After years of jobs painting “do not enter” signs at Hilton Coliseum and drawing accidents in the Air Force, Chris Rich-McKelvey ran out of excuses not to do what he loved — creating comic books.

In October 2002, the former ISU student released his first comic book, “Footman 15: Fairy Fire,” but he can’t seem to find a suitable job title.

“I found myself taking on roles I never dreamed of: penciler, inker, letterer, writer, editor, salesman, pimp, whore, ass kisser … ” Rich-McKelvey says.

The “Footman 15” series is about a highly trained female character whose job is to assassinate the things one might call monsters, myths or legends. The Footmen seek to kill fairies, pixies, angels, demons and other mythological characters in order to make sure reality stays the way society dictates. Footman 15 is the 15th in a series of Footmen dating back to 1598.

“I wanted to combine many of the elements I liked about the different comics I read,” Rich-McKelvey says.

Those elements combine into a character that is mysterious, good-looking, female and on a mission to deal with the paranormal.

“The best part of doing this comic is that I get to research all kinds of myths and legends that I never would have known about and then conceive of a way to kill them,” he says.

He describes one instance of finding a totem in a shop selling cultural items from South America and researching the mask for the comic. He discovered that the totem dealt with a ritual of human sacrifice.

“I never would have known about these things if I wasn’t doing the comic,” Rich-McKelvey says.

It’s an obscure character for a reason. Rich-McKelvey says people have asked him to use mainstream characters, but the premise doesn’t call for it.

“People ask me if I’m going to do an issue on the Loch-Ness Monster or Bigfoot,” Rich-McKelvey says.

He won’t be. His reason: “Those [monsters] are just things the organization that trains the Footmen created as propaganda to keep people distracted.”

Rich-McKelvey, a former ISU student, was about 20 credits away from finishing a degree in fine art when he went to work for Mayhem Collectibles, 2532 Lincoln Way. He doesn’t foresee himself going back to school to finish, but he did learn valuable skills for his comics while in school.

Learning how to draw everyday objects is one thing he cites as an important skill he acquired.

“I used to have a sketchbook that I carried around, and when I saw something I had never drawn before I would just stop and try to draw it in the sketchbook,” Rich-McKelvey says. “People ask if you can draw Batman. Anybody can draw Batman. You have to be able to draw Batman in a cave with a car and a computer system.”

When he left Iowa State to become a partner at Mayhem, Rich-McKelvey learned important skills in other areas.

“I learned a lot about how the industry works,” he says.

He also made some important contacts with well-known people from the industry, including Frank Cho. Cho, a well known comic artist, agreed to do the covers for the “Footman 15” series. Rich-McKelvey says Cho’s reputation is part of why his sales for the first issue were about four times what first issues usually sell.

“There are a lot of Frank Cho fans out there, and if that helps my comics sell, that’s great,” Rich-McKelvey says.

The second issue of the “Footman 15” series took Rich-McKelvey almost six months to complete and is due out late this fall, but he hopes to pick up the pace to about one issue every two months in the future.

“I’ve thought out the future of ‘Footman 15’ about three years,” Rich-McKelvey says, “but more than that — I don’t really want to give away.”