow, Ham, I’m impressed. You have read my work.

HJ: Laughter. Yeah, I told you I had. I’m a big fan.

WN: Thank you.

HJ: You’re welcome. So, continuing…there was a lot of science, too.

WN: Laughs. Well, I became a science teacher, so that might have had something to do with it. But, yes, I used science as much as I could. With Xenon coming of age during the COVID-19 crisis, I had him get into situations where pandemics and plagues were real issues facing mankind and the world, and, in later series, the universe. I tried to make it real from that standpoint. I hope I did anyway.

HJ: Oh, you did without a doubt. The series you did a few years ago with a plague similar to the Black Death that was sweeping the galaxy Alderneon was fascinating. Not to mention exciting.

WN: That was issue 222. Thank you. It was a favorite of mine, too.

HJ: If I recall, you taught in the Minneapolis school system for quite a while, right?

WN: Yes, I did. For 20 years. All of it at Northeast High School. I Loved it.

HJ: Then you retired from teaching.
WN: Yes, I did. I took early retirement. Shane was a nurse at North Memorial Hospital. We had a home in north Minneapolis, two lovely daughters, and a son and life was pretty good.

HJ: And then…

WN: And then I started having trouble with my vision.

HJ: I read it was something to do with glaucoma?

WN: That’s right, Ham. That and macular degeneration. Toss in a genetic predisposition for poor eyesight and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.

HJ: What’d you do?

WN: My eye doctor performed a series of laser surgeries, but they didn’t help much. I was given shots in the eyes of the latest medications. They didn’t help either. The only thing that did any good was a medication I could take orally. That didn’t solve the problem, but it stopped the degradation of my vision.

HJ: So, now you can see all right?

WN: Takes off his glasses and hands them to Ham. Pretty good. As long as I’ve got these on.

HJ: Tries on the glasses. Wow! These are pretty strong.

WN: Chuckles. Yeah, they are. They’re made especially for me. In fact, there’s even some xenon in the lens. It’s a special thing. Kind of poetic justice, if you ask me. Laughs.

HJ: Hands the glasses back to Wyatt and then continues…So how long ago was that?

WN: It was ten years and two months and fourteen days, but who’s counting? Laughter.

HJ: You seem to be taking it quite well.

WN: Well, I have no choice, Ham. If my vision loss would have happened back in the early 2020s when I first started writing Xenon, I’d have been in a deep hole. I’d have become blind, and the Xenon series would have been dead in the water. But now, thanks to science and technology my eyes are being treated, and I can see well enough to still do my series. Everything is good.

HJ: I’m glad to hear it. And that’s a great way to wrap up this interview.

WN: Chuckles.

HJ: So, you mentioned at the beginning of the podcast you had an announcement to make. Let’s do that now. Any plans for the future that we should know about?

WN: Yes, there is Ham. Some big news. For me and all of my loyal readers. There’s no easy way to do this, so I’ll just come right out and say it. I want to tell everyone that I’m going to be ending the series.

HJ: What? You’re joking.

WN: No joke, Ham. The time is right. My vision is slowly getting worse and there’s nothing the doctors can do. Maybe I could keep writing, but it’s becoming a struggle. Shane has offered to keep doing the drawings, but frankly she doesn’t mind not having to do them. She’s happy being a grandmother to our three grandkids.

HJ: So that’s it? It’s done? The series is over?

WN: Long pause. Then he continues…Okay, I think that’s enough, Ham. I think we’d better tell them.

HJ: Laughs. I agree. Clears his throat. Okay, fans, here it is. The announcement I’d like to make is that Wyatt Nickerbocker is actually my father. I’m his son. Ever since Dad’s vision started failing, I’ve been assisting him on the series. Starting today, I will be taking over Xenon. With a little help from you, right, Dad?
WN: Chuckles. Right’m sure you’ll do just fine on your own.

HJ: You are very gracious. Not to mention more confident in me than I am. Nervous laughter.

WN: You’ll be great. And, if I might add, to those listeners out there who might be wondering, Ham will not only be writing the series, but will also be doing the drawing. He’s very talented, if I do say so myself.

HJ: Laughter. Mom helped a lot, remember?

WN: Yes, she did. Pauses, then continues…So, anyway, that’s the main reason I came on the show today, to share that news with you. The series will continue; I’m just handing off the reins to Ham. Who knows; he might hand the show off to his son, someday. The series could go on and on.

HJ: Like, forever, Dad?

WN: That’s right, son, like forever.

Laugher from both HJ and WN.

HJ: Okay, that’s it for me for now. Even though I’m taking over Dad’s series, I’m still going to do this weekly podcast. Look for me next week. Maybe we’ll be talking about the new issue of Xenon. It’s due out later this month and will be the first one done exclusively by me. I had fun writing it and doing the drawing. I hope you’ll enjoy it. If not, well, that’ll give us something to talk about on “Ham’s Corner.” Until next week, then, goodbye for now.