Dear Readers:

Please allow me to (re)introduce myself.

I’m Dave Kot, a writer and autism (self) advocate.

Our creative team produces comic books featuring heroes with autism.

Our small group believes kids need more heroes like themselves. This philosophy includes honest depictions of autism as both challenges and strengths. Add some aliens and robots, too.

Blah blah blah…national television news.

Blah blah blah…grass roots autism advocacy.

Blah blah blah…medical journal and educational therapy.

Blah blah blah…largest comic book distributions.

Most people do not realize WHY I write comic books.

Today, I celebrate four months of a social media diet, inspired by my friend Travis Woo. Limiting my “news” consumption brings many questions, and perhaps greater insight. Threats of war, economic recession, poverty, disease, crime, and/or civil unrest probably remain true today as they did four months ago…and four years ago…and four centuries ago.

Most importantly, I ask: Do real-life heroes sometimes fail us?

Certainly human, any person can fall from grace and especially when elevated upon a pedestal. For this reason, I write fictional heroes with real-world challenges. These obstacles include clinical expressions of anxiety, autism, depression, obsessive-compulsions, and a host of other diagnoses with which I am professionally educated and personally experienced.

…but people rarely celebrate persons with autism as heroes (unless, often, they have a very close personal relationship). We have no openly autistic government representatives, physicians, athletes, or similar celebrity ilk. We fill this gap, while dodging the obvious skeletons in any public persons’ closet.

Our team launches our stories anew because we’ve learned a lot from our fans. Having a hero with autism seems like a good start, but our heroes need compelling villains beyond oppressive economic or educational systems which frequently fails. Blaming neurotypical persons for ignorance doesn’t propel advocacy, nor does coddling our reader fan base. We cannot celebrate a hero just because of their identity; we need to tell great stories about their actions. True heroism outlives its heroes.

In SteamPunch’d, we re-brand and accelerate our original story timeline by ten years. What happens to the young characters? Does the alien alchemist still hunt for a boy with too many unusual questions? How does the world readjust civilly and economically after worldwide war? Yes, we still have autism depictions without apology, and even more aliens and robots. Our stories are still just one expression of autism; we encourage you to begin telling YOUR story, too!

Welcome to SteamPunch’d and Face Value Comics! We’ve recently released Issue 0.5, and Issue #1 (24 pages) is scheduled for the end of January 2018. Find your bliss and be well.

–Dave