Asperger's the comic book - your thoughts

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i'm an independent comic artist with Hyperlexia and i'm putting together scripts for my first major series. one of the things i want to talk about is Asperger's.

my idea is that my main character (who's essentially me) gets diagnosed with Asperger's. he gets depressed about it at first, but the more he learns about it the better he feels. then he notices another girl acting like a b***h, but she blames it on her Asperger's. he calls her out on it and the moral of the story is "having Asperger's doesn't make you an as*hole, being an as*hole makes your an as*hole."

the whole thing was inspired by my own HFA and that girl from America's Next Top Model. the two big cases of Asperger's i've seen amongst stars is her and the guy from The Vines, two people who basically act like asses in public. and people think that's what it's like when you have HFA! i want to do something with my work that says that's not the case.

i wanted to get your thoughts though.

I think it sounds awesome

visited your website James and must say i like the art style. most definitely would like to see a comic series dealing with AS.

I don't think that's fair on the guy from the Vines. He only got diagnosed AFTER he'd been acting like that in public. He found out he had it, disappeared from the public eye, and returned all the more calm. I don't think this is going to have the effect you want. I mean the story is going to essentially end up being two characters with asperger's, one of whom is an as*hole...

As I'm sure I've pointed out in other threads, I'm a little suspect of people writing about thier own problems and using self-insertion. So, here are my thoughts.

Firstly, you have an idea, which is good. However it's a very simple idea and doesn't hold alot of weight.
the story is a bit brief, the comic probably won't be very long unless you have alot of filler which you haven't talked about. Also, you haven't given us a clear idea of the ending concerning the two character's relationship.
Next, the self-insertion. it is rarely a good idea to include yourself as a fictional character. Yes, I know that all characters come from certain aspects of the writer's psyche, but they need to be completely understood to the author for them to come across as believable, so inserting yourself as a protagonist will be bad unless you have phenominal self-understanding.
Next your audience. or Rather, how seriously are you taking this project? are you doing it for a laugh, or are you intent on being published. the former is fine, but if you're going for the latter this is going to be a monumental struggle. If you're just writing this comic to show to your aspie mates, go ahead, but you really should think about the bigger picture. Autism is not something the general public are going to take a keen interest in. And, before anyone brings up the subject of Mark Haddon's Curious Incident... I'll point out that Mr Haddon is not autistic, has an unbiased view of the spectrum, and knows how to tell a story as well as give an insight into the mind of someone with AS. If you write about your own opinions of your condition, I suggest you do it through an allegory that NTs will also be able to enjoy. Look at Animal Farm. if it hadn't been set on a farm with human characters, it would've been a very bland piece of propaganda, but instead we get an interesting metaphor for the human condition that people can understand with ease.

My final thought: if you're hyperlexic, by all means go ahead. However, don't expect much to come of it, it won't make you a career as a professional artist if you aren't one already.

Yeah, you certainly want a more extensive, more fleshed out story - and again, putting yourself as the central character isn't the best move. In fact I've always been of the opinion that the central chracter in a story should be as far away from oneself as you can make it for that escapism factor.

I think that working Asperger's into a story is an interesting move although it doesn't exactly scream 'mainstream success.'

Also keep in mind, if you want this to be published you can only put a certain amount of it up on the net. If you put too much of it up on the net there's no point publishing what can be got easily for free.