If you know anything about the areas of Bethlehem and Hellertown in Eastern Pennsylvania (whether you passed through on I-78 or Routes 378 or 412, or if you've lived in the area your whole life), you may know that this general area of the Lehigh Valley marks a halfway point between the major highways to/from both New York City and Philadelphia. You may also know about a little eatery called Vassi's situated right off of the Interstate in Hellertown. Vassi's is a small, family owned restaurant known for their ice cream in the summer and their hot sandwiches and finger foods in the winter. Area families stop and eat there, local kids hang out there with their friends, and weary highway travelers poke in for a bite to eat.

Growing up nearby, I ate at Vassi's several times. In fact, several of my friends worked there throughout junior and senior high. Like most kids with people-oriented jobs, they most always had stories about some of the people who stopped in from time to time. Vassi's always drew a pretty diverse crowd, from the young families to the bored teens, but every now and then I'd hear even more interesting stories. Apparently, every now and then, a car full of very tough, very shady, and very nervous guys going from New York to Philly or from Philly to New York would come in from the highway looking for a bite to eat. They'd sit away from everyone else, keep from socializing with the employees or customers, and order and eat in a hurry, then dash right out of the place. To everyone who was there, they were highly suspicious.

Well, local rumor or urban legend said that these guys were actually part of one of the mob organizations in New York or Philadelphia, making a quick stop before going to the other city to talk to one of the other organizations. Oddly enough, several times after hearing such stories from Vassi's employees and patrons, a story would appear on one of the Philadelphia news programs about recent mafia action and interaction in the city.

This local story intrigued me, and I began to wonder what would happen if myself, or at least one of my local peers, became involved with the mafia that way. Always staying true to the idea of "write what you know," I started to write about the whole idea, looking to myself and my best friends for character ideas and to local landmarks for the setting. When I'd had a sufficient story I bounced around ideas for the proper method of telling the tale I'd created, settling on screenplay form. Although the script pretty much wrote itself from the get-go, it was never finished, and the screenplay idea was eventually scrapped. In working on the visual details and character ideas in sketches I realized the story's potential if told visually. From then on, the story of "TFA" took on a new life, this time in the form on a comic book series. ~SAS~

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