Hey, sci-fi comic fans! I’ve got some news about a new non-SWC project that I’m involved in, and it’s a revival of an intellectual property known to longtime fans of laser tag: Photon: The Ultimate Game on Planet Earth!
Created in the early 1980s by Dallas, Texas, entrepreneur George Carter III, Photon was the world’s first laser-tag game, in which two teams of players (called Photon Warriors) would enter an arena and shoot at each other with light-emitting “phaser” pistols until one side’s base was captured. It was intended to be a high-tech version of games played by children—Cops and Robbers, Cowboys and Indians, and Capture the Flag—matched with the blaster shoot-outs of the original Star Wars (known today as Episode IV: A New Hope) that inspired Carter’s imagination in 1977.
The first arena opened in Dallas on March 28, 1984, and soon enough expanded into 70 franchises around the world, had a play-at-home version that sold in toys stores and major chains like Sears, saw the publication of a series of original novels by authors Peter David (Incredible Hulk, Star Trek: The Next Generation) and Michael P. Kube-McDowell, was featured on the news-magazine show 20/20, and even enjoyed a one-season live-action TV series. Unfortunately, consumer interest in laser-tag games in general soon faded, and by the 1990s Photon and its competitors (including the similarly designed Lazer Tag) had drifted into pop culture limbo.
So now, with 2024 marking the franchise’s 40th anniversary year, Photon is making its comeback, this time in comic book form, courtesy of Texas-based videogame developer and current rights owner Piko Interactive and its president, Eli Galindo.
Photon: Re-Energized is a full-color one-shot from Piko’s Virtual Comics imprint, by yours truly, writer Steven A. Roman, and artist/colorist Ana Pauda. It’s my second comic project for Piko/Virtual, following The Legend of Calamity Jane: The Devil Herself, which is based on the cult-favorite Wild West animated series from the late 1990s that Piko now owns.
Re-Energized is the story of Carter Clay, an urban explorer who pays a visit with a couple of friends to a long-abandoned mall to see what they can see before the place is torn down the following week. To his surprise, Carter finds an old Photon arena in the basement, and with it some discarded Photon Warrior gear that turns out to be still active—and unexpectedly shows Carter that Photon is more than just a game…it’s a real-life combat training program to prevent alien invaders from taking over the world!
(The final cover design hasn’t been finalized yet; what you see here is the basic layout for it.)
I really enjoyed working on the script—like Calamity Jane, it was a property I wasn’t all that familiar with, but quickly grew to like after researching it. Best of all, Piko gave the fan site Tiviachick Loves Laser Tag (which also runs the site Photon Forever) a sneak peek at my script, and it got a very positive review:
“If you were a fan of Photon in the 80s this book has plenty of references you will recognize, but with a fresh take on the intergalactic premise of the past it will also be a gateway to showing a new generation that the light still shines.”
Stay tuned for further information!
(Photon: The Ultimate Game on Planet Earth™ and © 2023 Piko Interactive LLC)
