Contact Bruce Here!

Keystone was a character I created in 1993, as an eighth grader.

"Super Bruce" Spring of 1993

It started when I was telling a group of friends about a weekend visit from my relatives. We were in my family's pool, when a littel cousin jumped in. His "floatie" came off, and he started struggling in the water. I swam over to him, and put him back on the deck.. It didn't seem like a big deal, but then one of the guys I was telling the story to went off on a tangent about "Super Bruce" It became a running joke, and before long I whipped up a drawing of this new Super Hero.

I continued to draw adventures of Super Bruce for a while, but after time I wanted to transform him into a "real" Super Hero. I tried a couple of different names, but nothing really stuck.

Then, one day in 1994, I noticed the Super Bruce logo sort of resembled a keystone. (Living in the "Keystone State," I was pretty familiar with what they looked like.) So, I designed a stylized logo, and "Keystone" was born.

First row: Image, Keystone Second Row: Shroud, Banner, Spaz Summer 1996

Keystone operated alone for about another year or so. Then, in 1996, I started drawing other heroes. Image (later Mirage) Banner, Spaz, and Shroud (a ninja-type character) all joined in on the adventures. Soon, Keystone was leading an entire team of heroes.

At this time, Keystone was more of the "Superman" type character, in that he was very powerful, and was the leader of the team no matter what. About 1998, though, I realized he would be a more interesting character if he was a young guy still learning the ropes. That's when I created the character of "Champion,' to serve as a mentor to Keystone.

You'll probably see them appear on this website before long. Characters such as "Kestrel," "Gauntlet," "Transit," "Zoom," "Shroud" among many, many others were created. The Summer of 1998 was probably the heyday of Keystone and his crew for quite some time, because I would leave for college shortly afterward.

Keystone: The Comic Strip, Summer of 2000

Soon after starting college, I created a comic strip, "Sinking Ship" Once that began, Keystone fell off the radar entirely, and I probably went over a year or more without drawing him.

Then, in the Summer of 2000, I wanted to try my hand at a syndication attempt. So, the effort began to develop a new comic strip. But, I didn't have to search far... who else but Keystone would be the star of the strip!

But, this would take a much different tone than the drawings I had done just a few years before. This was more of a comedy series. So, I paired him up with a hapless roomate, made a supervillain the principal of their high school, and turned them loose. It was a nice little series, and to this day I still enjoy reading it. The syndicates, however, did not, and Keystone went back in the mothballs.

Keystone: Web Comic, Winter 2002

I graduated college in December of 2001, and thought I was a lock for a job right away. I was wrong, and spent about three months unemployed, and living at home. With all that free time, I tried my hand a number of different comic projects, including my first ever WebComic, starring Keystone. And, once again, this series took on a very different tone. Sporting a new costume, Keystone battled crime on the streets with a very serious outlook on his work. The "grim and gritty" Keystone didn't last, but I liked his new costume, so that stuck.

The job I eventually took landed me in an outpost in the middle of nowhere. I'm not kidding- I worked alone, and lived alone in a community that was shriking, so I never found anyone to hang out with. So, there was plenty of time for cartooning, and in the Summer of 2003, Keystone returned. This time, he and his roomate, Paul, were the stars of a small press comic book. I really liked where the story was going, but as I was working on it, I got a new job and moved to a much better area, so to this day it remains an unfinished story.

Keystone Comic Book Fall 2003

From then on, comic strips were my first priority. I developed two different features for syndication. One never even made it in the mail, and the jury is still out on the other (wish me luck!) My reserves of gag-a-day strips nearly depleted, I wanted to try my hand at a webcomic again. The result is what you see before you.

For this series, I went all the way back through Keystone's history, and I'm using just about every character and situation I could find in my archives. I intend this to be the ultimate Keystone adventure!

Keystone WebComic Summer 2005

Enjoy!

Adventures of Keystone is hosted on Keenspace, a free webhosting and site automation service for webcomics.

Support Keystone on "Comics Sherpa."