Rising from The Ashes: TASK FORCE ALPHA

Back in the early 90s, I wrote my first - and to date, only - traditional superhero comic. I was working on staff as an editor and production manager for Maine-based indy comics publisher Alpha Productions (check out the Facebook Page for more info & pix) and, after a few years of steady B&W comics production, we were planning to move up into full-color publishing with our own, extensive superhero universe. We had big plans. Multitudes of characters and an elaborate backstory to set up our "Terra Alpha" universe. Ultimately, only the first two-issue Task Force Alpha miniseries was completed...

The pencils were by Paul Pelletier, who many of you might know from his past couple of decades' DC and Marvel work on titles like Nova, Guardians Of The Galaxy, Aquaman, etc. He was clearly a major talent even then. Back-up stories were created, designed to flesh-out and add to our new "universe," showcasing the writing and drawing talents of a number of then-young talents, including Mitch Byrd and Alpha Productions jack-of-all-trades, Bob Cram, Jr.

Sadly, it was never published.

Around that time, there was a major upheaval in the way that comic books were distributed to retailers. After a failed attempt by Marvel Comics to control their own distribution, the major publishers were obliged to sign exclusive deals with the big distribution companies, forcing all the other smaller, regional distributors out of business. They disappeared virtually overnight, owing vast quantities of money to dozens of publishers... including Alpha Productions. The financial blow was devastating. Not only did Alpha Productions have to cancel the Task Force Alpha title and related projects, but it was forced to shut down operations completely.

The Alpha Productions crew scattered to the winds, and aside from a few brief intersections over the decades, I didn't see any of my Alpha Productions colleagues for around 22 years or so. In February, publisher Leni Gronros, Bob, Paul and I had dinner at a local diner, and five hours later, we'd agreed that the unpublished Task Force Alpha: Forged In Fire miniseries needed to be completed and released.

Fortunately, Paul still had all of his original artwork for the main story, and between the rest of us, we were able to dig up the back-up stories that were intended to accompany the main feature. Honestly, after almost a quarter-century, I didn't remember half of this stuff - even the stuff I wrote or created! Fortunately, after reading the story this past weekend for the first time since '94-'95, I'm pleased to say that I think it holds up.

It's a product of its time, no question. The designs, the dated pop culture references, the "edgy" dialogue with scattered nuggets of mild profanity, all speak of its origins in the Nineties. But it's solid work. I think that, creatively, it stands on equal footing with the other superhero launches of the era, from publishers like Dark Horse and Malibu, even if we didn't have "name" creators.

We're shooting to have the book available by late October. Right now, the only sticking point is paying to have it colored, and we're exploring our options on that. It was, after all, intended to be in color, and it would be nice to pull that off.

Right now we're in the process of scanning and cleaning up all of the artwork, finishing a few pages that were abandoned back in the day, and collating material. The plan is to include all of the story pages that were completed, and fill out the book with stuff like some equally-unseen pin-ups, character designs, and the like, along with an essay or two to put the project in its proper historical context.

As it comes together, I'll post updates here. If this sounds like something you'd like to buy and read, sound off in the comments!

Process: SPACE CRUSADERS

This past week and a half, I've been writing dialogue and placing rough lettering for the Rex Dexter of Mars story, "Menace of the Saurian Sphere," from my forthcoming graphic novel anthology with artist Peter Grau, Space Crusaders.

About two years ago, I sent Peter a plot, which described, page by page, the action of the story. Various life circumstances delayed further work for a while, but he recently finished his layouts/rough pencils for the whole tale. A week or so back, I needed to take a break from Gravedigger for a while, so I took Peter's roughs, loaded them into page templates and started writing the dialogue - and lettering the pages at the same time.

I find that lettering comics pages as I write the dialogue works very well for me - I scripted the last Gravedigger the same way. It helps me to see exactly where the words will be and allows me to make sure that I don't over write. And as a graphic designer, I think I'm pretty good at integrating the lettering with the art in a way that complements both.

Anyway -- I've now completed the script and letters for the Rex Dexter story, and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. It's going to be a while yet before the book itself is done - Peter still needs to ink and color the story, and we still have a second feature to do - but it's definitely a testament to Peter's storytelling skill that I never had an easier time dialoguing one of my own plots.

As always... stay tuned for future updates.

GRAVEDIGGER Vol 2 Update

Here's a very brief update on Gravedigger: The amazing Rick Burchett and I are plugging away on the second Gravedigger miniseries, which will be published by Action Lab: Danger Zone (hopefully in mid-to-late 2017). It's coming slowly, but it's gonna be great.

It's called "The Abductors," and is the longest Digger McCrae caper yet, running for a full four issues. It's an interesting challenge for me because the 4-issue length requires a different sort of structure and pacing. I also try to use each new Gravedigger story to try different storytelling approaches. This one, "The Abductors," is quite different from earlier Gravedigger stories, "The Predators" and "The Scavengers," storytelling-wise.

Since our publisher likes them - and, apparently, so do fans and retailers - we've also got a slew of variant covers planned, and a terrific group of artists to draw them. Personally, I can't wait to see how all of these talented creators interpret Digger in their own unique styles.

Stay tuned for further updates and (eventually) some sneak peeks of pages (and maybe some of those variant covers?)....

Space Crusader: Rex Dexter Of Mars!

Art by Peter Grau

For the last couple years, as I've teased Peter Grau's Space Crusaders prelim art, I've promised that I'd share more details about the project once we'd made some significant headway on pages. Well, now that we've got some momentum going, I thought it it was time to reveal a bit more about the project to you folks.

Space Crusaders is the working title of a "double feature" graphic novel that resurrects a couple of space hero characters from the Golden Age of comics.

The artwork I've shown so far is from the first of those two features: a 30-page "novella" called "Menace of the Saurian Sphere," starring Dick Briefer's Rex Dexter Of Mars character, who originally appeared in Mystery Men Comics, beginning in 1939. I've long loved the Mars-born Rex Dexter character (and his Earth girlfriend, Cynde), and thought it would be fun to pay tribute to Briefer with a new Rex adventure.

As for the second feature and its Golden Age space ace... well, I'm going to keep that one under wraps a while longer.

The SPACE CRUSADERS are coming!

I love getting art in my e-mail inbox! This time from another project ever-so-slowly inching its way to realization... the tentatively-titled Space Crusaders, a space opera anthology graphic novel drawn by artist Peter Grau. Peter and I have been slowly pulling it together over the last year or two, but it's starting to gain some momentum now. Once we get a solid chunk of pages together, I'll share more specifics obout the book.Got a bunch of awesome designs in the inbox this week; here's a peek!

Art © 2015 Peter Grau

Art © 2015 Peter Grau

Art © 2015 Peter Grau

GRAVEDIGGER #2 In June PREVIEWS

I saw this artwork on another website already, so I guess it's okay to share it here now: the pulp-tastic Rick Burchett cover for Gravedigger #2!

Here's the solicitation copy: On the run from the mob and the police, "Gravedigger" McCrae finds temporary respite with a lovely, wealthy playgirl. But it doesn't take long for his pursuers to catch up with him, and then it's no longer a matter of outrunning them, but escape from certain death. Can Digger outwit his adversaries in the savage conclusion to "The Predators?"

Gravedigger #2 is solicited in the June Diamond Comics Distributors' Previews catalog (Available May 27) from Action Lab: Danger Zone. The Diamond Item Code is JUN150869

GRAVEDIGGER #1 in May PREVIEWS

Here's the regular cover art for Gravedigger #1 by Rick Burchett! The May issue of the Diamond Previews catalog is out this Wednesday, and within its pages you'll find, under Action Lab Entertainment / Action Lab: Danger Zone, the solicitation for the first issue of the Gravedigger miniseries, due out in July. Issue #1 contains part one of "The Predators," by Yours Truly and the amazing Rick Burchett. 

Stay tuned for more details (including the product number, once I know it).

Here's a look at the limited edition variant cover for Gravedigger # 1 by Dario Briton Carrasco, with colors by Ian Sokoliwski.

Sneak Peek: The New Femme Noir!

I'm pleased to announce that the Femme Noir team - Yours Truly, artist Joe Staton, inker Rick Burchett, and colorist Matt Webb - have begun production of a new Femme Noir miniseries, "Cold, Dead Fingers."  I can't say when it will be finished, but I'm hopeful that it will be completed this year, and probably see print in 2016. No publisher yet, but I have been having some encouraging discussions.

To celebrate this new beginning, I thought you folks might like to take a look at the first page of our forthcoming supernatural crime saga. To make it more special, I'm going to share with you the process that we employ in making our Femme Noir funnybooks.

I. It Begins With The Word: In this case, I wrote a detailed plot, breaking down the storytelling in some detail. No dialogue or captions as yet - I write those after I have Joe's penciled pages in hand; as I am the letterer as well as writer, I basically do both at the same time. Here's how the plot described this first splash page:

PANEL 1. And here we go…. We begin with a movie poster-styled splash page. In the center of the image is a full-length shot of Le Femme, hat pulled down low, guns in hands, trenchcoat whipping in the wind. Behind her is a sketched in Port Nocturne skyline. On the left, there’s a huge, spookily-lit “ghostly” head shot of our brutish killer – in this iteration, he’s called “Crusher” Corrigan – and below him, a full-length image of mad scientist Dr. Karl Boroff. On the right hand side of the page, opposite Corrigan’s scary melon, is an equally spooky “ghost” head of Madame Morella MaCabre. Below her, opposite of Boroff, is a full-length figure of plainclothes dick Lt. Rod Riley, pistol drawn.

Below that, room for the title lettering – ‘COLD, DEAD FINGERS’ - and a breathless introductory caption.

II. Joe's Deadly Pencil: From this florid description, Joe draws the page in pencil, employing his considerable talent and experience, working his magic:

Joe then e-mails me a lo-res jpeg to review. Once I've looked it over, and am sure that we're both happy with it, Joe then e-mails the page as a hi-res image file to...

III. Putting The Noir In Femme Noir: ...inker Rick Burchett. Joe and Rick have worked together numerous times before, perhaps most memorably on the 1980s incarnation of E-Man. In this case, Rick is applying his atmospheric blacks digitally, using his Cintique tablet.

Once completed, Rick sends jpeg files to both Joe and I to see if we have any notes. If everything's cool, as it is here, the image is then sent on to our last teammate.

IV. Dangerous Hues: Colorist Matt Webb gets his hands on the page next, and with the original script for reference (and having colored several Femme Noir adventures before), Matt digitally - and dramatically - colors the page.

Nice, huh? Once again, a lo-resolution copy of the colors is sent out for approval of all and sundry. Then, it all comes back to me.

V. The Final Words:  With the finished page in my e-mail box, I take it into Photoshop and fit it into the appropriate page template. Having scripted the dialogue - or in this case, caption - when I got the pencils, I then do the lettering in Illustrator. Finally, I drop the text in on the page back in Photoshop...  and voilà!

So that's how we do it. Repeat for pages 2, 3, 4 and so on... until the book is complete.

Stay tuned here for future Femme Noir updates, sneak peeks and announcements (which will always appear here first!).

Big GRAVEDIGGER News

It was just a little over two months ago that the hardboiled crime comic that I created with artist Rick Burchett, Gravedigger, concluded its online serialization. At the time, I speculated that we wouldn't have to wait long for the character's return... and here it is.

Rick and I have just signed with Action Lab Entertainment's "Danger Zone" mature readers imprint, to bring the two existing Gravedigger sagas - "The Scavengers" and "The Predators" - to both print and digital formats in 2015. The stories will be presented in a three-issue comic book miniseries format and as a digital edition on Comixology. Action Lab will be making their own announcement soon, and there will be more details revealed then.

The release dates haven't been set yet, but you can be sure I'll be plugging the hell out of the book when the time comes!

Wednesday Cover: SHAZAM!

Technically, this is Limited Collector's Edition C35, a "Treasury Sized" collection of Captain Marvel comic book stories reprinted by DC Comics in 1975. This photo cover features actor Jackson Bostwick who portrayed the World's Mightiest Mortal for two seasons of the Filmation Saturday morning Shazam! television series. I've been revisiting the 1974-76 series on DVD this past couple of weeks, and I remembered having this oversized comic when I was a kid. (FYI - I'll be reviewing the newly-released Warner Archive Shazam! DVD set over at my DVD Late Show and Space: 1970 blogs shortly.)

Buck Rogers Returns... Again

Well, I know absolutely nothing about this new, forthcoming comic book incarnation of Buck Rogers except that writer/artist Howard Chaykin is involved, and that this Chaykin-drawn poster made its debut at Comic-Con this past week.

From the outfits, it looks like the project is going to harken back more to the original 30s comic strip than the recent Dynamite Comics series did -- which is a good thing in my book. It's been a long time since I had much interest in any new comics (even ones based on favorite characters, like Buck), but I used to be quite the Chaykin fan, so.... color me intrigued.

I look forward to hearing/seeing more... hell, I even broke down and bought the first Dynamite Buck Rogers trade, eventually.

FEMME NOIR: Demon Bat

And, in celebration of "Creator-Owned Comics Day," here's 5-page Femme Noir sampler by yours truly, Dick Tracy artist Joe Staton, Mark Stegbauer and Michael Watkins, an action-packed, tongue-in-cheek tribute to one of my favorite Poverty Row Bela Lugosi pictures. This short originally appeared in the 2009 Free Comic Book Day special from Ape Entertainment. (I've actually posted this story here on the blog before, back in '09, but the images were hosted elsewhere and have since disappeared...)

And, of course, the trade paperback collection of the first Femme Noir comic book miniseries, The Dark City Diaries, is still available.

Femme Noir: Dark City Diaries

PERILS ON PLANET X: Lair of The Science-Witch

This short comic story was originally created several years ago when the ultra-talented Jon Plante and I were doing the weekly webcomic version of the interplanetary swashbuckler, Perils On Planet X, at the short-lived AdventureStrips website. Steve Conley offered us 4 pages in the back of his terrific Astounding Space Thrills comic book to give his readers a taste of the Planet X strip. Unfortunately, everything kinda collapsed at that point, the webcomic disappeared, and the short story above never saw print.

A couple years later, I teamed up with the equally ultra-talented Gene Gonzales to reinvent Perils On Planet X as a comic book/graphic novel. That version has also had a tumultuous, start-and-stop history so far, but... I'm hopeful that we will wrap up the first storyline ("Volume 1") this year and finally get it out to the world - probably in both print and digital form. Gene and I have been working out a plan, and I'm optimistic. Stay tuned for announcements in the months to come.

This 4-pager was designed simply to provide a quick intro to the POPX world and characters. It does give the first glimpse of the raknyri - the deadly scorpion-men of the planet Xylos - and if I ever get around to writing the second and third "volumes" of the epic POPX trilogy I have lodged in my head, we'll be seeing a lot more of those critters.

I hope you enjoy it, and Jon's unique artwork.

Gravedigger Noir

Here are three preview pages from the new Gravedigger comic story, "The Predators," which will be included in the new graphic novel, Gravedigger: Hot Women, Cold Cash. (Click on images for a larger view.) The scans aren't great - and I had to piece them together in Photoshop, so the tones aren't quite matching up - but it'll give you an idea of how the story's going to look.

The art is fully rendered in gray markers by artist Rick Burchett. I love it! It looks like something out of an old Warren or Marvel B&W magazine; in specific, it reminds me of the B&W work of the great Russ Heath.

Anyway, we're closing in on it, and I still hope to have it completed and turned in to Ape Entertainment sometime in the next month or so. I know it's been a very long time coming, and I hope folks ultimately decide it was worth the wait.

Night Stalking in Graphite

Here are three pages of pencils by artist Jaiime Martinez from the new, Kolchak The Night Stalker ongoing series that I'm writing for Moonstone Books. Entirely because of me, this project has taken far longer to get started than anyone wanted, but - I'm getting back on track, and, in fact, am writing a new script this week.

Nice art, though, right? Okay, sure, there's not a lot happening in these pages - it's primarily an expositional scene - but Jaiime does a great job capturing both the atmosphere and real-world nature of Carl Kolchak's universe. I like it and am eager to see the finished product.

More previews soon.

Black as Midnight

Here's another look at the first page of the Captain Midnight story for the upcoming Moonstone Air Fighters anthology - this time inked by my CM partner, Richard Clark!

Personally, I love the way that Rick Burchett's pencils and Rich Clark's finishes complement each other. It's like one's peanut butter and the other's chocolate - two great tastes that taste good together!

Fly the Unfriendly Skies!

Well, in the next month or so, the first issue of Moonstone's Air Fighters anthology should be hitting the shelves. Flying formation alongside such (revamped) Golden Age aces as Airboy, The Black Angel, Sky Wolf, The Flying Fool and the Iron Ace will be the legendary Captain Midnight, who stars in his own 8-page adventure.

Titled "Pyramid of Fear," this story was plotted by yours truly and artists Richard Clark and Rick Burchett. Rick B. then provided the pencils and Rich C. expertly embellished them in ink. Finally, I scripted and lettered the action-packed tale. The three of us are working together on the next Cap story for AF #2 in the same manner, while Rich keeps plugging away solo on the CM Zero issue art.

Here's a sample of Burchett's excellent pencils to whet your appetite:

I hope you enjoy this sneak peek, and will check out the book when it hits the stands. Me, I can't wait to see it; I haven't seen any of the other stories (just a few character sketches on the Moonstone website) so I'm eager to see what my fellow creators have come up with!

Gravedigger Sneak Peek

Since I'd already posted these on Facebook, it belatedly occurred to me that I should share them here with you guys as well. Here's a teaser for The Predators, one of three stories in the upcoming Gravedigger: Hot Women, Cold Cash graphic novel. The story's fully penciled, so I'm hoping this will be out in early 2010. (Click on images to enlarge.)

Script by yours truly, art by Rick Burchett and Fred Harper.

Dinner... With Digger McCrae

Progress continues to creep along with the upcoming Gravedigger graphic novel, "The Predators." It's coming slow, but it's looking great!

Here's a page I particularly like. Pencils by Rick Burchett, of course, with inks by my pal Fred Harper. Click on the image for a larger view.

Femme Noir #3 PREVIEW

Here are the first few pages from Issue #3 of Femme Noir: The Dark City Diaries, which is currently being solicited in Diamond's PREVIEWS catalog. Orders on the first issues were low, so if you want a copy of this issue, you really should pre-order it. You'll find it at the bottom of page 206 under "Ape Entertainment," and the Diamond Order Codes are JUN083647 for Cover "A" by Joe Staton and Alfredo Lopez and JUN083648 for Cover "B" by Phil Hester (Green Arrow, Nightwing, The Irredeemable Ant-Man).

Click on the images for a bigger view:




Script & letters by yours truly, pencils by Joe Staton, inks by Horacio Ottolini, and colors by Matt Webb.