New Graphic NOvel

Last updated: 1 October 2026

The Edge (working title) is my next graphic novel. It’s 153 pages long. The black and white drawing is finished, lettering is under way, and color is next. There is no publication date yet. When there is one, newsletter subscribers will hear it first.

The Story

A stubborn astronaut, his frustratingly insightful robot, and an existential crisis at the edge of the universe. Captain Webb and his copilot Zeno sail a space balloon in search of an answer — any answer — to fight the gnawing feeling that, cosmically, there is… none.

How It Started

The Edge started just as pieces of dialogue without a story. All I knew was that it was a philosophical fable about a couple of space explorers on a quest beyond the edge of reality. That story was their adventure. Mine was to discover what the story was really about.

Main Characters

The design of the characters emerged from the many sketches I made while writing the story. First Captain Webb, the astronaut, with a simple cartoony body that conveys his internal life and existential doubts. The name was inspired by NASA’s James Webb space telescope. The images it sent from space as I began writing blew me away!
The astronaut needed a matching opponent to challenge the astronaut’s worldview and provide opportunities for some buddy comedy. To provide maximum visual and personality contrast to Webb, what better opponent than a stoic robot copilot? And thus the robot Zeno was born, named after the philosopher Zeno of Citium (c. 334-262 BC), the founder of Stoicism.

Character study sketches for Ben Argon’s graphic novel “The Edge”
Comics characters are never born in a first drawing. They always emerge from making numerous sketches until their design clicks. On the left: the final characters that made it to the graphic novel.

Next month: how I breathe life into the characters.

A tiny space balloon alone against an endless ocean of stars — page 10 of the graphic novel The Edge.
Page 10. The space balloon, and the ocean of stars it has to cross.

Contact

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