How we ended up making a comic book for a watch

Most watch collaborations don’t turn into comic books. Usually, you make the watch, shoot the campaign, write the specs, argue over a few details, and send it out into the big bad world. With Black Badger, things didn’t quite stay there.

The story didn’t begin with us sitting around trying to find a clever angle for a watch. It began with James Thompson, better known by his pseudonym, Black Badger, and the strange gravitational pull his world already had. There was already a character in there, and we just wanted to set him free. So The Black Badger started to take shape. Not a mascot. More like an unwilling protagonist who had “accidentally” stolen a ship, ignored several warnings from the law, and was now trying to talk his way out of a situation he definitely caused.

No watch needs a comic book, obviously. But sometimes a story starts pulling in that direction, and at some point it feels stranger to stop than to keep going.

It all started with James…

If you know James’ work, you’ll know it’s not exactly shy. Based in Sweden, the Canadian materials artist is well known in the watch world for luminous materials, odd textures, unexpected color, and objects that seem to enjoy making traditional luxury watch design feel a little uncomfortable, but in a good way.

That’s part of what made the collaboration interesting for us. MicroMilSpec comes from a world of purpose-built watches, military references, mission language, and functional design. James brought something else entirely, that slightly sideways thinking where you’re never completely sure whether an idea is ridiculous or brilliant until you’ve sat with it for a minute. Spoiler alert: it’s usually both.

His work has fun in it, but it isn’t random. The strange parts only work because the material side is taken seriously and because James really knows his craft. You can’t just throw lume at something and hope it becomes interesting. He understands how materials behave, how they look under different light, and how far you can push an object before it tips from unusual into silly. Although, to be fair, we probably got quite close to silly at times. That was half the fun.

…And then the world started to form

Some names need explaining. Black Badger doesn’t. Once The Black Badger started to take shape, the next question was what kind of world he existed in. Well, since we’re a watch brand,

time was the obvious thing to mess with. Not in a dry, technical way, but more as a source of power, control, and chaos. In The Black Badger’s universe, time isn’t just measured. It can be stolen, broken, hoarded, and even weaponized.

Once you start thinking like that, watches start behaving differently, too. They’re no longer objects with a bit of storytelling around them. They become things that fall out of that world and land on your wrist.

Sabotage, obviously

Project Sabotage didn’t start as a watch looking for a story. The world was already taking shape: The Black Badger, the broken rules around time, the systems he was pushing against, and the slightly chaotic logic of it all. And the watch? It was one of the physical objects inside that story. It wasn’t there to explain the universe; rather, it came out of it.

As the story grew, Project Sabotage naturally found its name. The Black Badger was already moving through a universe of power structures, enemies, bad decisions, and a ridiculous battle over time itself. And when you’ve got an unwilling protagonist trying to take on an authoritarian regime obsessed with control, there’s really only one sensible option. Sabotage, obviously!

Project Sabotage was the first time we saw how that story could become a watch. The materials, the lume, the attitude, and the language of the piece all belonged to the same place. It wasn’t a bit of lore added at the end. The watch was part of the story from the beginning.

Then, as the story began to unfold, Broken Hour started to take shape.

Drawing it properly

That meant bringing in someone who actually draws comics. It would have been easy to make something quick: a few panels, a few captions, and a bit of launch content dressed up as a comic. That didn’t feel right for this project, and it definitely didn’t feel right for Black Badger, so we hired a real comic book artist to draw every panel by hand.

It felt natural to us. We’re a watch company, so we spend a lot of time thinking about physical things and small details. The comic needed that same attitude. Not perfection in a sterile sense, but texture, expression, movement, and all the small human decisions that make a hand-drawn world feel alive.

The result is a comic that feels like part of the project rather than an add-on. It has its own pace, its own humor, and its own slightly chaotic energy. You can feel the hand in it, which is exactly what we wanted.

How Broken Hour took shape

With Broken Hour, the story couldn’t sit quietly in the background.

By then, the concept of time being broken had become impossible to ignore. Hours weren’t behaving properly, rules were starting to bend, and The Black Badger had become an unwitting and unwilling part of a problem that was much bigger than him, whether he liked it or not. Broken Hour felt less like a name we had chosen and more like something the story had handed us.

That’s when the comic started to feel different, too. It wasn’t just a way to decorate the launch or add a bit of extra lore. The whole thing had started to ask for a physical form, something you could open, read, and keep. Once we knew that, we couldn’t treat the comic like a quick extra. It had to be made properly.

Opening the box and entering the world

You see the broken time, the bad decisions, and The Black Badger generally making things more complicated than they needed to be. Then you look at the watch, and it has context. The comic gives you the setup before the watch takes over.

That’s the part we liked. The comic and the watch weren’t separate outcomes. They were two ways of holding the same story. One tells you what’s happening. The other lets you wear something that came from that strange little corner of time and space. And that’s why the comic ships with Broken Hour. When you open the box, you’re seeing the world behind what you’re wearing.

What comes next?

Project Sabotage gave us the first physical glimpse of The Black Badger’s world. Broken Hour takes it further by giving the story two forms: the comic in the box and the watch on the wrist.

We’re not trying to turn every collaboration into a comic book. With Black Badger, though, the story defines the language of the project. It’s how the character moves, how the world grows, and how these watches find their place within it.

Where it goes next, we’ll keep that to ourselves for now. But there’s more to explore here. More trouble to get into, more things to go wrong, and, knowing The Black Badger, probably more explaining to do afterward…