Jared Fiori has a dream: A Maine comic book studio filled with local artists and diverse stories.

He and three buddies will soon kick off that dream with their own comic book.

Fiori is head of Studio Comic Kaze and illustrator for the studio’s upcoming “To: Helena Handbasket,” a steampunk-theme comic book narrated in letters between the main character and his mother. The book will be available through local comic book shops this fall.

It’s been a 10-year labor of love to get it there.

Name: Jared A. Fiori

Age: 36

Married/single/relationship: Married since 9/10/11.

Town: Lewiston

Job: CEO, creative director and illustrator for Studio Comic Kaze. I also work part-time at a local office supply store, but I like to keep my work life and my art life separated. I am an artist who also works in retail, not a store clerk who also draws comics.

How did you get interested in comic books? The process was pretty organic, honestly. I didn’t draw people or animals. I drew characters. As I drew them, their stories formed in my head, and that story was typically a comic book-style one, with heroes and villains struggling against one another. My first art instruction book was “How To Draw Comics the Marvel Way.” My earliest idols were people like Jim Henson and Stan Lee, who created art to entertain and tell stories, not just for its own sake. I didn’t develop an appreciation for classical visual artists until much later.

Tell me about Studio Comic Kaze: Studio Comic Kaze is, at its core, an aspiring creator-owned comic book studio. Right now it consists of three writers and an artist, but we hope to grow into a studio that can accommodate many artists and writers from central and southern Maine. There’s a lot of untapped creative talent here, and we want to help foster that talent. For now, our primary goal is to publish our flagship title “To: Helena Handbasket.” It is our hope that the success of this book will allow us to expand into bigger things, not just for us, but for other local writers and artists. Nothing saddens me more than an artist or writer that gave up their craft due to lack of opportunity. There is no greater tragedy than an untold story.

Tell me about “To: Helena Handbasket”: If the late, great Don Lafontaine were still with us and this book were made into a movie, I can already hear his trailer: “In a world powered by magic and steam, one basket-weaving mama’s boy turns to necromancy.” It is a comedic steampunk adventure that centers around a young man named Wendell Handbasket. Wendell is not a hero. He is, in fact, a self-serving, ego-maniacal huckster and necromancer who cons people into believing he is a hero. Perhaps his only redeeming quality is the love he has for his mother, Helena. The entire story is narrated in letters between Wendell and Helena.

How did you come up with the idea for it? This isn’t an easy question to answer, as this story developed over the course of about 10 years. In its earliest form, it wasn’t a steampunk comic, but a fantasy/medieval role-playing game. (Think “Dungeons & Dragons,” but much sillier.) It didn’t become much more than that until I was telling a friend, Alex Worley, about it. It was his idea to turn it into a comic book and, together, we re-imagined the story in a pseudo-Victorian world we have come to call Fioria. We brought on two more writers, Joshua Goudreau and Chad Lane, and the idea exploded into its current state.

Is there actual steam in your steampunk world? Indeed. Fioria is a world in which petroleum doesn’t exist, and steam technology is far more advanced that it ever was here. . . . The polytheistic religion of Fioria also features a deity dedicated specifically to steam.

Who are the guys working on it with you? Alexander Worley, Joshua Goudreau and Chad Lane are my brilliant writing team. Like Rumpelstiltskin, they take my vague, disjointed story ideas and weave them into narrative gold. Alex is my lead writer. He’s in charge of the team, and specializes in plot continuity and action sequences. Josh specializes in romance, pathos and the human condition. Chad is our comedian. We call upon him when the plot gets too serious or dry.

What’s the best part about working on a comic book with three other guys? Alex, Josh and Chad are all accomplished writers individually, but together they’re like Voltron, coming together to create something far more impressive than any one of us could hope to do individually, and certainly more than I could have ever done without them. This book would not be happening without them.

What’s the worst part? The four of us all have big, distinctive personalities. Our ideas for the story are, likewise, very different, and always big and dramatic. Implementing a new idea into the book requires a majority, which means at least three of us have to like it and, ideally, all of us do. This occasionally creates conflict, but not nearly as often as you would think. In spite of our individual styles, we all have the same basic plan for the direction of this book.

What’s your big goal with comics? Our ultimate goal is, of course, world domination, but we will be happy if we succeed in establishing a comic book studio in Maine with multiple titles on a vast array of themes and genres. We also want to do our part to revive and redefine the American comic book industry, which is currently suffering badly.

So, I hear you had your wedding ceremony in a library. Best place ever to start a marriage or wouldn’t recommend it? I would do it again in a heartbeat, but only if I could do it again with Alicia. I cannot overemphasize the importance of stories in my life. To me, a library is a holy place.

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