Epsilon 25 Notes

The first story arc of Epsilon comes to an end!

Hey, it’s Isis! A dangling plot threat has been building with the introduction of multiple characters with mythological-inspired names in Epsilon and this comes to a head this issue. Not going to say much more, as the Avatars have a story of their own in development.

Isis and Nephthys’ battle played out a little quicker than I originally planned, but I think it’s effective. Despite her defeat, Nephthys’ influence on this series is far from over. We will learn far more of her plans when the series makes it return.

Pathway is only the first of Nephthys’ minions to fall in with our heroes. Three more of her Acolytes will find their way on to the team, but I will let it be a surprise as to who.

When I originally plotted out the twenty-five chapter structure of the Epsilon story, I planned for this to be the final issue. As can be seen by the ending with Mindset, I have more chapters of Epsilon planned. I plan on giving the book a couple month hiatus, but expect it back around mid-summer.

And when it does return, prepare for the arrival of El Oso Grande!

Epsilon 24 Notes

The penultimate chapter of the Nephthys storyline gives us even more large scale battle action!

We start with a small exchange between Rubicon and Wave that I thought would be important. The original Rubicon and Wave have quite a history (which we will get in to with our next story arc) and I thought the new Wave needed a hint of that relationship.

Bagheera once again finds himself away from the core team! How many times does this guy leave anyway? In his defense, at least this time he got teleported there as an attack, rather than leaving by choice.

Set and Athena learn a little bit more about all these characters with god names running around this storyline. I am only touching the edge of the Avatar concept in Epsilon. I have bigger plans for it in the future!

And we close again with Rubicon and Wave. Things sure look grim don’t they?

Epsilon 23 Notes

The traitor stands revealed and the final battle between Nephthys and Epsilon begins all in one chapter!

I planned Thief versus Air Raid since the beginning of the Epsilon story, and although it played out somewhat differently than I originally planned, I like the idea of the battle of the lost loves.

When I first determined the members of Nephthys’ Apostles, it never dawned on me how BIG this fight would need be. A battle involving over a dozen combatants comes off far more difficult in prose than it does in your average super-team book. I hope I handled it as well. Though busy, a lot of people needed to be taken out of this story before I felt it sufficient to come to an end.

One of my goals is to really up some of the Epsilon 3.0 characters and get them ready for a more full-fledged status on the changing team. I think Wave and Solid do pretty well in this chapter. I really like the dichotomy of these two characters and I definitely plan to utilize them a lot more after this story comes to an end.

Timeline, Epsilon, NaNoWriMo, and more

My apologies to my regular readers. Sometimes life and family get in the way of honest pursuits like writing and updating this blog. But hopefully I am back to stay as I get to work on several new updates over the next couple of weeks.

I will start with a couple updates on the site. I am slowly working towards getting pictures for all the contributing authors. I am also working towards reformatting the main site and possibly getting the first few books based on MHP works. More on that later.

Also, I am working on a new Timeline story for the week of Halloween. It will be the first to feature a setting that will interlink with other stories down the line.

Epsilon will probably go on hiatus following the conclusion of the Nephthys arc. I have more plans for the next arc, but I really need to take a break from one of my current works in order to get my current stories (as well as a few new ones) off the ground.

Finally, I have plans to participate in NaNoWriMo again this year. I am currently working up a plot for another Quadrant Universe tale with the working title Neo-Tokyo. It will be a fun litte piece of super-powered fiction with quite an anime influence to it. I am currently working on a few pieces of research to get the idea flowing a little harder. I am also taking suggestions on anime/manga with a super-powered flavor. I am currently rewatching Yu Yu Hakusho and rereading Akira and Getbackers. Your suggestions on any other quality manga/anime with a superhero flavor set in either modern or a near-future setting would be appreciated.

I am going to try to get a post up today or tomorrow with my thoughts on the first three weeks of Heroes soon as well. Fingers crossed, I will be back here soon!

Epsilon gets a New Look! Plus links!

Well my new look initiative continues with the newest chapter of Epsilon making the switch over to the new page format. I will slowly be working my way through the archives to change everything over, although expect it to take several more weeks to complete.

I found two headlines, both from Asia, that scream for mentions on a super-powered blog. I just see story elements in both of these somewhere.

Mugger Arrested Despite Cunning Disguise

Giant 3,300 Lbs Stingray Caught by Local Fisherman

Random chunks of thought spewed on to the internet

Yeah, it’s been a bit since I actually threw out a nice little post about what’s up in my little world. My wife and I have been enjoying a week of blissful quiet as our darling daughter is now spending a week at Grandma’s house for her spring break. I love having these visits a few times a year because they really give me a breather from the whole parenthood thing. Sometimes you just need time away from the rugrat, y’know?

Her absence has given me some extra free time and I have used it to finish crafting the next Timeline story. I am really proud of this one as it plays off African myths to introduce the second major African hero in the Quadrant universe (after Bagheera in Epsilon). He is a fella named Sagai (Swahili for spear) and he will be a player in a few of my stories in the near future starting with the aforementioned Epsilon. I already have my next time line project in the works. It will be a ongoing story introducing heroes in the dark days of the early 90’s, where metahumans were hated and feared by all. It will be a connected epic, and every other Timeline will continue the 90’s saga. I’m not sure what story I will follow that one up in, but after Sagai (in April) and the 90’s (in July) I will have some time to think about it.

I have a new Living Legends and a new Mean Streets both up today. Living Legends is coming along nicely and you can expect it to start kicking in to the action phase in the next few months. Mean Streets has had a couple short chapters of late, but 3.4 amps things up and starts the build towards bigger and better things.

Having the laptop at work is given me way more time to write and now that I am gaining a nice lead time on my current stories, I am also hard at work on finishing Champion City book one and book two, hopefully by summer’s end. Expect a book edition of volume one while the second volume will find its way up on Metahuman Press. I also have plans to get My Name is Charon back with a new storyline and another new series that started its life as a submission to the Shadowline create a superheroine contest. More on that later.

Speaking of that contest, the five finalists have finally been announced, and I have to say I am a bit disappointed. None of them seem like the kind of characters I am going to have a lot of interest in. Hope is probably the most intriguing concept, but even it seems somewhat flat. I submitted four projects to this contest and I would rate at least three of them more innovative than these. Color me disappointed I guess. Anyone who wants can vote on that link, but you got to join the site to do so. I don’t really know if its worth the effort IMHO (although I probably will just to continue my support of indy superheroes).

Well, enough ranting for now. I will try to keep the personal and project updates a little more frequent if possible, but you know me. I suck at this regular blog stuff.

Back on track

All right, after a less than stellar January I am trying to get my writing, my reading, my blogging, and my life back on track. Everything has pretty much settled here again (thankfully) so the time should be fine for it.

Anyone who read Timeline this last week should be happy to know that the story’s conclusion will be coming on Wednesday as I wrap it up. Living Legends will come the next week, and Epsilon the week after that. I am a busy sort...

You know what true evil is: the Wrestler application on Facebook. I could suck up hours playing this thing, but thankfully I can limit the number of matches I fight at once.

Anyway, I am working on a bevy of projects: Epsilon, Living Legends, Charon, Champion City, the next Timeline story, and Arc. And all may fall by the way side for a few weeks if I can score a top 10 spot in the Shadowline Superheroine contest. Fingers are crossed until Monday.

That is it for now. Back soon, I promise. Really.

Where's Freedom Patton?

So in case no one noticed Freedom Patton did not appear again today. The reason is quite simple: I have decided to put the series on hiatus for the forseeable future.

The Letters From Libertad sequence I am currently working on is just not coming together the way I want it, and the Freedom and Justice arc I had planned after it just isn’t gelling at all.

So Freedom Patton is now on hold. I know I will bring it back whenever I complete Letters From Libertad. I am two and a half chapters in to it (which is half way) so I really see it being done with the next six months or so. I just need to find a way to reenergize the characters as they just feel like they are treading water to me right now.

In the mean time I plan on starting (and finishing) my current projects. I am well under way on Champion City volume 2. I just hit the 100 page mark the other day. I don’t plan on posting it until I actually finish the entire story though, so it will probably be some time mid-year before it starts to post. Epsilon will reach its first climax with chapter 13, then I will start the build for the big battle in chapter 25. I have a rough plan for the series well past 30, so don’t expect it to go anywhere anytime soon.

I have two new projects which I want to get under the way entitled Crimelords and Living Legends. I am still debating which to start first, although I am currently leaning towards Living Legends as it strangely falls in sync with December debuting projects from Dynamite, Marvel, and Image. I started to develop Living Legends as a comic project over two years ago, but my attempts at bringing it to fruition in 2006 pretty much fell flat on their face. Finding an artist willing to work on a project with 18 leads proved to be a bit harder than I thought it would be. So I can at least say I came up with the idea first. My plans are for it to be an ongoing as well so I probably will try to get at least a few chapters done before I make a firm decision.

Crimelords is a concept that has been floating around my head for well over a decade. It dates back to at least 94-95 when I was creating characters hand over first in high school. I still have notebooks sitting around the house with hundreds of issues worth of one to three line plots for years worth of comics. In fact, just about every character in Epsilon takes their name from those old plots. Trust me when I say that I won’t run out to character names anytime soon! But I digress....

Crimelords is a hodge podge of a few different story ideas from those days, and would focus on the bad guys of a new locale in the quadrant universe: the city of Valhalla. Valhalla has a rich history already developed and Crimelords will cover only about a year worth of it. This one would run about a year or so by my calculations.

I am also working on how I want to continue My Name Is Charon. I have the basic plot ideas of where I want it to go all formulated, but I still am not sure how I want to lay it down on paper. More Charon will be on its way though, rest assured.

And this doesn’t even take in to account my three planned comic projects: Arc which has issue one current in the art stages and issues 2 through 5 in various stages of writing; Out For Vengeance, a fun little piece of meta-fiction reintroducing the first hero in an eighty year legacy to the world; and Bombshells which will mix my love of pro wrestling, attractive women, and superheroics. Expect to see more on Arc sometime soon with Bombshells and Out For Vengeance following quickly behind.

All that and I am brainstorming the return of Pulp Empire as well. More on that as it progresses, so stay tuned right here for more on that.

NaNoWriMo and Other Updates

So I continue to work my way through more Champion City volume two. I am at about 20,000 words at this point which puts me a little behind the curve as I should be at about 24,000 or so by now. I hope to catch up with my writing over the weekend but even if I do keep up at my current rate I have to say that I will be happy with an output of 40,000 words. That’s damn impressive IMHO.

I have a few other projects I am working on getting up this month too. You can find the newest chapter of my Epsilon saga right here. I will have the next chapter of Freedom Patton up next week. This will begin the much shorter Letters From Libertad feature that makes up a break from the first novel-length story and the next one, which is tentatively titled Freedom & Justice.

My apologies to Mean Streets fans out there. The project has sort of fallen by the way side in favor of my continued work on NaNoWriMo. I promise I will bring it back next month though.

Yuck

So, I've been striken for the past few days with a case of some kind of stomach virus flu which really came to a head today, which was spent alternately between the bed, the toilet, and on the floor sitting in front of the toilet. Not fun, and unfortunately, rather time consuming, as I accomplished absolutely nothing but a lot of vomiting and less pleasant forms of excretion.

Which means I am behind from the past couple of days on just about everything. Getting the next chapter of Epsilon ready, working on issue 2 of Arc's script, working on my new project for this month... pretty much everything. I am starting to feel better now, but I doubt Epsilon will be ready for tomorrow. I will make sure to post it within the next week however, probably a full week late along with Rick Considine’s next Comic Book Hero chapter. (Fingers crossed for that.)

Wish me well if you don’t mind, and I’ll hopefully be back to fighting form in the next day or two.