Together, Laura and I hatched our own idea for a comic book series in late 2009; it's called LIBERTY, and it's set in an alternate reality America; the story revolves around a set of super-powered heroes, who exist in a cosmopolitan yet unsettled nation. I'll let Laura's blurb fill you in on the major details of our setting and the first arc:
LIBERTY is an ensemble comic, in the spirit of Astro City. Our story begins in Philadelphia, PA. America's history is altered. Philly is the capital, and has been since Benjamin Franklin first took seat as the first President of the United States of America. There is a war raging in the West of the Country, where the Sioux nation holds fast to the Western territories, and skirmishes spark between forces at the US/Canada border. An outbreak of nation-wide natural catastrophes spurs mass panic and an outcry against powereds who are barely stopping the gap. Liberty, symbol of justice and icon of powereds throughout the country, is run ragged with crime in Philadelphia. Meanwhile, twin brothers and graduate-student-cum-heroes Ben and Joe, masked vigilante The Warden, and the Lakota tribeswomen the Crow Girls with their ally Sunstroke join forces to battle a mob presence in the city which proves to be as insidious and destructive as the natural disasters hammering the nation.
When Liberty meets a mysterious soldier during an investigation, she is forced to take a wider look at the country as a whole, and the role of powereds within a nation that is anything but unified. The question Liberty asks, and which must be answered, is this: "Because I am the strongest, is it my responsibility to shoulder the struggles of everyone around me? To what extent is my influence helping, or hindering?"
In short, this story has been an absolute blast to write, and we want to share its existence with you, as we're refining the first arc of the series right now. In exciting news, we feel we've reached a stage where we want to get this story into the public's heads; for that, we need an artist, as we move towards the idea of publishing the book somehow, potentially in a web format (details are still being hammered out there). So, I put the call out to you, Internet readers: if you are an artist or know if any artists who would like to work on a history-rich, action-packed project like LIBERTY, please head over to my contact page and give me a shout-out. I'd love to hear from you!