Perhaps the reason why we never see Bigfoot lumbering around more often is because he's really busy with his caseload as a private detective.  Writer Joey Esposito crosses noir with walking, talking urban legends — in winning fashion — with his new series Footprints, illustrated by Jonathan Moore. The first issue of the black-and-white comic is available for free on 215 Ink's iPad app, and Meltdown Comics hosts a release party for the book on Saturday — complete with DJs and food trucks. In addition, Esposito will be signing copies at the 215 Ink booth next weekend at New York Comic-Con.  But he comes at creating comics from a different place than a lot of other scribes in the industry. Instead of mornings and afternoons writing scripts, Esposito spends his workdays as comics editor at the entertainment website IGN.  MORE: An exclusive sneak peek at Footprints issue 2  "Any new angle you can look at comics from is beneficial to you as a creator," he says. "From creating to marketing to press to editorial, I want to try it all because it's something that I love. And every piece of the puzzle makes the overall picture stronger."  It's not a picture but a letter, though, that sends Bigfoot to the Arctic when he receives a note from his brother Yeti that includes a cryptic message: "She's alive." Bigfoot discovers his sibling murdered, so he rounds up a posse to find out what happened to him and also track down the mysterious "Motheresa."  Esposito casts each monster with a corresponding noir archetype, taking the most basic idea of these creatures and putting a spin on them: Bigfoot is a hairier Sam Spade; Jersey Devil is the hapless tag-along; Nessy is the old flame still carrying a torch for the Foot; Megalodon is the fishy yet distinguished gentleman who may have something to hide; and Motheresa is the femme fatale based on the legendary Mothman.  "Once the story is complete, particularly with Motheresa, you'll realize the parallels between the 'powers' she's known for and how it relates to her role in a noir story, if you can forget for a moment that she's technically a 'monster,'" Esposito says.  "That's a greater point that I hope comes across in the book: They are undoubtedly monsters but with very human traits," he adds. "They've been living amongst the humans for so long, in the Footprints universe anyway, that they're trying to assimilate. But is that really possible?"  Esposito had the earliest seeds of Footprints back in college one night when he and a friend were driving down a dark country road lined with trees. He thought about what if Bigfoot jumped out in front of the car and they struck him dead. And not just any Bigfoot — "a legitimate Bigfoot available for scientific study," Esposito says. "We'd be the most famous people on the planet. And that was pretty much it."  The conversation arose again a couple years later, although a little differently.  "What if we had killed Bigfoot but never came forward? What if as a result, all of his friends — the Justice League of cryptids, so to speak — came together to find who killed him?" Esposito says. "It was an intentionally silly idea, but then it sort of evolved very quickly from there to arrive at what it is today, with Bigfoot solving the murder of his brother Yeti that's tied to his past friendships with these other monsters."  Motheresa, whom readers will meet and understand by the end of the second issue, comes from a place of fear more than anything. The Mothman legend "scares the hell out of me," Esposito says. "The idea that there's a being that exists to be nothing but a harbinger of bad luck is horrific. Never mind all the myths of 'men in black' that surround the legend — the creature itself gives me nightmares.  "What else is a femme fatale if not a fascinating, mysterious creature that only brings doom to everything she touches?"  Comics have become a larger part of Esposito's life over the years. He was writing fiction long before becoming journalist, but taking a few classes in comics while going to school for film convinced him to focus his energies to the paneled page instead of the screen.  Admittedly a "terrible artist" who's slowly learning to color and letter, Esposito met Moore when he was looking for someone to illustrate Roscoe and Alice Find God, an eight-page pitch he hatched for a Zuda Comics competition. They hooked up through Internet creator forums, and although they finished the project after Zuda shut down, Esposito thought Moore's noir style would work well with his Footprints idea.  "Most people that work in comics will tell you that it takes a special kind of love for the medium to really devote yourself to it," Esposito says. "It's obvious the industry is in a weird place, but comics themselves are a beautiful thing."  Esposito paid for the entire first issue out of his own pocket — including the first print run — but also launched a Kickstarter campaign that netted Footprints more than $8,000 to cover art fees, tables at conventions and other promotion. One of the keys, he says, was giving away a sampling of the first issue for people to see exactly what was getting their contributions.  "That, combined with my mom's spamming of every human being with e-mail that she knows, helped us out a lot. And thankfully, it's sort of a mutual gain — our success through Kickstarter has led to more interest from other people that weren't aware of it while it was running," says Esposito, who will be on a Kickstarter panel at New York Comic-Con on Oct. 14 with artist Renae De Liz of Womanthology and comic writer Jimmy Palmiotti.  As a comics journalist, Esposito knows a lot about the positives and negatives of the industry. He realizes that a black-and-white comic like Footprints is a hard sell, it might take more than one issue to sell people on it and they might unjustifiably compare it to other properties. Not to mention the fact that Diamonds Comics, the largest comic-book distributor in North America, will only carry Footprints trade paperbacks and not single issues.  "But it's the comic I wanted to make, so I did," Esposito says. "It's all about the learning experience. I love Footprints and I'm proud of what we're doing, but I can't wait to take what I've learned about the medium and the industry and apply it to the next book."
Joey Esposito casts Bigfoot as a hairy Sam Spade on the trail of a murderer in his indie comic series.