There be Wülves out there

I’m very happy to announce that my comicbook, Wülf Girlz has been published by Dark Fire Press. This comic was some 18 years and four publishers in development. Now that it is finally in print, I’m honestly over the moon. (No pun intended.)

Back in 2006 I was invited to contribute a short horror story to a brand-new comicbook anthology. The writing prompt was to pen a 21^st century horror story that frightened me. The story I chose to write involved child abduction and abuse. This was because, at the time, my children were young, and I had experienced an incident some years earlier where my then three-year-old daughter wandered off in a crowded mall following her mother to the bathroom (without her mother or I knowing it).

This incident was literally the scariest five minutes of my life. All I could think at the moment was that I was going to have to explain to my mother how I lost her granddaughter. I was saved that moment, as my daughter had managed to successfully make her way across the crowded food court and connect with her mother. Because this was at a time before we had cellphones, there was no way her mother could notify me she was safe.

Needless to say, that incident was a large part of the inspiration for the creation of the characters who would come to be called the Wülf Girlz. My first publisher ran the first two installments of the origin tale (in B&W) with most-excellent art by Matt C. Ryan. While I was waiting for my publisher to release the third chapter, I was invited, in 2016, to bring the Girlz and contribute to a prose anthology, teaming them up with another writer’s character.

The concept of the anthology, MetaHumans vs The UltimateEvil, (Lion’s Share Press) was that several writers would team their characters up with Sean N. Koury’s character, The Bounty Hunter, and then each team would face off against some sort of evil entity. Happy to see the Girlz in print again, I agreed and had The Girlz meet up with Bounty Hunter in a short story entitled Northern Lite.

I eventually wound up splitting with my first publisher in 2019 and hooking up with InDELLible Comics. In 2020 The third chapter of their origin story appeared, this time in color with amazing art by Rick Lundeen in InDELLible’s House in Spades #1. The girlz also briefly appeared in 2021 in Popular Comics #5 in a story I wrote entitled Save the Children, which featured the Golden Age Owl Girl in the lead.

It was shortly after that that I negotiated a publishing deal with J.M. DeSantis to bring The Wülf Girlz to J.M.’s company Dark Fire Press. Unfortunately, after all the arrangements were made, COVID hit, and everything wound up on the back burner as we were all tossed into lockdown (and then recovery). Well, fortunately, as it turns out, you simply can’t keep a good comicbook concept down, and in July ’24, we finally achieved print copies of Wülf Girlz #1, with all three chapters now in color, as well as two short pieces — also by Rick — all collected in the issue. The first show I brought them to was the July CollectiCon in Montville, CT, which is where I sold my first copies.

Well, in addition to having my comic being listed on Dark Fire’s web page, and announced in Dark Fire ads, the comic is now available at both GlobalComix and IndyPlanet as both digital and Print on Demand (PoD) versions. Naturally enough, you can also purchase copies direct from me whenever I appear at comic and book shows.

So, what’s next you ask? Well, there is a novella of mine featuring the Girlz which is slated to come out in the early part of 2025. The novella carries an introduction by a well-known horror writer and illustrator (I’ll tell you more about him at a later date — I’ve got to save something for a surprise).  Meanwhile I’m currently working on other projects, including bringing another one of my intellectual properties back into print (yes, also with Dark Fire — when you find a good publisher, you stick with them!)

That’s all for now, kids, as I pen this we have just passed Christmas, and am right in the heart of Chanukah and Kwanzaa, and heading for my daughter’s birthday, and New Year’s Eve. So stay safe, enjoy yourselves, and we’ll see all’y’all next year!

More about the War

So, a few days back I ran on-and-on about the upcoming War of the Independents that my buddy Dave Ryan is magnificently orchestrating telling you all about the inclusion of the inclusion of Sean Koury's Bounty Hunter, and my very own Wülf Girlz. in this magnum opus, and, bone-head that I am, I completely forgot to mention the Mark Mazz’s King of the Realm and Shawnti Therrien’s Meth in the mix.

Both Mark’s & Shawnti’s work was on display in the first three issues of GWP’s critically acclaimed Psychosis! (soon to be reborn as Psychosis Today from Atlas Unleashed (which, I might add will not only also be publishing the further adventures of the aforementioned Wülf Girlz and my other on-going project, the resurrected Agent Unknown.

Mark’s tale postulates a world where Great Britain's royalty is secretly a race of bat-like creatures, while Shawnti’s character Meth is a tortured soul (who happens to be a vampire) who is in an eternal search for the vampire that caused him to enter into this hellish un-living nightmare into which he as fallen.

Both are powerful stories told by supremely-talented creators, and, should prove to be interesting additions to Dave’s story. As I mentioned in my earlier post, Dave plans on releasing the first issue at this year’s NY ComicCon, so if you weren’t planning on attending prior to this announcement, I would strongly suggest that you change your plans now and come on out, because it is going to be huge.

Anyway, I don’t want anyone to think that I was slighting my good friends and Atlas Unleashed collaborators, I — well — simply flaked. Sorry guys, you folk rock!

I’m so happy I could carry a book!

No, really!

I just heard from my good buddy Dave Ryan — who is hard at work on his highly anticipated comicbook series, The War of the Independents — and he told me that not only is he planning on debuting the book at the New York ComicCon this year. Well, he also just told me that he is planning on issuing a trading card set as well, and, since my Wülf Girlz are a part of the series, they will also be appearing in the Trading card set.


Also, I just turned a prose Wülf Girlz story over to my new pal, Sean Koury (who’s wicked-cool character is Bounty Hunter) that teams the Girlz up with his guy.

Which is great news, as Rick Lundeen, the new artist on the Girlz adventures, has finished off the third installment, as well as done three fabulous illustrations for the prose novella I wrote. He also illustrated a single-page tale that is going in the Atlas Unleashed newsletter (all of which is slated to be out by the end of this year).

Yeah, these Girlz are going to be all over the place soon. Now all I have to do is convince Shocker Toys to produce a line of toys about the series, that will include the Girlz as well...

Dave, are you listening?

Bounty Hunter, The War of the Independents, and

About a hundred years ago, I agreed to lend my characters, the Wülf Girlz to this artist that I had just met named Dave Ryan, to participate in a Independent-style Civil War. Well, I thought that it was kind of a cool Idea and all, so I agreed.

To be sure, not much more has been seen of the Girlz, the War (or Dave, for that matter), but I have met some cool friends because of the War, one of them is this Sean Koury fellow who has a character called Bounty Hunter, and, well, I’m currently working on a team-up of the Girlz and his character (no, really I am).

Well, I just learned that Bounty Hunter has teamed up with The Living Corpse for a War of the Independents tie-in that is slated to appear in issue # 8, 9 or 10 (not sure which). Apparently it is a fun book, and you can get issues 0-6 and the Annual with Hack/Slash for 15.00 bucks off the website.

Well, here is the Bounty Hunter/Living Corpse page, which I think looks pretty neat, and is inspiring me to finish off the Bounty Hunter/Wülf Girlz prose story that I I told Sean I’d do.



So now I’m going to have to actually get down to it and do the work. (then of course there is that Wülf Girlz/Hell’s Blood Team -up I told Hector Rodriguez I’d do.

In the mean time, here is a page of Wülf Girlz art (illustrated by my new artist, Rick Lundeen), that will appear in an upcoming Atlas Unleashed Newsletter (due to be distributed at the upcoming Big Apple Con).