Dean Motter commented that he got the idea for
Mister X when he was in college, where he was writing the journals, and was fascinated by the ideas of sleeplessness and
somnambulism.
Hardboiled detective stories and
silent films were also an influence, and after privately working out details of the story and premise of
Mister X for a year, Motter turned to Paul Rivoche to illustrate the work. The first four issues were written and illustrated by
Jaime and
Gilbert Hernandez, with additional writing by
Mario Hernandez. They missed the deadlines for all but the first issue of the officially bimonthly series, but Bill Marks accepted their tardiness as a necessary consequence of producing a quality comic. Issues 5 through 14 of the series were then written by Motter, with issues 6 through 13 illustrated by
Seth. After the first volume of the Motter-based series ended in 1985, a second 12-issue black-and-white series concluding the saga was written by
Jeffrey Morgan. The first six issues were penciled by
Shane Oakley, and the remaining six by
D'Israeli with inks by Ken Holewczynski. Although a 13th issue of Volume II was published, beginning a story by Seth (writing as "Wilbur Webb") the rest of the story remained unpublished until it appeared in
New Worlds Anthology. In 1996,
Caliber Comics published Volume 3, a four-issue story by Deborah Marks. The character reappeared in Motter's
Electropolis mini-series from
Image Comics in 2001–03. Motter's Vortex issues, along with the covers by
Michael Kaluta,
Bill Sienkiewicz,
Howard Chaykin,
Dave McKean, and others, were reprinted in
Mister X: The Definitive Collection (Volumes I and II) from iBooks in 2005. In 2008,
Dark Horse Comics published a hardcover book titled
Mister X: The Archives, collecting the Volume I run along with additional material including an introduction by
Warren Ellis (
Transmetropolitan), and a thesis written by Volume II writer Morgan. In 2011, they later published a hardcover collection of Volume II #1–#12, Mister X Special #1, and other stories as
The Brides of Mister X and Other Stories. The character was rebooted by Motter in the miniseries,
Mister X: Condemned, first published on December 24, 2008 by Dark Horse. He appeared in
Dark Horse Presents #12-14 (2012) and #33-35 (2014) and in two mini-series
Mister X: Eviction #1-3 (2013) and
Mister X: Razed #1-4 (2015). ==Series background==