Seriously this is the last time I will discuss this.

Okay, I suppose today I’m going to talk to you about something I care about deeply. And also, something that was once important to me. You can guess which is which.

Let’s start with the successful run of the comic book I wrote, Rafael Garcia: Henchman. Issue four came out in June. The trade paperback comes out on October 21; you can order it here.

^ That’s a hyperlink from my local comic book shop.

I thought maybe you’d love to read how it came into existence. A lot of you are involved in being creative, or you know creative people and I often get asked, “Where do your ideas come from?” This one starts during rides home from the Cinerama Dome when The Murrieta Gang had a couple of youngsters in it. It’s about a ten or fifteen minute drive from there to our hideout. And once I got asked after seeing a Marvel movie, “Hey, where are the Mexican Americans in Marvel?” This is probably around 2010 or 2011. This is your Iron Man 2, or maybe your Avengers era. I would improvise a story on the way home. “Did you see that scene where the Avengers jet would emerge from underground and the lawn in front of the mansion just slid open and the jet came up? Who you think mowed that damn lawn?” Or “See that huge hammer that they found in New Mexico? All those machines they needed to try and get it out of the ground? Who you think is doing all that work digging that thing out? Your Tata and my Tio worked in mines, we know all about digging stuff up, okay?”

Of course, those were good questions. And they got me to thinking. Where would we fit in a world of superheroes?

At the same time, the polarization going on in the country was starting to be something noticeable. Primarily around Rupert Murdoch owning FOX, which was the home of The Simpsons and Family Guy, and also FOX NEWS. You’d hear people talking about how they worked for Murdoch, but that didn’t make them bad guys. I had also heard at a press conference after Donald Sterling had to sell the Los Angeles Clippers a reporter ask Doc Rivers, “If you knew Donald Sterling, your boss, was racist, why did you take all that money and work for him?” Doc Rivers said, “If I only worked for people who weren’t racist, I wouldn’t work that much.” And whatever you believe about that is your business. For me, these things started to gel around an idea of a Mexican American henchman for a Super Villain that was starting to ask himself some hard questions. “Am I evil because I work for an evil guy?” “Should I want more than just being a Henchman? Or should I be happy in this spot?”

With all of that swirling in my head, around 2014 I was working on a show that was real tough and a hard grind. So, to do something fun during that, I started writing down these ideas and trying to form them into a show.

I finished the script, called it Henchman and sent it to my manager and my agent. They liked it. Enough to start figuring out how to get it out in the world and see if anyone would like to make a show out of it. The perfect person to be the lead, Rafael Garcia, was a client of my manager, co-incidentally, and we let him read it and he decided he’d attach himself to the script and with that package we’d test the marketplace. It made the rounds. The usual, “Always good to see fresh material from Peter,” “We love Peter.” “This isn’t right for us, but would Peter like to meet on this other thing?” etc. No one bit enough to make this a show.

Around that time, I decided to write the Henchman script as a comic book script. I asked a colleague who had written comic books to give me some pointers and jump on as a co-writer with me. I read Scott McCloud’s book, “Understanding Comics,” and we got to work on that adaptation. It’s now around 2019. Got that script done. Then… COVID.

Skip skip skip.

2021! We find a publisher, Starburns. This is the company that is the publishing arm of the Rick & Morty world. Felt like a big deal. BUT… they weren’t the company actually publishing the Rick & Morty comic book. Felt a little off, but I liked these guys a ton and was excited to put Rafael Garcia in the world. The Kickstarter to fund the first issue was great. Big success. Including a top tier pledge where for $1000 I would make a difficult phone call that you didn’t want to make. Break up, moving out, telling parents you were going to become a TV writer, not a lawyer. Anything you want. I would be your Henchman for the phone call.

Issue One comes out. It sells some. Then… Starburns goes out of business!

Then, some of the guys we love that used to work at Starburns go to work at a new company, called SOMETHING SOMETHING. And they seem interested in publishing the rest of the series. But we can’t exactly nail them down. That’s 2022.

It’s starting to feel like maybe that’s it. But I do have all this finished art for the book. The other issues.

Then we meet the guys from TITAN COMICS. And we send them the material. And they love it. Enough to say, “Yeah. Let’s put that book out in the world.” And that was 2025. And now you’ve been able to get those issues and then the trade paperback in October.

Did I share the link? Why not do it again: https://goldenapplecomics.com/products/9781806182879?_pos=2&_sid=d8761018a&_ss=r

There’s talk of having an event for the launch of that book at Golden Apple. October 21. Be there. Details to come.

Fourteen years after driving home from Thor, there you have it. Now during this time, I had two first look deals at Universal. They optioned the book from me. We started to gear up to make this an animated series pitch. But I sold other things and was working on other shows and we never actually took this idea and pitched it. Maybe we should. It’s not like the world in those fourteen years has lost the idea of people working for evil people and wondering if they are evil. Right?

Onto the second topic. It’s one I didn’t think I’d write about anymore. The sequel series to the series I was the Showrunner and Head Writer for, Wizards Beyond Waverly Place, ended this week. It had a four-episode conclusion series. And my inbox has been full this week. I’ve been sent all kinds of things. Links to cast members saying that they never got asked back, or cast members of the sequel series saying that they wanted everyone back but people were busy. That it was the worst ending ever. The best one possible given the circumstances. And on. And on. A few people asked me what I thought.

And the creator of the original show got online and said that he could fix it all by just writing out the new show as a dream of one of the characters that didn’t get asked back.

And one person said, “Don’t all these people have more to do than get involved in this after all that time?”

And then one person said on Reddit, “I want to hear from Murrieta on this!”

I’ll keep it simple. Making a show is hard. Keeping a show on the air is even harder. My hats off to anyone that tries to do either.

If I can offer anything to any of the people that reached out to me this week, it would be to give a tiny bit of clarity and context from my side of the fence. That’s it.

I haven’t worked on Wizards since I was fired after the third season. I believe that while I’m not the “Creator,” of the show, I had a lot to do with what made that show work. A certain sense of chaos and pushing on authority in a gleeful way that should remind anyone who watched I take particular pride in. And I have the bruises and scars from people like Gary Marsh who fought me the whole way on that, to show for it.

I have stayed in touch with the OG writers of the show, and the OG cast of the show with a couple of exceptions. The Creator. And David. Not that David. The other one.

Before Wizards Beyond Waverly Place was a show picked up by Disney, I was approached by David. Not that David. The other one. And we had a couple of very cool and very fun sessions imaging what a new series would look like. I thought it would be fun to think of new stories and new ideas around an old theme. Have Justin raising kids that are half wizard and half vampire. That sounds like a great way to have all kinds of new problems around the idea of… “you’re not all wizard, but you do have magic…” We reached a point where it was time for me to commit to seeing this thing through. Do I want to do this? Given how terrible an end for me at Disney Channel had been. I told David that before we go any further, he should call… Gary Marsh. Yeah. Here he is. “Tell Gary you and I have been talking and that we have some ideas.” The report back was, from Gary, “Yeah. There’s a past there with Peter, and you should just come in with an idea and if we like it, we can talk.” I told David to go with God and take whatever we discussed that made sense to him and see what he can do. That I just didn’t have it in me to go round after round with Gary again. And it sounded like Gary wasn’t interested in that, either. And that was that.

I’m not telling you all this because I’m saying any of the new show had anything to do with any of the ideas David and I discussed. I wouldn’t know. I haven’t seen any of that show. And I didn’t watch any of the final season of the OG show, either.

I love that Jennifer is a nurse and got her start working in ER’s during COVID. I love that Selena has found happiness with her marriage and is doing amazing things with Only Murders in the Building. It meant a lot to me that Selena and a few of the OG writers and actors were able to get together a few months ago and lift a glass to the old days. I love that David rings me up every once in a while. Or sends me a text and picture of someone in his coffee shop who knows me and stopped by. I love that day I ran into Jake in front of Lucy’s El Adobe and gave him a ride to where he was going. I love that Maria is about to be in Camp Rock 3. I love that Brigit Mendler is killing it in the Sciences. That Haley’s movie came out, and she’s a force in the world. That when the OG writers get together we laugh about the fun we had. I love all of that. I love that anyone who was part of making Wizards Beyond got to be part of making a new show and trying to keep that show going. It’s hard, huh? I hope you get more chances to do that now that you’ve done it once.

And I love that I’ve gone on and done the things I’ve done. On Level Up, One Day At A Time, Mr. Iglesias, Primo, Cristela, and did I mention I have a graphic novel coming out?

https://goldenapplecomics.com/products/9781806182879?_pos=2&_sid=d8761018a&_ss=r

If you want to know how I would have ended the show, there’s a podcast about it.

If you want to know more about what my part in this show really was, there’s a book someone wrote about Disney Channel you can read about it there.

If I’m upset about something, it’s that the Dodgers have lost six games in a row. And that no one bit on Rafael Garcia all those years ago to make a TV show. But like most things, instead of crying about that, I got to make a comic book you guys! Have I mentioned…

https://goldenapplecomics.com/products/9781806182879?_pos=2&_sid=d8761018a&_ss=r

THE MOST IMPORTANT CHICANO IN HOLLYWOOD THAT YOU DON’T KNOW ABOUT

PS: Of course I’m going to talk about the comic book again. How else will you know about the signing meet and greet when it happens on October 21? More details to come in next week’s post.