This is the first picture I ever drew of Johnny. It was somewhere in the spring of 11th grade, so probably c. 1999. I'd been watching a lot of anime, if ye can't tell. My friend lent me Sailor Moon and Neon Genesis Evangelion, among other things. I had an idea of a guy waking up in the hospital, all bandaged up, with an angel to guide him into some kind of supernatural adventure...
To tell the truth, I don't think the story deviated all that much from the original. No bandages though. Originally I was going to name the main character something really cool like...I dunno...Ragnan or Harlan or something...cool? Don't ask me. I don't remember any of the names I was toying with. While I was developing the story, I needed to call him something so I called him "Johnny-somebody," "Johnny-on-the-spot," "Johnny-come-lately," and other variations. After a while, I couldn't change the name; it just stuck.
I grew up Lutheran, so I have a pretty religious background. (On a side note, may I say it's ironic, then, that my best friend's a Wicca and my girlfriend's an agnostic. It's a wonderful life). Anyway, a lot of this story was developed during sermons to keep myself occupied. One day, Pastor Markquart had had a dream of a woman asking him why her son couldn't get into Heaven, and he said "There is nothing you can do that will keep you out of Heaven." I thought that sounded interesting. I mean, what if the person was a murderer? What if they'd killed someone? How could that be forgiven? I thought that was an interesting conundrum for Johnny's character. Maybe forgiveness is granted by God, but you get hung up by your own religious beliefs and can't forgive yourself. *shrug* So that's going to be a big theme in the story.
Sad to say, "It's a Wonderful Life" and "A Christmas Carol" were also big influences in the workings of the story. I definitely wanted a system of achieving rank in the celestial halls. Thus, Angus is on the bottom rung of the angelic hierarchy. Johnny is his first assignment. Angus is chosen because God has a sense of humor paralleling none. And Johnny's going to need all the positive energy he can get.
