VeeFriends Issue 01 Explained: How the Story Works and What It’s Building

VeeFriends Issue 01 is the first standalone VeeFriends comic book release. Prior to this, VeeFriends comics appeared as newspaper inserts distributed across the United States, but there had been no traditional, purchasable comic book available to readers or collectors.

At a high level, the issue succeeds in tone, energy, and mythic intent. The world it’s building is conceptually coherent, and the ending lands with real philosophical weight. The problem is that the comic sometimes treats the reader’s intuition as a substitute for clear orientation. In other words, it knows what it is doing, but it does not always show its work. The result is a story that feels compelling in motion, yet occasionally under-communicated when you step back and examine how the narrative is actually moving.

The official VeeFriends Blog says the following about this VeeFriends Issue 01: 

VeeFriends joins forces with renowned comic artist J. Scott Campbell to produce the cover art of the first VeeFriends Comic Book, titled VeeFriends #1, exclusive of 555 copies for Gift Goat #15...

Gift Goat #15 holders will receive a limited edition CGC-authenticated VeeFriends #1 cover print and a CGC-graded first issue comic book...

For me, there is a major problem with the release of VeeFriends Issue 01. 

First and foremost, all 555 copies of VeeFriends Issue 01  were CGC-graded, meaning every physical copy was encased in hard plastic and sealed, making the comic unreadable. This concern was raised by D.J. Coffman, Executive Creative Director of VeeFriends and head of VeeFriends Comics, who stated in a VeeFriends community podcast interview that he discussed the issue directly with Gary Vaynerchuk during the creation process.

Gary's solution to this problem was to make all of the comics free and available to read online so that people would be able to enjoy VeeFriends Issue 01 without ever having to physically turn the pages of it. Click the link below to read them for yourself. 

Yeah. Still not cool to me. 

It’s a comic book. It’s the first one. If you want CGC-graded to be part of the release, then do it, but there should have been a physical edition that wasn’t permanently sealed for the people who actually value the tactile experience. That experience is part of why comics matter. You hold them. You re-read them. You linger on panels. You let the art breathe at your own pace.

Yes, technically they could crack the slabs but I don't think that is an acceptable option. The obvious solution is to create another edition of it that is not as rare for people who just want to have a physical version of it with pages they can actually turn and art they can stick their noses into within their collections. I think this should have been done. I think this should still be done. 

Please do this. 

The irony is that VeeFriends is a brand built on accessibility and distribution, and this launch choice prioritizes scarcity at the exact moment the universe is trying to introduce itself.

Before I talk about the story, I should probably also note that the VeeFriends Issue 01 cover art is by J. Scott Campbell, which transparently is not a name I knew without looking further into it. Scott Campbell is a well-known comic artist best recognized for Gen¹³, Danger Girl, and an extensive body of high-profile variant covers for Marvel, including multiple X-Men issues.

The VeeFriends Issue 01 cover is a deliberate homage to X-Men #1 from September 1963. That original cover, illustrated by Jack Kirby, featured the tagline “Don’t Miss This Fabulous First Issue,” a line that is intentionally mirrored on the VeeFriends cover.

Beyond the text, the homage extends to the overall character layout and implied action: a central antagonist confronted by a surrounding ensemble, each figure posed to suggest motion, tension, and imminent conflict.

While J. Scott Campbell is the artist of VeeFriends Issue 01, the explicit Kirby credit on the cover acknowledges not just the tagline, but the visual structure and narrative energy of the original composition being referenced.

It's also noteworthy that this cover contains the VeeFriends "Burn Island" volcano which is part of their NFT Ecosystem, now coming to life as a canon location within the VeeFriends universe. 

Moving on, I can say that I enjoyed the comic itself and I think it set the tone well for the introduction to the canon story of the VeeFriends characters and universe. VeeFriends Issue 01 is titled "The Battle For Balance Begins." 

The title is not just a title either. The first story page immediately frames the whole thing around division, choice, and balance. Good versus evil. Red versus blue. The world making it easy to fall into stories designed to divide us. That matters because the comic is not only introducing characters. It is introducing the moral physics of the VeeFriends universe: people change their lives through the choices they make in the moment, and the healthier path usually lives somewhere in the middle.

The opening scene is fast-paced as we see a character named Mikey who is a hacker, known as CYNICALCAT732, being violently arrested by the authorities for committing a financial cybercrime involving a phishing site. Mikey mentions he is stealing from rich people with gold chains and blockchains. He possesses almost a Robin Hood vigilante mentality. This all makes sense for VeeFriends Issue 01, as the VeeFriends brand originates in Web3 and NFTs. These topics align with the world Gary's current audience and community is coming from. 

But the PDF makes Mikey's motivation more personal than just hacker ego or crypto mischief. He is grieving his father, watching his mother struggle, and trying to use one big shortcut to fix a pain he does not know how to process. That makes him a better first human case study for this universe. Mikey is not simply doing the wrong thing because he is bad. He is doing the wrong thing because he wants the right outcome without the growth required to reach it honestly.

As the scene comes to an end, we find out that it never actually happened at all. That's right. What we were just witnessing was only a potential reality. It could still be avoided. 

The first few times I read VeeFriends Issue 01, I took this detail in stride. In hindsight, the Supercomputer-5000 moment is kind of a cheat code for understanding how this universe works. Similar to quantum superposition, these alternate timelines exist simultaneously as unrealized possibilities. In standard quantum physics, particles in superposition cannot be observed. However, in the VeeFriends World, the Supercomputer-5000 allows the team to not only observe these potential timelines, but also change their outcomes before they collapse into reality.

Probably, the Supercomputer-5000 is a quantum computer. But would that mean that Rare Robot is not a quantum computer? It’s funny to see a robot using a computer. Like, isn’t he a computer himself? But clearly, despite being a sentient machine, Rare Robot still needs something outside of himself to render the multiverse into something readable. At the same time, it does appear that the Supercomputer-5000 is plugged into the left side of Rare Robot's head during this scene. So at least their hardware and software are compatible.

It is at this point that the VeeFriends characters are introduced as a special operative force of real beings that work alongside with regular humans on Planet Earth. Specifically, in VeeFriends Issue 01, they are working with Mikey's teacher Lara. From what we can gather, their aim and purpose is to steer humanity in the direction of its greatest and highest good by intervening in people's lives at crucial moments that would otherwise have negative or catastrophic ripple effects on that person and the world. It is hinted that the VeeFriends intervened in Lara's life in the past in order to set her on the path that would lead her to becoming a teacher. 

This is where the team selection starts to matter. The comic does not present Balanced Beetle as randomly calling whoever is around. The page literally says he is inputting the scenario into the Supercomputer-5000, and its algorithm will pick the “perfect” team of VeeFriends to help with that specific scenario. The way I read that is bigger than simple matchmaking. If this machine can observe possible timelines before they collapse into reality, then it is scanning all possible outcomes, finding the version where Mikey is saved, Lara stays on her path, and the larger future bends in the right direction, then selecting the VeeFriends most likely to make that timeline happen in real time.

It reminds me of Doctor Strange in the Avengers movies. Strange needs the Time Stone to look through 14,000,605 possible futures and find the one path where the Avengers ultimately beat Thanos. In the VeeFriends universe, Rare Robot and the Supercomputer-5000 appear to compress that entire function into the mission system itself. They do not need an Infinity Stone.

The next wrinkle is how they choose to intervene. Persistent Penguin points out that sometimes people need to be allowed to fail so they can learn and grow. That makes the VeeFriends more interesting than a simple rescue squad. They are not just trying to prevent every bad outcome. They are trying to understand which challenges produce growth and which ones break the future.

Very cool. I like this introductory positioning of who the VeeFriends are and what their role is within their universe. 

Mikey embarks on his adventure with the VeeFriends after his mother guilts him into it by reminding Mikey of his dead father and how they used to enjoy collecting VeeFriends merch together. Even though he thinks they are wearing costumes and doesn't yet realize the VeeFriends are real, he agrees to go with them. Moments into the ride Mikey hits his head, passes out, and wakes up in a graveyard where he starts talking to his dead father. 

His father, Ed, explains that Mikey is not dead, just passed out, and that they are connecting within Mikey's imagination. Interesting. Before this scene ends, Mikey's dad hands him a special pack of VeeFriends cards, explains that he worked with the VeeFriends when he was alive on a mission to change the world, that the VeeFriends are real, and that he has found what they were looking for, that being the answer to the biggest mystery in the universe. Then Mikey wakes up back in the VeeFriends VeeHicle. 

Mikey awakes to find they've crash landed on Burn Island, near the ruins of an ancient coliseum which Rare Robot suggests is actually an ancient "Vee-Dome" which is a reference to the VeeFriends animated cartoon YouTube series. It's also filled with hieroglyphic type depictions of the VeeFriends on its walls. Now, it's at this point I realized we haven't been told exactly why the VeeFriends have taken Mikey to Burn Island or what they are looking to accomplish before leaving there.

Eventually, the comic does give us the answer: Ed hid the device on Burn Island, Cynical Cat found the map through the thumbdrive, and the VeeFriends are now dealing with the consequences. So the problem is not that the story never explains why Burn Island matters. The problem is that it withholds the mission objective long enough that the plot feels like it is moving before the reader knows what mission everyone is actually on. In a story about intent shaping reality, unclear motivation becomes more than a plot issue, it becomes a thematic fracture.

The plot is driven forward by the sudden disappearance and equally speedy reappearance  of Cynical Cat. He emerges floating midair in the center of the Vee-Dome, wearing a helmet with the same "no-smoking" or "prohibited" symbol that's on his shirt, and radiating a cynical energy aura. 

Another odd detail for me here in terms of things not being explicitly stated is that Cynical Cat says he found the helmet by following a map on a thumbdrive that was left to Mikey by his father, but he doesn't say how he got it? Like… how did he even get Mikey’s thumbdrive in the first place? Did he pickpocket him? Break in off-panel? That part isn’t stated, and once you notice it, it’s hard to un-notice.

Personally, I can’t tell whether this missing information is an oversight or something deliberately being held back for future issues.

I didn't really think about any of these plot holes, unanswered questions, or inconsistencies on my first read through, but again, in hindsight they are hard to ignore. 

The battle rages on for several action-packed panels. Practical Peacock acts as a decoy to distract Cynical Cat. Then Flex'n Fox nails him in the head with a rock to knock off the helmet. With this opportunity, Mikey picks the helmet up and uses it to magnify his positive energy into waves of love that he uses to bring Cynical Cat back to his senses. The "prohibited" symbol on the helmet also disappears, showing that to an extent the helmet takes on the qualities of its wearer. We realize that the helmet doesn’t actually generate positivity. It just amplifies whatever intent the wearer brings to it. This is why it becomes dangerous in the wrong hands. 

This also connects back to the deeper warning of the issue. Ed did not hide the device because positive energy is bad. He hid it because a tool powerful enough to amplify good can also be weaponized by the wrong person or the wrong motive. Persistent Penguin's later point that shortcuts do not work for real long-term solutions makes the helmet feel less like a magic object and more like a test. Artificial positivity cannot replace real inner change. It can only magnify what is already there.

As they notice the Burn Island volcano erupting behind them, VeeFriends Issue 01 closes out with the team returning to the real world after escaping. We can see that Mikey has been positively influenced by the ordeal. They've prevented the timeline the Supercomputer-5000 showed them in the beginning. It's a feel-good moment but there's one final detail that is pivotally important to our future understanding of the VeeFriends universe. 

Mikey still has the pack of cards that his dad gave to him when they met inside of Mikey's imagination in that graveyard.

What?

How is that possible?

Seemingly, in the VeeFriends universe, the world of the imagination isn't so imaginary after all. Mikey does not merely remember the impossible meeting with his father. He brings something out of it, hands it back into the real world through Lara and Persistent Penguin, and the VeeFriends immediately recognize that this changes the stakes.

Taken together, the Supercomputer-5000, the helmet, and the cards all point to the same underlying rule of the VeeFriends universe: reality isn’t governed by power or prediction, but by intent. Tools don’t create outcomes. They amplify what’s already there. The Supercomputer can model futures, the helmet can magnify energy, but imagination is the only place where something new actually enters the system. That’s why the final detail matters so much. In this world, imagination isn’t a metaphor. It’s infrastructure. 

The PDF also closes with a letters page that is more useful than throwaway backmatter. Gary answers questions about new IP, passing values to the next generation, and which VeeFriends characters he would choose for specific problems. Self-Aware Hare, Curious Crane, Competitive Clown, Happy Dolphin, and Rare Robot all get name-dropped there, which makes the back page feel like a small map of traits the wider universe may keep returning to.

After The Issue 

If what resonated here wasn’t just the review, but the way identity, intent, and character traits were treated as forces that shape reality, that same line of thinking didn’t stop with this article.

Inspired by how VeeFriends treats character traits as forces that shape reality, I created Alien Traits: a 1-of-1 NFT series interpreting each of the 251 core traits. No repeats. Each visual piece also includes a written definition of the trait it represents.

It isn’t VeeFriends art. It’s a parallel conversation with the ideas underneath it.

Explore the full Alien Traits collection here: https://opensea.io/collection/alien-traits

Character First Appearances:

1. Practical Peacock
2. Positive Porcupine
3. Optimistic Otter
4. Flex'n Fox 
5. Cynical Cat 
6. Rare Robot 
7. Persistent Penguin 
8. Balanced Beetle 
   

Character Image First Appearances:

1. Gratitude Gorilla (Plush and VeeHicle) 
2. Genuine Giraffe (Plush) 
3. Common Sense Cow (VeeHicle)
4. Patient Panda (VeeHicle) 
5. Consistent Cougar (VeeFriends Website)
6. Forthright Flamingo (VeeFriends Website)
7. Alpha Alligator (VeeFriends Website)
8. Accountable Ant (VeeFriends Website)
9. Mint Mink (VeeFriends Website)
10. Caring Camel (VeeFriends Website)
11. Bad-Ass Bulldog (VeeFriends Website)
12. Considerate Cowboy (VeeFriends Website)

Easter Eggs 

1. The line, "Where we're going, we don't need roads!" is a reference to the movie, Back To The Future. 

5. As MikeJY from X and Legendary Very, Very, Very, Very, Lucky Black Cat Maxi in the VeeFriends Community points out, Mikey's room appears to include a Kobe Bryant poster and a visible number 5 on the wall, which feels like a possible hat tip to VF Prez and GaryVee rather than random background decoration.

 

Up Next 

If you enjoyed VeeFriends Issue 01 Explained, next up is VeeFriends Issue 02 Explained!