TRUE BELIEVERS: Chapter 31 — Breaking the Fourth World

True Believers is a full-length novel by Thom Dunn, based on his play of the same name. It’s a satirical tale of star-crossed lovers, aspiring comic book creators, crazed fanboys, cybernetically enhanced humans, women in refrigerators, real-life superheroes, and girls who dress like Slave Leia as their lives intertwine over a whirlwind weekend at a comic book convention in the early 2010s.

The book will be serialized on Medium throughout the month of April 2020. Here is the first chapter. Check back every day for more chapters!

Billy uses his wrought-iron cross to literally part the seas of sardine-packed superfans that crowd the convention floor, paying no regard to Calvin’s position behind him as he scolds, “I can’t believe you let him talk to you like that! Were you even listening? He says ‘Jump,’ and you say ‘Okay, I’ll teleport.’ Ugh.”

Billy’s been to enough of these to know that you need to muscle your way through the dumbfounded clusters of Comic-Con virgins who jam up the traffic just by awkwardly staring at every flash of exposed cosplayer flesh that comes their way. It’s Calvin’s own fault if he can’t keep up — though Billy would concede (if anyone ever bothered to ask him) that he’d be more sympathetic if the n00bs were stopping dead in their tracks to photograph his costumed handiwork.