Hey Kids! Comics!

I know I haven't been posting to this blog much in the last few months, but Spring is here and all the distractions that plagued me over the Winter From Hell™ are receding in the rear-view mirror, so it's time to get back to the "shameless self-promotion and pop culture commentary" this site promised.

Let's begin with  the "self-promotion," and a long-overdue look at the Atomic Pulp line of webcomics. If you're reading this, then your almost certainly aware that I write, and publish online, three weekly, serialized webcomics (did I mention that they're free?): Gravedigger, Perils On Planet X, and Femme Noir.

• Gravedigger is more than halfway through its action-packed second continuity, "The Predators." Over the last couple months we've had some scheduling issues due to various circumstances on both my part and multiple-award-winning artist/co-creator Rick Burchett's, but it looks like we're back on track now, with new installments every Monday. Once "The Predators" wraps, we plan to move right into the third - and biggest - Gravedigger caper, tentatively titled, "The Abductors." Like "The Predators," this one is brand-new, and has never been available in any format before.

• Every Wednesday sees an episode of Femme Noir, drawn by my pal, Joe Staton, who is currently shaking up the funny pages as the artist on the Dick Tracy newspaper strip. At the moment, we are re-presenting previously-published stories while we gear up to produce a new graphic novel.

• The most popular of the Atomic Pulp webcomics (in terms of monthly traffic) is Perils On Planet X, which updates on Fridays. This swashbuckling interplanetary adventure, which is illustrated by the immensely talented Gene Gonzales, and colored by Ian Sokoliwski, has updated like clockwork for more than a year now, with no missed weeks. We're about a third of the way into Chapter Three of the first storyline, "Hawke Of Terra," and looking toward the future. We're working on plans for a collected volume (and maybe some crowdfunding to pull it off) of this first "Book," as well as discussing future stories.

• We appreciate all comments and feedback from our readers. We also appreciate every link and referral, because the more readers we have, the easier it is justify keeping them going. So thanks, to everyone who's helped spread the word... and if you haven't read them yet: why not?

Femme Noir Returns

Okay - not too long ago, I promised that I would soon have an announcement regarding Femme Noir, the comic that I co-created with artist Joe Staton. Here it is (although it's really two announcements, I guess):

On August 14th, we're re-launching www.femme-noir.com, where Joe and I will be re-presenting classic Femme Noir comics and archiving all the pin-ups, fan art and character sketches that have been created over the last 10+ years since we debuted our fishnet-clad heroine online. We will also be using the site to keep fans informed on the progress of a new Femme Noir graphic novel, which we're shooting to get out next year.

All four issues of the 2009 "Dark City Diaries" miniseries, as well as previously-published short stories & online strips, will be serialized - for FREE - online, a page a week. If you already have these comics in your collection, the online versions will be supplemented with new bonus material (samples of Joe's pencils, my original script pages, commentary, etc.). The site will also function as a “Production Log” for the new graphic novel – and any other future Femme Noir projects/products.

It is our hope that new readers will enjoy the stories as serialized, but, of course, the print versions will also be available for purchase from publisher Ape Entertainment (as long as supplies last!) for the impatient. We also hope that folks who already have these stories will enjoy the bonuses and project updates. Along with the reruns, we'll be occasionally previewing work-in-progress art from the forthcoming graphic novel, "Cold, Dead Fingers," and have other surprises in the works, as well.

Now... about that "Cold, Dead Fingers: The Graphic Novel." This will be a completely re-written and re-drawn, extended version of the very first Femme Noir online comics continuity, which appeared way back in 2000-2001. The basic plot remains the same, but it will be considerably expanded-upon, with additional characters, subplots, and action beats.

Femme Noir co-creator Joe Staton will, as always, pencil the book, and my frequent collaborator, Gravedigger artist Rick Burchett, has volunteered to ink it. Rick got his professional start inking Joe on E-Man at First Comics in the 1980s, and they make a formidable artistic team. Colors will be provided by the talented Matt Webb, who previously colored a couple issues of "The Dark City Diaries" miniseries. We're starting production on "Cold, Dead Fingers" this month, and hope to have it completed and released sometime in 2014.

Anyway - I know some folks will be disappointed that this announcement is mostly about re-presenting the existing Femme Noir stories online, but it is our hope that we'll be able to provide enough new content to keep our old fans interested and involved, while using the serialized web versions to attract new readers. So that's the news: classic Femme Noir serialized online for free, lots of bonus material (new and old), and a new graphic novel gearing up.

We hope you’ll check out femme-noir.com in a couple of weeks and make it a regular part of your online reading habit.

Kickstarting the Ineffable Aether

As you all probably know, my Gravedigger collaborator/co-creator/artist extraordinaire Rick Burchett is also one of the creative forces behind another prominent webcomic, Lady Sabre And The Pirates Of the Ineffable Aether, which is written by best-selling novelist and famed comic scribe, Greg Rucka.

Well, they’ve been producing their bi-weekly, swashbuckling steampunk aerial adventures for a year and a half or so, and are now planning the first hardcover trade collection. In order to put together the best possible print edition, they’ve just launched a Kickstarter campaign. If you click on that link, you’ll see exactly what they have planned, and what they’re asking, along with the rewards they’re offering to contributors.

If you love action-adventure comics, you owe it to yourself to check out Lady Sabre. You already know what an accomplished artist and storyteller Rick is, and in Lady Sabre he’s really cutting loose with some of the finest work of his career. I’ll be kicking in to the campaign, and suggest you consider doing so, as well.

It’s a great comic… and you can never have too many of those.

PERILS ON PLANET X & GRAVEDIGGER Return

Finally, after more than a decade of trying to pull my comics projects Perils On Planet X (an interplanetary swashbuckler in the Flash Gordon tradition) and Gravedigger (a hardboiled crime caper inspired by the Gold Medal paperbacks of the 50s) together and out to the readers, I'm pleased to announce that both projects - which originally started life together as online comics on the long-defunct AdventureStrips site - are returning to the Internet as weekly webcomics.

This is something I'd been thinking about for a long time, and thanks to my amazing wife, Brandi, who figured out how to set up proper webcomics sites, I'm finally able to get these comics back online. 

Perils On Planet X, with art by the exceptional Gene Gonzales, will debut on February 1st, with a new page being posted every Friday. Although the previous webcomic version was drawn by Jon Plante, this version is expanded and completely redrawn by Gene, with colors (on the first chapter) by Ian Sokolowski. The plan is to serialize the entire graphic novel (around a hundred pages or so) online, and then collect it in a print version upon its completion. We already have six month's worth of pages completed - and six months' more drawn and lettered - so maintaining the weekly schedule won't be a problem.

Gravedigger, by Rick Burchett and yours truly, will debut on February 4th. We'll be posting a page a week every Monday, starting with the original Gravedigger story, "The Scavengers" (which hasn't been seen online or in print for years) and then serializing the new one... "The Predators." As with Perils On Planet X, the plan is to collect both storylines in a graphic novel format once they are completed.

When we get closer to the launch, I'll announce the website addresses and provide links.

Old School Geek

Here's an oddity from my files. About six or seven years back I was considering creating another online comic, but unlike Femme Noir, Perils On Planet X and Gravedigger, I thought I'd try my hand at a humor strip instead of serialized adventure.

Since "geek"/gaming humor seemed (and continues) to be the most popular genre for humor webcomics, I thought I'd write a strip about my high school days in the early 80's and what passed for geek culture back then. The original Dungeons & Dragons and other classic RPGs, TRS-80 computers, Atari 2600 game consoles, cable TV, and whatever science fiction and fantasy fiction I remembered being particularly popular at the time among my peer group.

I called it "Old School Geek" - shortened here to "Old School" before I saw that awful Will Farrell movie - and asked my friend Chuck Bordell, an artist I'd worked with in the past, to draw it. It was actually based on a comic strip I had drawn back when I was in my 20s for the amusement of my old high school buddies, and like that strip, used my former classmates as the main characters. The goofball above with the curly hair, sideburns and glasses is a caricature of yours truly, circa 1982.

I'm pretty sure we only produced two finished strips, and this is the only one I can find. I decided that this kind of writing wasn't really my forte, and felt that the jokes (if you can call them that) were too "inside."

Anyway, I stumbled across this tonight and thought it would be interesting to post it here. Click on the image for a more readable size.

Meet John Law!

My good pal Gary Chaloner is an extraordinarily talented cartoonist. But don't take my word for it – the late, great Will Eisner was so taken with Gaz's talents, that he entrusted him with several of his classic characters, including old Spirit back-up stars Lady Luck and Mr. Mystic, as well as the one-eyed Crossroads City cop, John Law.

A few years back, IDW published a nice John Law collection, featuring both the handful of original Eisner stories from the late Forties, along with some newly-created adventures, brilliantly written and drawn by Gaz.

Now Gaz has set up a new website to archive all of the existing Law stories, and plans on continuing the series with a bunch of new adventures in the weeks and months to come. If you dig The Spirit, or crime comics in general, you should check it out.

(And, as you can see above, Gaz was gracious enough to contribute a pin-up to the forthcoming Femme Noir miniseries – a team-up, of sorts, featuring both the mystery woman of Port Nocturne and Crossroad's Finest!)

Jesus Walks Into A Bar...

...only this particular ginmill is Munden's Bar, located in the pandimensional city of Cynosure, operated by Gordon Munden and owned by John Gaunt, the mercenary better known as Grimjack.

Back when Grimjack had his own title, in those oh-so-hazy Eighties, Munden's Bar was the regular back-up feature, written by GJ creator John Ostrander (usually, although there were others, including Del Close, Kim Yale, Mike Baron, Max Collins, etc.) with art by a wide variety of talented cartoonists. Some stories were action-oriented, some were straight comedy, some were surprisingly moving.

Well, Munden's has returned, along with Grimjack, as part of the line-up at ComicMix, and so far, they've been really good. Today's is drawn by my pal and collaborator Joe Staton, and it's my favorite of the new strips so far.

Check it out.

Grimjack's back – and ComicMix has 'im!

There's a new online comics "portal" that just made it's debut: ComicMix.

What's different about this one? Well, it's got a new Grimjack graphic novel by John Ostrander and Tim Truman, to start. Grimjack's my favorite comic of all time, so anyone who brings me new GJ is already way ahead on points, in my scorebook.

They also have EZ Street, a new project from Robert Tinnel (The Black Forest) and Mark Wheatley (Frankenstein Mobster), The Adventures of Simone & Ajax, from my good pal Andrew Pepoy, new Munden's Bar stories, and, apparently, Mike Grell's Jon Sable!

New comics every day, in 6-7 page chunks. Free. How cool is that?

According to their PR, these projects will appear online for free first, and then be collected in print volumes. Sounds like a good plan to me.

Check 'em out!