Two years ago, Portland animator Chad Essley never could have imagined he would become the webmaster and primary public liaison for John McAfee, the reclusive millionaire and former antivirus software mogul now sought for questioning in a Belizean murder case. But that’s exactly what happened to the aspiring graphic novelist, who is currently at work on an illustrated account of his adventures with McAfee.
The relationship between the fugitive and the cartoonist began in 2010 on a private internet forum where an anonymous entrepreneur hired Essley to produce an animated web short for an antibiotic venture called Quorumex. The mysterious businessman soon revealed himself as McAfee, and the two struck up a friendship. When the news broke this April that a gang suppression unit had raided McAfee’s property in Belize, Essley was taken aback.
“After I [heard] about the first raid, I wrote [McAfee] saying, ‘Oh my god! They shot your dogs! I can’t believe that!’” said Essley. “I received a reply that said, ‘We’re fine. Things have calmed down. Time to come to Belize. Moneypenny will arrange the details.’”
Although Essley has done most of his professional work in the field of animation at his studio Cartoon Monkey, producing animations for clients that include Microsoft and Sesame Street, McAfee asked Essley to join him on his estate and document his life in a graphic novel. After spending nearly a month with McAfee this summer, the artist began work on The Hinterland, an illustrated first-person account of his time in Belize.
After McAfee began his recent flight from the law, he first spoke exclusively with Wired’s Joshua Davis, whose coverage is collected in the e-book The Last Stand of John McAfee, and then began talking with other reporters. But he soon became disenchanted with his portrayal through media filters. That’s when he turned back to Essley, one of the few people he still trusted, to set up a website and Twitter account where he could voice his side of the story. Overnight, Essley went from being an eccentric millionaire’s comic book biographer, to serving as webmaster to a wanted man.
“I did it because I had the ability to do so for free, in a keystroke or two,” says Essley. Since then, he has kept McAfee’s often rambling personal blog WhoIsMcAfee.com up and running, and served as one of the only contacts to the millionaire fugitive, who is still on the run.
Essley is clearly concerned when he speaks of McAfee’s well-being, and has questioned his friend about whether staying in Belize is simply a drawn-out form of suicide, particularly given the Belizean police’s history of excessive force, and the country’s sweeping surveillance laws and ability to hold trials without juries.
He shows me photos of McAfee’s taxi driver, bodyguards and friends, some of whom, like Eddie Anona, are still being held by police. He shows me pristine ocean views, fresh lobster cooked at home, and many of the girls that stayed on McAfee’s estate, noting that one of them, Amy Emshwiller, tried to kill McAfee at least twice. The young woman will be a central figure in the graphic novel, which opens with one of her attempts on McAfee’s life — the same incident detailed by Davis in John McAfee’s Last Stand:
[Emshwiller] slipped out of bed and pulled McAfee’s Smith & Wesson out of holster hanging from an ancient Tibetan gong in his bedroom. Her plan, if it could be called that, was to kill him and make off with as much cash as she could scrounge up. She crept to the foot of the bed, aimed, but at the last moment closed her eyes. She pulled the trigger but the bullet went wide, ripping through a pillow. “I guess I didn’t want to kill him,” she admits.
Essley is careful not to give away too much about his graphic novel, but provided two exclusive pages from the book to Wired. An artist by trade, not a programmer or web developer, Essley seems grateful for the potential to have his first graphic novel reach an audience far broader than most independent comics work, but also visibly exhausted by his intermediate role in the media maelstrom and relieved that he’s currently handing over the some of the tasks involved with the website to a friendly benefactor in Quebec.
He hopes this will give him more time to finish drawing The Hinterland, which he says is three-quarters complete and designed to be a printed work — though an e-book with extended multimedia content is a possibility as well.
“As crazy as it sounds, I plan to share whatever revenue this project makes with John, since he’s helped me work on it,” says Essley.
While he maintains that he would take the trip to Belize all over again (“if my wife would let me”), he’s reluctant to return at the moment. “I would be afraid that the police would want to speak with or detain me in some fashion, because of my association with John. There were real dangers while I was there.”
Asked whether he thinks McAfee is responsible for Faull’s murder, Essley responded in a single word: no.
How an Obscure Comic Artist Became John McAfee's Lifeline to the World
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How an Obscure Comic Artist Became John McAfee's Lifeline to the World
