The year was 1940. Barney and Ally Hartman, two bottlers from Tennasse, wanted to drink whisky with some style. Their preferred mixer was hard to come by where they lived, so using a bit of ingenuity, they created their own. They must have liked the taste, since they kept on making it. Naming the concoction Mountain Dew (after a slang term for moonshine), the rest became history. Long before video games were even a glimmer in a programmer’s eye, that curious citrus taste was available to consumers, ready to quench the thirst of any weary traveller.
It wasn’t until 2001 when the modern concept of Dew truly began, with the release of cherry flavored Code Red. With one simple expansion in the beverage line, the door opened to allow numerous flavors to flood in. Voltage. Baja Blast. Pitch Black. The numerous “DEWcision” variants. And of course, Mountain Dew Livewire.
First conceived as a limited flavor for the summer of 2003, the orange citrus drink quickly became a favorite for many people. How much did David Gonterman end up drinking that summer? To be fair, no one knows. But it was enough to spark his imagination, to look back on the comics he had worked on during the new millenium, and inspire him to once again relaunch the world of Bakabreakers.
Instead of being a murder mystery, or having Adam Packbell playing tournament card games, Gonterman scaled the story back, the strips becoming a slice of life narrative. Living outside of Las Vegas, Adam operated his humble coffee shop, serving its signature drink - LIvewire Latte. A drink so powerful, it somehow saved the planet Earth from untimely destruction. Joining him at the shop were a variety of characters from the Foxfire staple, including Johnny Briz. Mystic Mice, a prose piece being written around the same time, served as a prequel to the mouse’s involvement at the coffeehouse.
In 2005, Mountain Dew Livewire graduated from limited edition status, becoming a regular on store shelves. This was the same year Livewire Latte was put on hiatus. Citing issues with his operating system, as well as focusing on other projects, the strip quietly ended. Indeed, his passion comic-wise was funnelled into Scarlet P.I., the relaunch of Foxfire. But Adam Packbell was not abandoned. Instead, as hinted at in the final strips for Livewire Latte, he became the lead in Lost Boy Found, Gonterman’s first full length novel.
