THE CITY OF BEDLAM

I always believed that The City of Bedlam needed to be treated as a character, with its own personality and attitude. I wanted the reader to believe in and understand the city in which A•X lived, which would, in turn, let them believe in and accept the outrageous characters who lived here.

The Man Called A•X was always supposed to be over the top in its approach, and yet realistic in the way we handled the emotions of A-Ten and Liz. Before I began writing the book, I drew the map below, figured out how the city should work and where everything was.

The concept behind Bedlam was that each section of the City was ruled by a rival gang. Originally, there had been 20 different factions, but fighting over the year reduced that to ten ruling gangs. We were going to examine each gang, watch leaders be eliminated and replaced, and, I hoped, be as interested in the City as I wanted you to be in A-Ten and his problems.

My ultimate thought was that I would be able to tell any number of stories set in Bedlam, from super-hero sagas to down and dirty detective thrillers. I wanted to build a mythology that could continue on beyond A•X or any single character.

I thought you'd like to see some of the behind-the-scenes work that goes into creating a self-contained universe. Let me know what you think.

Art ©2003 by Jessica Wolfman

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