Inception

No, not the film, which was stunning by the way. I've had a few people ask about the inception of DEUS ABSENTIA, where the idea came from, and what prompted me to put it on paper. I can't even count the number of influences on this work but I do remember one of the oldest.
When we were kids (1980's), my brother and I used to brainstorm our own comic books. One of the ideas was about this group of time-traveling X-men types, all from different periods of history, who would travel together to various historic events to stop the bad guys from doing whatever bad things they were doing. One of these characters was a stereotypical knight of the Crusades who embodied the chivalric ideals: clean cut, positive, chaste, long-haired, basically your typical boring hero. But then at some point the group would have a mission in ancient Judea around, say, 30 AD and he, having endured ribbing from the rest of the group for so long, couldn't resist ducking over the hill to see if the Gospels he so adored were, in fact, true.
Well, after returning to the group he would be a changed man: he would grow disheveled, shave his head, maybe start drinking and certainly growing more surly (and interesting). The rest of the group assumes this is because he learned that the things he'd always believed were untrue, but eventually would learn that it was because he'd found the man known as Jesus of Nazareth, who had locked eyes with him in a crowd and, sadly, shook his head and dismissed him with a wave of his hand. Implying, of course, that he knew who this knight was and was disappointed that he'd sacrificed his faith for a chance at proof.
Well, as kids we just thought this was the height of creativity, and considering how religious we were back then those were practically sacrilegious thoughts (attributing non-biblical actions to Christ). But when I decided to write what is, essentially, a graphic novel without the graphics, I took it a step further and worked in my older self's questions about the truth and fact among the fantastic and the impossible in old works of not just scripture, but literature. This eventually led to the idea of an alternate history wherein the judeo-christian God and his son Christ not only coexisted with other religions/mythologies, but were defeated by them.
I actually think this would make a darn cool graphic novel, but can't even fathom the time commitment that would be involved (the nice thing about writing is that any idiot with a computer can write, though not necessarily well...) And despite my background in illustration I don't think I've got the talent or the patience to draw and ink an entire book's worth, let alone a series. But, maybe Frank Miller or Mike Mignola will tire of non-stop success and begin looking for a new challenge. I'd be happy to help...