The year is 1993 and during a Summer tour of Europe the seeds of what was to become VIRTEX were sown. The basic premise of a cybernetic cowboy that hunted outlaws across a time-amalgamated world was sketched into dirty journals in countries like Italy, Greece and Southern France. Creator Casey Lau has a very “Tarintino-ish” background of having worked for many years in a comic book shop in Vancouver while developing new concepts for comic books in his spare time. VIRTEX was born as a bastard child of the operatic gunfights of films of John Woo, the techno-cynicism of James Cameron and Paul Verhoeven and Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns.

San Diego Comic-Con 1998 Preview Issue

Flash forward to Hong Kong. The year is now 1998 and Casey Lau is brought into a new company funded by a local toy manufacturer to start a company called Oktomica Entertainment. Its purpose was to develop new properties and exploit them as toys and other merchandise. The launch book was to be VIRTEX followed by The Wonderlanders and Wisp. Teams were assembled on the Internet and veterans like Mike Baron, Pat Mills and Tom and Mary Bierbaum were brought in for scripting chores and soon-to-be-hot newcomers like Kano (Action Comics), Alvaro Lopez (Batgirl: Year One, Human Target) and Kaare Andrews (Hulk cover artist) were given their first opportunities to draw high-quality color books for the U.S. market.

VIRTEX was launched at the San Diego Comic Con in the Summer of 1998 to critical reviews – some hailing the fledgling company as the “new Image” and VIRTEX being compared to come greats like “Batman” and “Spawn.” With its unique mix of action and black humor and amazing artwork and coloring, VIRTEX was on its way to being a contender in the independent comics scene.

San Diego Comic-Con 1998 Virtex Ad

The plan would have worked except that the comic book market had been in arrears for a few years already and a new publisher with new characters in a shrinking marketplace meant that the future of the company was in dire straights. Funding was pulled in the middle of the each comic’s arcs. The Wonderlanders and Wisp saw two and 1one issue published respectively before the plug was pulled. VIRTEX was a bit luckier and saw 4 issues published: #0, 1, 2 and 3. Issue number 3 will always be remembered as the “gimmick issue” as editorial developed the issue to have 3 different endings number 3A, 3B and 3C.

In-House Advertising for February 1999 comics.

The story doesn’t end there - as the Internet boom was just underway and a new start-up called ActionAce.com – a premier pop culture portal – picked up VIRTEX to be the flagship in their NeoGlyphix division of original flash animations. Creator Casey Lau served as Executive Producer and Jeff Kwan who had scripted and co-scripted the VIRTEX comic series was brought on as Head Writer.

Beating the much publicized Stanlee.net to the punch by mere weeks, VIRTEX realized 4 state-of-the art Flash animation episodes in the year 2000. Merchandise had been developed and released at ActionAce.com to wide appeal. Unfortunately, ActionAce.com suffered the same fate as many of the dotcom era and it would seem that VIRTEX would be put to rest once and for all.

Now in 2003, Ed Dukeshire’s Digital Webbing Presents – on its 2nd anniversary of publishing - will be releasing a special 12-page brand-new VIRTEX story in the December issue of Digital Webbing Presents.

Casey Lau and Jeff Kwan have re-united to develop what they see as the beginning of “Book Two” of the VIRTEX saga and based on response to this new story will determine if VIRTEX is to be resurrected in this new comic era.

The legend continues…