While the internet is abuzz
with news of a Sasquatch carcass found in Georgia and sitting in a
freezer, comic book readers already have "Proof" that Bigfoot exists.
"Our Bigfoot is more like George Clooney with fur," said Alex Grecian, the author of Proof,
a comic book series about a Bigfoot named John "Proof" Prufrock who
works secretly for the government. "He's very sophisticated. Very
dapper. And very clean as well. He's a hygienic Bigfoot."
"He would be embarrassed for the Bigfoot in the freezer, because it's
so poorly dressed," laughed the series artist, Riley Rossmo.
The ongoing Proof comic series, which had its first five
issues recently collected in paperback from Image Comics, tells the
story of a secret government organization called the Lodge, which has
confiscated strange "cryptids" and kept them secret. That includes a
Bigfoot named Proof who was found during the Lewis and Clark expedition
in 1805.
"The whole concept started as a joke, when we first came up with the
idea that the government is keeping Bigfoot a secret because he's
working for them," Grecian said. "But we treat it seriously in the
comic. We don't treat it as a joke."
The comic series is filled with little facts that the creators call
"Cryptoids" as the series explores a variety of modern mythical
creatures like the Cottingly Fairies and the Chupacabra.
"Our first story is about a Chupacabra. The story starts out with an
ex-FBI agent named Ginger Brown who gets recruited to the Lodge, which
is a mysterious government agency in the Pacific Northwest," Grecian
explained. "On her first day on the job, she's introduced to her new
partner, who is a Bigfoot named 'Proof.' And she discovers that,
immediately, she has to track down the Chupacabra, who is eating people
in Minnesota.
"I think what surprised people is that, when we hit the fourth issue,
Proof doesn't fight the Chupacabra. He sits down and talks with her
over tea. And hot dogs," he said.
Grecian and Rossmo said they love how real life is mimicking their art
as various cryptids show up in the news. Along with the Bigfoot in
Georgia, the Chupacabra has also been creating buzz recently, as a strange-looking head found by a woman in South Texas
was labeled as the mythical creature, and police later videotaped a
similar Chupacabra-type animal running on a road in a nearby town.
"You mean the mangy coyote?" Grecian said, explaining that tests had
been done on the head found in South Texas and DNA showed that it was
some type of coyote. Grecian explained that he's become somewhat of an
expert as he's done so much research for the series, so he's been
following which ones are debunked and which are still mysteries.
When asked about the recent Montauk Monster
that washed up on a shore in Montauk, N.Y., Grecian laughed, saying it
looked like a turtle without its shell to him. But then added that if
the legend of the Montauk Monster grows, it might show up in the Proof
comic series one day as one of the creatures housed at the Lodge.
"The Lodge is like a reserve. It's a nature reserve," Rossmo said.
"They have all kinds of cryptids. They even have Leprechauns. I like
the Leprechauns a lot."
"I think the fairies are the most popular. And the Dover Demon," said
Grecian. "It's a legend from Dover, Mass., from the early '70s when
some teenagers, on three separate occasions, saw a critter in the woods
out there. Lots of witnesses and lots of scared people described it to
sheriff's deputies, but nobody's ever seen it again. What we've said is
that the Lodge scooped up the Dover Demon right after those three
sightings, and that's why nobody's seen it again."
Rossmo added that in the comic, whatever the Dover Demon says ends up
coming true. "He predicts the future in ways that you can't quite
understand until they happen," Grecian said.
The creators said they would love for more of the cryptids that they've
researched to show up in the news. "I would love a Loch Ness Monster to
finally be caught, or captured on video," Grecian said, adding that the
Loch Ness Monster will be showing up in the Proof series soon.
"And it would be cool if the Mothman showed up again," Rossmo added.
"But that would freak me out. I'm scared of the Mothman. He makes my
skin crawl."
"There was a Richard Gere movie a couple years ago about that," Grecian
said of the Mothman legend, which originated in West Virginia. "A bunch
of people in this one area saw a six-foot-tall critter with black wings
and glowing red eyes that flew at their cars and, at the same time, a
bunch of people got cryptic warnings not to drive on a bridge. And the
bridge actually collapsed, and a whole bunch of people died on
Christmas Eve, and nobody's seen the Mothman again.
"I did a whole ton of research on that recently, and my whole family
was away, and my wife and son were out of town, and I read tons of
stuff about the Mothman and couldn't sleep," Grecian said. "The Mothman
is scary. And yes, I was doing research because he's going to be
showing up in Proof."
The Proof creators said they'll also be introducing a main
villain to the comic soon, but they couldn't reveal who that will be.
"Proof's main nemesis shows up in Issue #13, which ships in October,"
Grecian said. "We're building toward something called the Cryptid War.
And that's going to be devastating for the whole series."
The two creators said they're looking forward to seeing what happens
with the frozen Sasquatch found in Georgia, with the discoverers
claiming the body is real. "That someone has a Bigfoot cut up in their
freezer is pretty weird," Rossmo said with a laugh, adding that they're
both under the impression this one is a hoax. "But the interesting
thing about the Bigfoot legend is that it's universal. It's just weird
that culturally, it's recurring. Historically, these furry men have
been a recurring thing in different places. It's weird that it keeps
coming up, even after satellite imaging and everything -- that people
are still talking about it."
Grecian said that if Proof himself were real, he'd have to go
investigate the body in the freezer. "Proof doesn't remember what
happened to him or where he came from. He only remembers being
discovered by humans when he was a kid, and he has no memory of
other... uh... 'Bigfeet,'" Grecian said with a laugh. "The throughline
of our whole series is that he's looking for more Sasquatches. He needs
to find his family. And he'd have to go see if maybe that's his family
in that freezer."
