Nelson, Arvid

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Nelson, Arvid

PERSONAL:

Education: Attended Dartmouth College. Hobbies and other interests: Lifting weights, running, martial arts, old movies, Japanese animation, and video games.

ADDRESSES:

Home—New York, NY. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Comic book writer, graphic novelist, graphic designer.

WRITINGS:

(With others) Rex Mundi, Volume 1: The Guardian of the Temple, Dark Horse Comics (Milwaukie, OR), 2006.

(With others) Rex Mundi, Volume 3: The Lost Kings, Dark Horse Comics (Milwaukie, OR), 2006.

(With others) Rex Mundi, Volume 2: The River Underground, Dark Horse Comics (Milwaukie, OR), 2007.

(With others) Rex Mundi, Volume 4: Crown and Sword, Dark Horse Comics (Milwaukie, OR), 2007.

killer 7, Devil's Due Publishing (Chicago, IL), 2007.

(With Lee Tae-Hang) Hellgate: London, Volume 1, TokyoPop (Los Angeles, CA), 2008.

Also author of comic book Zero Killer, Dark Horse Comics (Milwaukie, OR).

SIDELIGHTS:

Arvid Nelson is the author of popular comic book series, including "Rex Mundi" and "Zero Killer," tales that deal in alternate history. Inspired by the book Holy Blood, Holy Grail (as was Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code), Nelson's "Rex Mundi" series looks at what might be the bloodline of Christ with a story set in the Europe of 1933 and in which there has been no Reformation, thereby making the Catholic Church the most powerful international institution. As Nelson explained to Paul Dale Roberts of Jazma Online, the story is convoluted: "The main characters are Doctors Julien Sauniere and Genevieve Tournon. They have a complicated relationship; they care about each other but Genevieve is overly ambitious while Julien is morose and self-defeating. Julien investigates the theft of a scroll from his friend, a Catholic priest. The theft leads to a series of murders that puts Julien on the trail of a thousand-year-old secret society claiming to possess the Holy Grail." Into this mix comes the Duke of Lorraine, descended from the medieval knights who conquered Jerusalem during the Crusades as well as from Jesus and Mary Magdalene. The Duke is trying to become all-powerful by using the secrets of the Grail. Nelson further described the comic book saga to Matt Skaggs of Skullring.org: "It's a quest for the Holy Grail told as a murder mystery." Roberts found the work to be a "very intelligent and very well researched comic book." Similar praise came from a Publishers Weekly reviewer who found the third paperback compilation, Rex Mundi, Volume 3: The Lost Kings, an "unusually rich thriller."

Nelson's Zero Killer also deals in alternate history, but is a postapocalyptic tale set in a New York still devastated by a nuclear war in 1973. The United States has become a militarized autocracy and gangs rule the crumbling streets. Zero, the protagonist of the tale, hunts down gang members for a brutal living. "For me, looking at history differently is a way of letting my imagination run wild," Nelson told Comic Book Resources contributor Dave Richards.