New story up at Metahuman Press

Well, despite all the time I have invested in the glory that is Divine Divinity, I still have found time to post my special Halloween story and debut of a all-new character from the upcoming revised and expanded Champion City.

My Name is Charon features an all-new dark hero that walks the streets of the ever-dark Shadowside, just on the outskirts of greater Federation (a.k.a. “Champion City”). Charon is one of my favorite creations of the last year or so, and he should help a great deal in expanding the development of the Quadrant Universe over the next year or so. Be sure to check the story out, and as always stop by here or the forums to let me know what you thought of it. I also would love thoughts on the logo for the story, as well as all the others I have debuted over the last month.

I have plans for a new Charon story or two over the next year, although I expect them to post at more random intervals, as Timeline will start updating quarterly next year as the new “fifth week“ title for 2008. (For those who don’t know, fifth week refers to the final week of the four months of every year that have five Wednesdays in them.) I have plans to debut several all-new characters, many of which will play parts in various other projects, both prose and comic, that I have in the works right now. I haven’t decided exactly what four stories to use first but here are a few names to look forward to: Captain Mettle, The Challenge Squad (who were already featured in Timeline 1962: UFO), Newgen, Rocketman, The Aviator, Uplift (featuring Wave and hints to the origins of Epsilon), The Robot, Defenders of Democracy, The Natural, Freakman, The Westar Kid, The New Minutemen, Geneva, Dr. Cosmic, and several more. This is one of the projects I have been moving towards for several years, so stay tuned for more information about the first of these projects, which will debut on January 30.

That’s all for now and for the month of October, where I have finally started to get my blog posting skills back up to par. Everyone enjoy the rest of their Halloween!

Car Trouble... Again

So the starter on our Neon, the same starter that gave out just a few months ago and was replaced by our used car dealer, has broken again. I am not a happy camper as this ruins much of our Halloween plans for Hannah, as she will now have to go trick or treating around the neighborhood rather than at the much nicer mall walk.

Oh, and it complete screws up comic day tomorrow.

My wife plans on getting the car towed by the dealer tomorrow, and they will fix it for us for free; of this I am very sure.

On the bright side I finally installed the copy of Divine Divinity I picked up last week at Target. Great game, superior to Diablo II IMHO.

Everyone who hasn’t already, should check it out. You can pick it up in the software section of Target for only $10. Can’t beat that deal with a stick.

Busy Weekend

So I was interrupted at work at about Sunday morning at 4 am by a call from my wife to let me know the stomach pain she had felt Saturday night was getting worse. So I had to rush home, pick up my wife and daughter, drop my wife off at the emergency room, and head back to work with my kid. So thanks to my supervisor Sharon for that, as I really didn’t have anything else I could do with Hannah.

So after about 4 hours of my daughter coloring 20 feet away from where I worked, I finished up at work and head back to the hospital where, within minutes of our arrival, Gloria was officially diagnosed with appendicitis. Within an hour she was in surgery and I found myself having to take Monday and Tuesday off work to spend with Hannah while her mommy was in the hospital. And it pretty much proves to me I would go crazy as a single father.

Gloria is home and feeling better now. She should be as good as new within another week or so. But yeah, it was an exercise in stress management if ever I had one.

Back to work on Thursday night/Friday morning after four days of sleeping under a normal schedule. Wish me luck.

Metahuman Press Update

Just a quick update to say I have two new stories up at Metahuman Press today.

Epsilon is back with chapter 10, as we start the build towards the finale of the first story arc.

On top of that, I have also updated Mean Streets with its newest chapter, featuring Death Ray.

So be sure to go check those out, then stop by the forums and let me know what you think.

Thanks!

Wowio

Yeah, so I heard about this site weeks ago, but I only just visited it for the first time in the last few days. And I have to say that this site is pretty damn cool. The comic content alone makes it well worth the price of admission (which BTW is free). I have been happily reading a plethora of indy titles I have never tried before, as well as working my way through the complete Heroic Publishing library.

The stand-out? Easily Pistolfist, a sort-of-superhero comic set during the Revolutionary War. It mixes real history with supernatural elements to make one of the damn coolest comics I have read in a long time. That being said, there is ton to be offered on Wowio, so go check it out at http://www.wowio.com/. If you’re a comic book fan, I all but guarantee you will find something to enjoy.

The Symphony

So my wife and I enjoyed a lovely afternoon at the symphony last Sunday. It was a fun show put on by a London, Ontario-based group called Jeans N Classics which apparently puts on dozens of similar shows every year. Entitled Madman on the Water: The Music of Elton John, it was just that, a show featuring the (mostly early) music of Elton John. Proved to be a rather entertaining show with a good selection of Elton’s music, especially since it managed to focus away from all of his newer stuff that I hate.

Thanks to one of the members of the board at my wife’s job for providing the tickets to us free. We had a great time.

Arc, as promised

Well, here it is the first preview of my upcoming project with Mr. AJ Rainford-Nash of south London, England. How did an artist from the United Kingdom come to work with a writer from eastern Iowa. Well, pretty much sheer luck and the power of Digital Webbing. More luck though IMHO, as previous attempts to find artists on Digital Webbing proved to pretty much be a crap shoot.

But luch be with us, it is me and Jay in this together. It was fate I think as the man shares my two favorite modern comic writers: two gentlemen by the names of Kirkman and Bendis. Jay’s been drawing as long as I have been writing: pretty much forever, and you can see it in the quality of the man’s art. With him on the art side, I am more excited by Arc than I have been in any of my writing in months.

Arc is the story of the superhero of the same name. But she isn’t a typical superhero. I see her as the modern equivalent of the classic Marvel characters: a product of her time with flaws and character traits taken from everyday life.

That’s all you’re getting for now, other than an early character design by the aforementioned Mr. Rainford-Nash, with the starting designs of Arc’s face.



More sample art soon and a few tidbits with them, I promise.

Back on track

All right the last few bits of cold have finally worked their way out of my system, thank the Lord.

I have started the first phase of the graphical overhaul of Metahuman Press with the debut of my new Mean Streets banner. This banner will fill the second position on the main site whenever I don’t have a second story to post on Wednesday. (BTW, anyone wondering where Epsilon is should only wait two weeks. I will post it in place of this month’s episode of Freedom Patton. Both stories will return to their regular position next month.)

I have finished writing Charon so everyone can look forward to that appearing on Halloween today as our special fifth week feature for this month. I plan on doing a special fifth week story any time they occur (four times a year) with Charon rotating with various other works by myself (and maybe others if I receive any interest).

I promise I will get the first Arc previews posted up here soon. I finished my second (and almost final, barring any suggestions from my fine artist, Mr. Jay Rainford-Nash) earlier this week. We have just finished the final character designs for what proved to be the toughest character, one Shania Wilder, who will be one of the two main characters in the book, alongside the title character of course. Jay is working on a couple teaser images and I will work on some banner art from that. After that production will begin in earnest, with Jay as penciler/inker and myself as writer/letterer. For the time being, I will probably keep the book black and white, unless we find (which we hopefully will) a publisher willing to put the thing on the market. I am currently eyeing the new Boom as a strong possibility but we will see how things work out as we continue production on the book. No matter what, I will see Arc published, even if I have to do it myself. And with the number of avenues available for the small press comic creator, that shouldn’t be a problem either.

So make sure you keep your eye on this site(whether it be at www.evolutioncomics.com or at takethehelm.blogspot.com/) as I hopefully will get the first preview up tomorrow. Really, I mean it this time.