Little is known about the Monochrome Warrior. Other than the fact that he lives in a cave with just bats for companions, he is also the scarcely-known Oliver Francisco. And he wouldn’t want it any other way as he doesn’t like the sound of his own name and would rather have it banished to the furthest recesses of his subconscious.

Like any other man, he undergoes the typical life cycle of a mere mortal, but his inability to outgrow his sense of wonder and the prurient ardor with which he devours comic books make him an outcast within the singular mentality of the so-called well-rounded grown-ups. And who am I to judge him? I myself have discovered the magic and depth of a good comic book. Be that as it may, he nonetheless considers this to be the true source of his power, apart from the not-so-super computer he has in his batcave and, of course, utter disregard of a prevailing tenet exclusively imposed upon him by his present employer, “No drawing during office hours!”

One who aspires to become a comic book artist, he has been honing his skills since the day he first witnessed the awesome art of the Dark Knight’s Frank Miller, Fantastic Four’s Jack Kirby and Adventures of Tintin’s Herge some years ago. “There is nothing mere about those mortals,” he is often heard uttering whenever he talks about his three heroes. But it was the advent of the incomparable cinematic achievement that is Edward Scissorhands that he began to realize the kind of art that he wants to make: something quirky and, perhaps, weird. The warrior’s love for the movie’s indescribable darkness lingered. So much so that it brought forth a desire to draw everything like it belonged to the world of Edward, thus, the conception of the Monochrome Warrior. No longer of the desire to conform to conventions, he has frequented the non-observance of the confining rules of anatomy and perspective. These procedural infirmities have helped him create something that appeals to his liking.

The warrior has been with the judicial system since the last bloody, war-torn millennium and has had no experience whatsoever in the field of publishing/comic book making. He has tried, time and again, to find a kind of job where he can work to his heart’s content, but no one seems to take enough interest in his work to accord him ample opportunity for him to realize his dreams and further improve his craft, which would free him from a chain of unacceptable frustrations that has been rendering him melancholic.

Recently, the warrior discovered the priceless pleasure of concocting poems and illustrating them. Though he has cooked up a considerable number of illustrated poems geared mostly towards the young, he can’t compose himself enough to unleash them in an unsuspecting world for fear that it might be ridiculed by jaded critics, or worse, facsimiled by another. Premises considered, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the warrior has been merely waiting for a medium which would warrant the proper exhibition of his work.

The Monochrome Warrior spends his free time making incisive assessments of the works of his heroes, his habit of doing elaborate sketches during office hours comes to mind, ransacking comic book stores in search for artworks that will inspire him further, but mostly he just daydreams.

If you haven’t lost interest in him, or if you fancy doing a creative endeavor with him, you can invoke his presence through these channels: