4. The relationships that build this universe.

Read from the Magazine Edition

By Fernando Velez

The Queen’s Heroes was not built only with art, time, and financial investment. It was built through relationships, belief, and different forms of love that carried the project during its most fragile moments. Before it became a universe, it was simply an idea that lived in conversations with friends who saw potential before there was anything concrete to show. When I first imagined The Queen’s Heroes, it was meant to be a small section at the end of the magazine, almost an experiment. It was not intended to become the center of my life. But while I was just sharing my crazy ideas, my friends—especially Stuart Waldman and Don Kraft—saw the true potential in them. They insisted that I look at the comic as a serious project, believing I had the creativity and dedication needed to turn it into reality. That’s how they gave me a bit of money to start chasing that new dream. 

Those contributions were not large in scale, but they represented something far more valuable: belief at a time when the project had no proof behind it.

Around that same time, I met Waiyen and we began dating. Our relationship developed alongside the earliest stages of the project, and both were new, uncertain, and full of intensity. I have always been obsessive about my dreams. When an idea takes hold of me, it consumes my thoughts completely. I think about it constantly, and my emotional intensity makes it difficult to separate myself from the work. Waiyen was younger and still searching for his own purpose, but he believed that this idea could become something meaningful. Rather than remaining outside of it, he chose to step into the process with me.

In those early years, the project looked very different. It was called Class6, and the sketches of the heroes were still forming. I spent long hours writing pilots, refining story structures, directing artists, and shaping the tone of what would eventually become The Queen’s Heroes. Waiyen focused on logistical support in the beginning, handling emails, organizing submissions, and coordinating communication with artists — the invisible framework that allowed the creative work to move forward. As the project grew, so did his involvement, and together we built the foundation that allowed it to stand.

Waiyen's influence can be felt throughout all these projects. He never let me settle for less; he always pushed me to give my best because he knew I had it in me. We both sacrificed so much. Even when he occasionally felt some resentment toward the project, he was still there in every way possible, helping me so I could focus on writing. Back then, the writing consumed me completely; I was working twelve hours a day, and our entire relationship began to revolve around it. I saw it as our future, as the only way out of the life we were living. I knew that if this project didn’t happen, our lives wouldn't change... and neither would the lives of my artists.

I kept revising scripts and he would be hiring new artists when the work was not strong enough. We raised the standard again and again, even when it cost more time and more money. Everything we had went back into the project. Savings that could have gone toward stability went into art, editing, production tests, and development. This was no longer something we talked about casually. It was something we were building with our entire lives.

We faced new challenges, new opportunities, growth, and setbacks, but everything took a drastic turn when I was asked to move to Los Angeles. We knew that our paths were beginning to move in different directions, and we made the decision to continue separately. It was hard for us to accept that what we had would evolve into a strong friendship rather than remain a romantic relationship. At the same time, that separation gave me something I had not fully experienced before: complete focus. I was no longer torn between preserving a relationship and protecting my purpose. I was free to create without restraint, to dream bigger, and to allow my creativity to move without hesitation.

That solo journey forced me to confront my own struggles and rebuild myself. It was not only the launch of a new phase of the project but the launch of a new version of me and the start of building the most essential relationship, the one with myself. There were days when I would not leave my building for days. I was writing, thinking outside the box, testing games, developing music, and expanding the universe at full creative scale. We so often focus on relationships with friends, family, and romantic partners that we forget the relationship with ourselves. I worked around my routines and habits to build a strong relationship with myself.

Looking back, the relationships with friends, romantic partners, mentors, and even the fleeting connections I formed along the way lasted exactly as long as they needed to. The years Waiyen and I spent building together became part of that foundation, but so did the friends who believed in me early on — people like Stuart and Don, whose support carried me through some of the most fragile years of this project, and who did not live long enough to see it become what it is today. Their legacy now continues to live inside the universe they helped sustain.

Some relationships were meant to stay. Others were meant to spark something new and move on. Each one created space for this project to grow in ways I could not have anticipated at the time. And eventually, there came a point when the only relationship left to carry it forward was the one I had with Fernandito — the boy who had first imagined these heroes long before I understood how much it would cost to believe in them.

Once someone told me that what you do is only half of the equation — the other half is who you do it with. Looking back now, I understand that this universe was never sustained by discipline alone. It survived because of love in its many forms: friendships that offered encouragement before there was proof, relationships that made space for late nights and obsessive routines, and even the distance that allowed me to keep building when others could no longer walk the path with me.

Experiences like these shaped not only my life, but the way I approached storytelling. This is why The Queen’s Heroes was never meant to revolve around a single protagonist. Just as no one person carried me through those years alone, no single hero could carry the weight of the story on their own. The universe grew to include friendships, chosen family, romantic bonds, and mentors because that is how we survive in real life — through connection. We are all shaped by the people who walk beside us, and even by those who are no longer here. In many ways, the relationships between the heroes reflect the same interconnected support systems that allowed this universe to exist in the first place.

I have come this far because of the relationships I’ve built along the way. Some people came into my life to motivate me, unlocking new talents within me; others came to guide me onto the path that would lead me here, and some walked beside me and this project until I was ready to continue on my own. These connections are part of this universe—and more importantly, they are part of my growth into the Fernando who is ready to take on whatever comes next.

In many ways, the same principle applies to the story itself —  because
survival, resistance, and hope are rarely individual acts. They are collective ones.