Hall, who is majoring in creative writing and advertising/public relations, and his brother Horacio are enabling Zeek on his journey, and recently received an offer of help from Charlotte Hornets basketball player Johnny O’Bryant III.

If this all sounds like fantasy mixed with reality – it is.

The brothers from South Miami Heights are real, but Zeek resides in the new manga comic Stratum 21, soon to be released by O’Bryant’s creative agency, Noir Caesar, which produces creative art, fashion and music.

Hall said a Noir Caesar representative saw images of their characters on Stratum 21’s Instagram and reported back to O’Bryant, owner and founder of the company, who arranged to carry the brothers’ first comic series on the company’s website. O’Bryant has been in the NBA since 2014 and he started his company to intertwine Japanese anime culture with African-American street wear and hip-hop culture.

The first chapter of the story is scheduled to come out Sept. 21. Stratum 21 takes place thousands of years after a cataclysmic event shattered the planet Strata into 20 pieces. The inhabitants have rebuilt society but three factions are fighting for control. Main character Zeek knows little about the world he lives in until he meets a Seeker and learns what life entails. Aspiring to join their ranks, he leaves his swamp home in search of life’s greater purpose while joining forces against the dark side that despises the Seekers.

“Stratum 21 is exactly the title we were looking for to add to the fall lineup. It’s about adventure and discovering yourself in a world that’s fallen off the brink,” said Corey Mikell, production manager for Noir Caesar. “It’s a timeless tale of self-discovery and the pursuit of happiness in an unfavorable situation. It teaches people to keep moving forward, no matter the setback.”

Hall said physical copies of the manga will be released every seven chapters.

“These books are special because they can be read as any other comic would, but if one were to download the app, Stratum21+, which is in the works, and put their phone camera over the images on the page, the panels will begin to animate on the mobile device,” he said.

Branden, 21, is the team’s writer, while Horacio, 24, an illustration/animation graduate of the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, is the artist. The brothers enlisted the help of a friend, Grant Price, as editor. They describe the art as similar to the comics Boondocks and Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Branden Hall also likes to rap, write children’s and short stories, is working on a movie script and works on The Cypress Dome Society, Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ă˝â€™s undergraduate literary organization.

Horacio Hall said he started drawing because their other brothers used to draw comics and watch anime.  “I used to practice drawing the characters from those shows,” Horacio said. “I started reading comics in the fifth grade when (anime character) Inyuasha became popular.”

Another brother, rapper Ty, will appear on the animated version of Stratum 21’s title sequence.

Brendan Hall said he credits his writing development to Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ă˝ English professors Laurie Uttich, Susan Jardeneh, Kevin Meehan, Jocelyn Bartkevicius, Obi Nwakanm and Terry Thaxton.

“I couldn’t even write an interesting paragraph of a story before I came to Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ă˝,” he said.

To keep up to date on Zeek’s journey, go to .

Instead, I heard “Get a job.” (And: “You’ve only got six months before you start paying off that student loan.”)

I was encouraged by many, of course, to find work that I would enjoy, that would maximize my skills and my creativity. I was raised to believe money didn’t matter all that much. But I wasn’t told to “find your passion” and, if I was, I’m not sure I could have found it…even if you’d given me a glass of wine and a life coach.

It’s possible this is a Midwest sentiment. I grew up in the heartland, raised by first-generation Americans. We’re known to be relentlessly practical (and polite). And, it’s possible, I was told this and no longer remember because I didn’t take it seriously.

This may seem odd to my creative writing students and people who know me well, because I am a person who is passionate about many things, especially reading literature and trying to write it. My mother says I began reading at 3 and even if she’s exaggerating, my favorite childhood memories are summer days in the hammock with my library books. When I wasn’t reading, I was writing or, at least, watching the world as a writer does, observing and analyzing while trying to make meaning out of it all. Not much has changed in 40-some years. But still it seems odd to call it my “passion;” it’s simply who I am as a person. The act of writing rarely feels like an act of passion. It just feels hard.

After graduation, I spent the next 15 years writing for various advertising and marketing companies. I wasn’t passionate about these positions, necessarily, but there were projects I became passionate about. At night, I still read and I wrote what I wanted to write, not what I was paid to do. I joined writing groups and book clubs; I went to workshops and readings. I published a few things. I even got paid a few times. I’m mathematically challenged, but if I had to guess I’d say I average about .0002 cents an hour for my creative work (and that’s probably a high estimate).

I suppose to many that doesn’t feel like success or, at least, it certainly doesn’t seem to correlate with the notion that “the money will follow.” The money, for my “passion,” hasn’t even limped behind me. And while I’m happy it worked out for Walt Disney and Steve Jobs, I lose zero sleep over my own “passion” income.

When I started the MFA program in creative writing in my late 30s, I looked at it as a gift I gave myself. For years, I felt as if I wasn’t improving artistically on my own. I get weary when people say “writing can’t be taught.” Of course, it can. It’s the equivalent of saying trumpet players are born that way. My professors helped me shape my work in immeasurable ways. I’m forever grateful.

While I was there, I taught as a graduate teaching assistant and found I loved teaching. After I graduated, I was fortunate enough to be hired. I tell everyone—often—how much I love my job. I work hard to do my job well and to keep growing as an educator. I feel like it was something I was born to do, but I’m still not sure I would call it “following my passion.” I am passionate about my students. I am passionate about the work we read and the work they write. I am passionate about the service-learning work they engage in. When I stop being passionate about these things, I’ll find something else to do. But even though the term “passion” remains problematic for me, I suppose I reserve it for my own creative work…which still hasn’t produced any real income despite a growing list of publications.

My students often ask me how to make a living as a writer of literature. I know very few people who do, so I send the students to speak with visiting authors and others in our department. I tell them about jobs they can get as students with degrees in the humanities. I’m convinced studying the arts—and trying to create your own art—makes you a better person, one this world desperately needs. I’m hugely proud of them and their willingness to pursue this path.

But I worry about this rhetoric we seem to collectively agree on, one that assumes everyone has a “passion” that’s full of power and just waiting to be unearthed and used for financial gain. Some people do; some people may not. But I believe everyone has a purpose, and everyone can find activities that fulfill them. And, sure, those activities can absolutely lead to jobs, but they don’t have to.

If you do what you love—or what you like or what you find important or useful for yourself or for the causes you believe in—it’s possible “the money will follow.” But it’s also possible, it won’t.

Do it anyway.

Laurie Uttich an instructor of creative writing in the English Department. She can be reached at laurie.uttich@ucf.edu.

I missed him, too.

You could blame technology and assume we were texting or tweeting or making cat memes on Tumblr. But in actuality we were all intently watching the one-minute video, an observation test  produced by a company hoping to promote increased awareness of cyclists.

At the beginning of the video we’re instructed to count the number of passes one of the teams makes. We’re pretty successful with that—(spoiler alert: It’s 13)—but then, the announcer asks if we’ve noticed the “moonwalking bear.” We haven’t, but next time, we look for him and it’s painful how obvious he is. As the video states at the end, “It’s easy to miss something you’re not looking for.”

I think about this moonwalking bear when a student sends me an email with shouty caps and four exclamation points over a mistake I made on a grade. I think about the bear when a man flips me off while passing me, because I stopped in the middle of a suburban side street to avoid hitting a sandhill crane. And I try to think of him when one of my sons is distant with me or picks on his brother.

I’ve come to think of this moonwalking bear as the suffering in others that I can’t see. When you teach creative nonfiction, you learn quickly so many are carrying around pain. As Plato once wrote: “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”

I wonder sometimes if the ways we now connect make it difficult for us to remember Plato’s point. For me, Facebook is the ultimate “moonwalking bear,” but instead of being unnoticed, it’s taking center stage and my own posts present a one-sided, breathtakingly positive image of my life.

I’m not pretending to be happy. This year, I celebrated my 25th wedding anniversary in Europe, my kid’s football team had a big win, and my oldest son volunteered in Haiti and came back forever changed. I wrote poems and essays about things that mattered to me and some were published. I read work that moved me and watched videos that inspired me and shared the successes of students I adore. I posted about all of these events and if you looked at my wall, you’d find that 98 percent of my posts were overwhelmingly positive.

But, of course, life is more complex than that. And while I believe that happiness is an active choice—and I fight for it every day—there were tough times this year. We lost a loved one and my son had a difficult surgery that took months of rehab. I posted briefly about both…and I worried each time about bleeding all over the screen.

I’m still trying to figure out what role I want social media to play in my life and I wonder if my 98 percent of positive posts also add to our collective perception that other people’s lives are “perfect”… and I’m concerned that this perception adds pain to those who are suffering. I worry, too, that perhaps the onslaught of “positivity posts” chips away at our urge to make real connections with others, to probe beneath the profiles we’ve created for ourselves and actively listen to those in pain.

I think about Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” a great deal. I worry that this is the reality he warned us of: a culture where we are all so distracted by things we can enjoy—or buy—that we are missing what makes us human. And I worry that I’m often contributing to that culture.

Of course, there are plenty of us who do share painful stories on social media, and Facebook itself offers a constant stream of negative updates. While I may try to keep my own social media primarily “positive,” I first learned of the ISIS beheadings on Facebook and I’m hit almost daily with news of Ebola updates and refugees in Syria.

After a steady onslaught of social media, is it any wonder we sometimes feel numb to the suffering—or joy—of others?

Last June, in which researchers secretly manipulated the newsfeeds of 689,003 users by altering their number of positive and negative posts. The researchers found what you might expect: Those who received the continually positive posts (think: cat diaries and dogs reunited with veterans) wrote their own positive posts. Those stuck with a constant stream of negativity were more negative in their own posts.

We all know emotions can be contagious, but maybe we haven’t yet considered how impacted those emotions are by social media. And perhaps we aren’t yet concerned enough about how apathetic a steady diet of negative—or positive—news can make us over time. Maybe we forget that social media platforms are just that—platforms, our own personal mirages that feed our delusions about ourselves and others.

Because maybe, as the concludes, “It’s easy to miss something you’re not looking for.”

Laurie Uttich an instructor of creative writing in the English Department. She can be reached at laurie.uttich@ucf.edu.