A dog with ‘mutant feet’ inspired Pacific Grove resident Geoff Badeaux to write and illustrate his own comic book.

If the hallmark of every good superhero story is a hero who holds down a day job but then transforms, come nightfall or necessity, into something completely different, then Geoff Badeaux might make a good superhero. By day he works installing solar panels; by night he becomes a comic book author and illustrator.

But Badeaux isn’t the main character of the comic book he’s been working on since 2019 – that honor goes to another member of his household, his dog Nuke. Nuklear Dog is the story of a dog who, due to a radioactive burrito he ate as a puppy, now has special powers. Badeaux recently raised $3,000 on Kickstarter to support publishing the comic.

The real Nuke was adopted in Louisiana when Badeaux was in art school there, and now lives a happy life in Pacific Grove. He’s loving his “retirement,” Badeaux says, soliciting treats from passersby and enjoying walks on the beach, while vigilantly warning his humans about the dangers of going into the ocean.

Weekly: What is Nuklear Dog about?

Badeaux: It’s a story about Nuke, who is a super dog but he’s also a dog, so he’s trying to figure out what this mailman is up to and why he’s always sneaking around the neighborhood, knocking on people’s doors and generally disturbing the peace. It’s just kinda silly and fun.

How’d you come up with the idea?

Well, it’s about my dog. I got this dog in 2009 and we named him Nuclear Dog, because he has these goofy little mutant feet. He’s got, like, six toes on his back feet with an extra pad on there. It’s really bizarre looking. So we decided to name him Nuke, after Nuclear Man, who is a superhero. And after a while, and a lot of jokes about him being a superhero, I started thinking about [a comic] and decided to write it.

Our mailman was another part of the inspiration. In real life, Nuke has a unique distaste for him. He can’t stop barking at this guy. It’s a fictional story about the mailman being the bad guy, even though in real life the dog is the bad guy.

Why a comic book? What’s your background with comic books?

I just always was interested in storytelling and comic style, where you can tell the story with pictures. Even in school when I was taking writing classes, one of my teachers said about one of the stories I wrote, “This is a really visual story. I feel like I can just see it.” She started pointing me to things like The Watchmen. So basically my writing teacher was telling me I should be writing comic books instead of prose.

I think I’ve always wanted to do it. And then once you get a superhero dog, it’s like, what’s the superhero genre? It’s comic books.

Have you ever made a comic book before?

Even in high school I was drawing stuff, sketching, designing websites and reading webcomics. I just always really liked it, and kept coming up with storylines, but none of it really stuck. But then we moved here to Pacific Grove and I got a job working as a solar installer; in solar, depending on the weather, you don’t work every day. So I was just trying to find something to do on the downtime. And I decided, hey, let’s do it. That’s a roundabout way of saying: no, I haven’t published or written another comic before, this is my first one.

What kind of audience do you have in mind?

I think it’s a younger audience. I kind of wrote it a little bit for my little cousin, who lived with me for a little while, and he’s 8 now. He’s kind of the target for it – 8 to 10. Maybe older than that? I don’t know – I mean, I like it.

Do you do other art besides comic books?

Yeah. I worked for seven years as the head designer at a screen printing shop. My official [art school] degree was in photography. I stayed in art school for way too long, so I took courses in everything. And when I was younger, I thought for sure I was going to be making video games, that was the dream.

Preorder a copy of Nuklear Dog at nukleardog.com