While I was writing the second arc to ARMY@LOVE (issues 6-12) a generational conflict among the characters started to develop. The series is set five years in the future, so I began looking around for a tag that described the current generation of kids in the way that “Baby Boomer”, Gen X, Gen Y and Gen Z had been hung on previous generations. Other than “The Noughts” there wasn’t much out there so I began thinking of what I could come up with that would work satirically.

I asked my son, Kirby, who at 17 was right in the age zone, and he suggested “pwned” which originated in the on-line gamer community as a jokey misspelling of “owned”. I liked it so much I made it the title of the second collection. The rationale behind “Generation Pwned” is explained by ROYDEN in panel 4 of this page from ARMY@LOVE #10.

Also, I’m delighted to report that Gary Erskine has been nominated for an Eagle Award partly for his extraordinary ink work on ARMY@LOVE. You can vote for him over at the Eagle Awards website.