Hieroglyph was a 4-issue comic series written and drawn by Ricardo Delgado (who's most famous work would have to be Age of Reptiles...which I believe Disney are working on :) ). Written in 1999, it came and then went with not much of trace. Yet, it moved me more than probably any other comic has done.
It tells a simple story - a human spaceman - Chavez - lands on a huge, seemingly dead world to catalogue what he can, and explore. What he finds fairly swiftly is that far from being a dead world, the land teems with evidence of intelligent life. Not only the incredibly ancient and HUGE! ruins of pyramids, but the living creatures who Chavez soon comes across. Chavez soon finds himself witnessing the killing of some sort of life-form from the main villain of the piece (and the JoeK Mini sculpt!), Servant Prime. Taking from the dead creature some sort of amulet, Servant Prime leaves the area, as does Chavez.  Servant Prime taking the amulet. |  Part of a dream sequence in the book - Chavez gazes upon the Hieroglpyh. Chavez later finds the amulet, and it's clear that it is a source of unknown power (quite what the power is, heaven knows), and that it becomes his aim of not letting it get back into the clutches of Servant Prime. The ending of the story culminates in the enemy getting mighty upset with Chavez, destroying only means of leaving the planet, and wandering off. Thus, stranded and alone, Chavez has no choice but to stay, explore the world and keep that enemy off his back. |
Seemingly what the Hieroglyph would do in the wrong hands.
And there it was left. We were never to know what became of the characters. But what I got from the comics was a sense of the world of Hieroglyph itself. The amount of creatures in it is staggering, as are the depictions of long lost civilisations. It was 10 years later when I was thinking of making figures that I thought to pursue the idea of making some from Ricardo's world. So, I emailed him, he emailed back, and we kind of agreed to give it a go! Considering the man has a busy time doing things in the movie industry these days, I'm eternally grateful he took the time to even entertain the idea!
Alas, Hieroglyph never made it to a collected version, which is a right bugger on a personal level, as my copies are getting on a bit, and I still read them regularly. However, you never can tell what the future might bring. If you find them on ebay, or in the back-issue section of your local comic shop, pick 'em up, read them, and get absorbed into the world like I did.
In the mean time, have a look at just a few of the images from the series below!
