Comicbooks published by my friends

Back in October, when I was attending the New York Comic Con I acquired several comics, some of them were produced by some very good friends of mine. I'm just now getting around to posting about it (sorry guys, life sometimes gets in the way).

In No particular order, here they are:

Andrea Grant’s Minx is continuing the tale of a a woman who walks the in-between spaces between the “real” world and the dreamscape that is just a shadow and a whisper beyond the veil of what we see.

By her own admission, Andrea has been working this comic for some 10 years, and has, over the past few years, issued a number of iterations of this comic as it has evolved. It is lyrical, engaging, and totally original. Andrea is a wonderful renascence talent that simply commands the space around her.

Check out her comic, you will be amazed.

A second comic that deserves your attention is Hell’s Blood #3, by Hector Rodriguez, and published by Guild Works Production.

Hector is just another average teen living in a small town in Massachusetts, However his whole life changes one day when his grandmother dies and he himself is relentlessly pursued by horrific monsters that are generally only seen in our nightmares. Soon, Hector finds himself fighting for his very life against an army of hell-spawned creatures that are led by a magma-spitting, fire-haired werewolf who threatens to bring about man's darkest fear to a terrible reality the return to Earth the demon known as Olosi (Satan) himself!

Hector is not only the artist who illustrated this powerful story but the storyteller himself. This issue (as was issue #2) was scripted by Chris Buchner. As each issue has been published, you can not only see the improvements to Hector’s art, but the story itself grows and deepens as we are drawn further and further into the world of Hell’s Blood.

In addition to this issue (and the first two), GWP has issued a combined copy of both of the first two issues in a single package. We strongly urge you all to pick up all iterations.

All of which brings us to a pair of stellar comics from our very good friends over at Atlas Unleashed. The Adversary #3 (by the incomparable Jim Webb) and Crimson Rose by Mark Mazz, Grey Williamson, and N. Steven Harris.

Webb’s Adversary which continues the story of a demoness who has managed to overthrow the reigns of her demonic lord and master (Beelzebub). These days she fights the demons she used to serve. While serving the minions of Hell she was one of its top warriors, now  she battles on the side of Heaven.

In this second issue she goes up against a demon named Belial who has possessed  a fallen priest, in order to lure Adversary out in the open in order to kill her. Only, things don’t go quite the way Belial (or Adversary) planned. It is a fun book to read, and this chapter delves deeper into the character of Adversary.  Jim is a delightful storyteller, making this book a Must Buy for readers.

Next up from Atlas Unleashed, is a preview con book entitled Crimson Rose. The comic that AU presented at NYCC is a fully-rendered penciled version of the comic without dialogue. While this may sound like “not quite” a comicbook, don’t think like that. Grey’s fully-detailed pencils are powerful and are fully-capable of telling a story without the need of dialogue.

Further, by presenting the pencils in this fashion, AU has given us the unique opportunity to see how intense and through Grey’s pencils actually are. Plus it certainly whets our appetite for the completed package.

Personally, we can hardly wait.

Also of note for this issue is the powerful cover by our good friend Chris Torris. We have to admit a personal bias towards Chris’s work as he was the penciler for our own relaunch of our own comic, Agent Unknown (Renegade Press) — the first story of which appeared in CAG #7, and the follow up is slated to appear under the AU umbrella. Any way, Crimson Rose looks like a very interesting book, and we are looking forward to the full version.

well, these were just a few of the comics we acquired at NYCC, and over the next several weeks as we approcah the end of the year, we will be posting about the other, so stay tuned.

Cool new Marvel (and other Funnybook) Swag

The other day my lovely wife was out and about and discovered a very cool coloring book featuring the Superhero Squad version of the Avengers.

What makes this coloring book extra cool is that in addition to the English text in the comic, there is also Spanish.

Yep, each page contains all of the captions in both English and Spanish. Pretty cool, eh?

Then My older brother, Ron, passed along to me a nifty-cool Spidey Bucket (that I suspect used to belong to my nephew, Tony-o).

Don’t fret for Tony-o though, he’s now 16 or 17 and while still a Spidey fan, is now distracted by other stuff, and so is OK with bequeathing me this (and presumably some of his other Spidey) toy(s).

Next up, is an old photo that was taken of me during last years NY Comic Con. As you can see, I'm standing “inside” a Spider-Man standee. Well even though this pic was taken several months ago, I never really looked at it, and it wasn’t until I was preparing it for this post did I realize that my good buddy, Mark Mazz was standing behind me.

Nice guy, eh?

I’m also including a shot of the fabulous Jim Web who I spent time with this past weekend over at MoCCA.

Finally (also while I was at MoCCA), I met a young cartoonist (14-years old!) named Emma t. Carps who publishes a comic called The Chapel Chronicles. She also produces greeting cards, post cards, buttons, and other cool stuff.

Her comic is delightful, and you should check out her stuff, as she has mad talent (as my own daughter would say).

Atlas Shrugged

So, as you might have heard, I spent this past weekend in New York City at the New York Comic Con, where I manned the table for the the company I work with (Atlas Unleashed) over the weekend. We were there promoting our new books Schizophrenia #1, Psychosis! Today #4 (formerly Psychosis!), and The Adversary #1.

We were touting these new products for the fans and our friends, and we did quite well, thanks for asking. We also hosted the wicked-cook Indie After Party (with our good Buddy, Dave Ryan, who is producing the Buzz-able hottest book in the Indie Market, the uber-hot War of the Independents). Needless to say, the party was the talk of the con, and everybody who was anybody was at it. Well, Schizophrenia #1, Psychosis! Today #4 are both anthologies (with there being a special tribute issue for our pal Rusty Haller). Schizophrenia has three stories and Psychosis! Today has five, while Adversary is a book-length story by the very talented Jim Webb.

Adversary is a demon who has tossed off the reigns of her demon master and now spends her time fighting demons. Well, not to make this about me (but you know it is my blog, so I'm gonna talk about me for just a minute, so deal with it). As it turns out I have three stories in these books, two in Psychosis! Today and a one-page back-up in Adversary that was illustrated by the extremely talented and affable Fred Hembeck.

My stories in Psychosis! Today are a reprint of my story Ghost Writer that appeared in Psychosis! #2 (with art by Fabio Turbay), and An Act of Attrition, that's illustrated by James Rodriguez and Alex Rivera. I'm not sure how, but I keep getting teamed with extremely talented artists, and , well, they make me look good. Thanks guys!