Howling at the moon with Cement

There’s this old joke that I very much love. Two people are talking, the first person asks “What Howls at the moon and has cement in it?”

The second person responds, “I don’t know.”

The first person responds, “A wolf.”

This causes the second person to ask, “What about the cement?”

To which the first person says, “Oh, I just put that in to make it hard.”

 Yeah, I know, a total Dad Joke. Which I get to tell because I’m not only a dad, but a grandad. (To be sure I did also tell the joke prior to actually being a dad.) But I digress.

Some 19 years ago I was at home when I was called by a publisher and tasked with developing an eight-page comic story that frightened me. I told the caller that I was the wrong guy for the assignment, as I didn’t like horror, hadn’t written anything in a year, and hadn’t written fiction in over 10 years. The publisher insisted that I was the guy he wanted. Again, I begged off, stating that I had to go pick up my then 15-year-old son at his job. I hung up and went to pick up my son and returned home.

By the time I returned home, less than an hour later, I called the publisher back and pitched him the story of Wülf Girls—two under-aged sisters who were werewülves that hunted pedophiles. Needless to say, he loved it. So, I went ahead and wrote it. It took me two weeks—a week to write the first six pages and a full second week to write the last two, because, frankly, it was that gruesome, even for me.

Well, the issue came out and when my father read it, he nearly stopped talking to me because of the content. I had to convince him that not only was it just a story, but I had turned the sisters from prey into predators. Once the comic was published, we shopped it at a horror convention in New Jersey, while there I met Melvin Ylagan, the cover artist, and he loved the story and wanted to know what the next story was. I told him there was no next story, because you now knew the punchline of the story. Melvin wouldn’t let up, pointing out that the Girlz were 150 years old so there had to be other stories.

That was the spark that kicked off the rest of what was to come. I went on to write a second and third chapter (as well as two short vignettes, as well as a prose story where the Girlz co-stared with another creator’s character, plus as a comic story for a different publisher where they had a cameo). Between the time of the publication of the second and while waiting patiently for the the original publisher to print the third chapter of the Wülf Girlz saga (2006-2008), I busied myself with writing a prose story about their training into the werewülf community. That story became the prose novella Taste the Moon (now available through Dark Fire Press, yet another publisher). During that time while I was working at a job, I used my coffee and lunch breaks to write two long texts on my (semi-smart) phone that I later downloaded to my computer, stitched together, and edited to become the novella.

In 2019, after having split from the original publisher of Wülf Girlz (the third chapter of which still unpublished), I reconnected with my friend J.M. DeSantis and asked if he was interested in continuing the saga. J.M. agreed, and he and I began our collaborative efforts to do just that. This process involved me getting the three chapters and two vignettes colored, laying out and formatting the novella, getting contracts written, updated, and signed, as well as agreeing to a business plan on how Dark Fire would operate, and ultimately bringing the books to get published.

All of which was complicated by COVID, J.M. and my sometimes conflicting, and often erratic schedules, as well as other complexities of living in the world. Needless to say, against many odds we have finally done it, and both The Wülf Girlz comicbook, and the Taste the Moon novella are now in print and available across multiple platforms, including, but not limited to Dark Fire Press, IndyPlanet, GlobalComix, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Net1World, as well as, of course direct from me at shows.

One of the more important parts of the story that I skipped over, is that, long before I had conceived of the Girlz, I had met and interviewed Steve Bissette in my role as a journalist working for Amazing Heroes. After I had written the first couple of stories and had finished writing the novella I reached out to Steve and asked him if he’d pen a forward to the book, and he graciously agreed. Sadly, it has taken some 17 years to bring the novella to print, and for his part, Steve has patiently waited (thanks Steve).

In the background for all of this, I’ve written two other (unpublished) Wülf Girlz scripts, a short story, and the plots to several other scripts. Currently I’m writing a follow-up novella (yes, on my now Smart Phone), and I’m looking for an artist to illustrate their further adventures. I’ve also written a short prose story of another female wülf character as well as a 500-word flash fiction story involving a female wülf character (neither of whom are Hope or Grace).

What started as a one-off challenge has turned into an on-going collection of stories featuring female wülf characters, and I, for one, couldn’t be happier.

That time Napoleon conquered the stars.

Imagine an alternative timeline where Napoleon not only conquers not only Europe, but all of Earth and then reaches out into the stars to extend his imperial realm throughout all of the galaxy! Napoleon was a polarizing character in history, to say the least. As with so many figures in history, he was a mix of positives and negatives.

On the one hand he was hailed as a great commander and leader, yet, on the other hand, he was also a ruthless raider of antiquities and a looter of artwork. During his campaigns in Egypt, he discovered the Rosetta Stone, used to unlock the ancient Egyptian language, but then subsequently took much of what he discovered back to France with him. Throughout his military career he won over 50 battles and ruled more than 44 million people in Europe and overseas colonies.

Now imagine if this shrewd and unrelenting emperor-general had access to modern-day technology and took his conquering ways across the solar system to other inhabited planets so that Napoleon could Conquer all of Space itself!

Napoleon’s Starship is a hardbound, sci-fi graphic novel published by Wayward Raven. The story is told through the eyes of the main character, Gavroche, a young revolutionist and artist. On Earth, she joined the protests against Napoleon’s cruel rule. No longer being able to stand his tyranny, Gavroche stows away on Napoleon’s Starship, determined to assassinate him.

Napoleon’s Starship is told through the eyes of Gavroche, a young revolutionist and artist. On Earth, she joined the protests against Napoleon’s cruel rule. No longer being able to stand his tyranny, Gavroche stows away on Napoleon’s Starship, determined to assassinate him.

When she is caught by Napoleon’s troops, Napoleon’s Master of Artistic Propaganda attempts to force her to use her art for propaganda. Gavroche resists, eventually meeting the denizens of this new planet. A kinship is formed with these creatures that speak through scent and Gavroche devises a desperate plan to overthrow the galactic emperor!

Katherine Blakeney the creator of this amazing book is an artist, writer, animator, archaeologist and pilot. Her stop-motion animated short films have been screened at numerous international film festivals and have won several awards. Katherine’s paintings have been exhibited at Cork Gallery in Lincoln Center. Every summer she works in ancient Egyptian tombs, uncovering the secrets of Ancient Egyptian craftsmanship.

The story of Napoleon’s Starship directly draws upon Katherine’s experience as an archeologist and what she has seen on her digs in Egypt. She is very passionate about preserving our ancient history and art while still bringing it to the people. Art isn’t just something for the privileged,

Four (no, wait, five) new books of mine

I’ve been a writer all my life. It was in 1978 that I went pro. I started working at a local radio station as a copywriter. Over the next few years, I worked at a couple of different stations in Conn. Then, in 1981 I got my first print article published (Ditko Days, Amazing Heroes #5). From there I went on to spend the next nearly 20 or so years writing for virtually every comic magazine being published. In addition to all that I was also penning marketing and PR material for most of the major (and several mid-level) comicbook companies (Marvel, DC, Valient, Dark Horse, Extreme, others).

In ’85 I took over the writing the writing of a comic strip (Video Victor) in Videogaming Illustrated, the magazine for which I was then the managing editor. In ‘86 I was able to convince Deni Lobert (Renegade Press) to publish a comic concept of mine (Agent Unknown). In 2011 I began writing short, illustrated stories for several of Jim Main’s Main Enterprises publications. Between 2011 and 2021 I wrote 17 stories. Recently I gathered those stories together and compiled them into a massive omnibus, which is now available on Amazon. The book is called Funnybook City Omnibus: Jump the Shark Issue. The cover was done by my friend Scott Barnett. 

Also available on Amazon is Writers Unite! Dimensions of Superheroes, a prose superhero anthology that I not only designed and assembled, but where I had three short stories and wrote the forward. The book has 14 writers (including me, but more importantly, Gary Cohn, Paul Kupperberg (both of whom worked for DC and other comic companies) and William Patrick Murray, who not only writes amazing prose novels, but created Squirrel Girl for Marvel) telling 20 stories about a myriad number of superheroes, not all of them the kind you read in those funnybooks, wrapped in colorful spandex, and looking all pretty for the masses. These heroes come from all walks of life, and all have strange and unusual powers. It’s well worth the read, if you know what I mean.

Another book I recently assembled is Wings of Man, a comic that combines a number of stories I wrote about flying. Those stories include one about Gustave Whitehead, a German immigrant who flew two years before the Wright brothers, and lived in my hometown of Fairfield CT. I was originally told Gustave’s story by my high school science teacher. At the time, I was in high school and said that Gustave’s story would make a good comicbook. Then it took me 35 years to make it happen. This story was followed by me penning more stories about flight (some of them peripherally involving references to Gustave).

Earlier this year I learned about Ditko Con, which takes place in Johnstown, PA. I’ve been a fan of Steve’s work since I first saw it in Amazing Fantasy #15. Will was already attending the con, and I asked him to introduce me to the showrunner, whereupon I got myself invited. To prepare for the event, I took the first two articles I wrote for publication and combined them into a Spidey-mag. Those articles (from way back in ’81 & ’82) were about Steve Ditko’s and John Romita, Sr.’s runs on Amazing Spider-Man. (John’s article appeared in The FantaCo Chronicles, and it included a checklist to the first 120 issues of the comic, as well as all of the related Spidey titles being published at the time. Then for good measure I tossed in a review I wrote about a Ditko Kickstarter that he did with Robin Snyder. I’m hoping to sell a few copies of this mag at the con.

All of those books were produced over the past couple of months. Oh, and not to leave anything out, I also wrote a 500-word flash fiction story for Weird Fiction Quarterly. The writing prompt for this issue was The King in Yellow an H.P. Lovecraft-adjacent story. So I now have five new books to sell at shows.

Welcome to my funnybook column.

 

Stories That Were Never Told That We Wish We Had Read

Gary Cohn and his longtime friend and writing partner, Dan Mishkin, entered the comicbook industry together in 1980 following correspondence with Jack C. Harris, an editor over at DC Comics. That first work—drawn by Steve Ditko—was the three-page short story On the Day of His Return" which appeared in Time Warp #3 (Feb.–March). This initial sale was soon followed by the team creating Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld with artist Ernie Colón then going on (with Paris Cullins) to create Blue Devil. Cohn and artist Ron Randall co-created the Barren Earth.

From there Cohn has gone on to write for several other comicbook companies, including Archie, Crusade, Marvel, Mattel, and Renegade Press. He also wrote several stories for William Tucci's Crusade Comics including an intercompany crossover between Crusade's Shi and Marvel Comics' Daredevil. Cohn also wrote three Hardy Boys and two Nancy Drew novels. After a while, Cohn left comics and became a teacher at the Information Technology High School in Long Island City, retiring in 2017.

Needless to say, just knowing what Gary did over the years as a comicbook writer, isn’t to know all of it, just recently he published a comicbook-sized “memoir” of work he pitch, but for one reason or another never wound up in publication. The book, The Will-Be’s that Weren’t is nothing short of an amazing look back into things that Gary had pitched to various publishers but were never published, even though (now that we’ve read this book) we wish that they had been.

This book is a collection of at least three projects that Gary pitched that got through various stages of production, from proposal, to outline, to script, to pencils, to inks, to lettered pages. Behind each and every project, Gary provides a backstory the names of his collaborators, as well as sketchy details about what company and editor passed on the project (all names have been altered to protect those that were involved). The three projects are referred to as El Demon, Hellrazers, and Bete Noire.

First up is El Demon. As Gary tells the talk, back when he was writing for Big Corporate Comics (which he refers to as BC—draw your own conclusions as to whom it really was). Gary pointed out that during those days there were essentially two games in town, BC and Phenomenal Comics about which he pitched story ideas. From there, Gary went on to obliquely describe a couple of BC characters before launching into his description of El Demon, whom he described as a Zorro copy with a supernatural gimmick.

To Phenomenal, he pitched an idea about their ghostly western character, “Weird Rider”, (again not the real name), that had been updated from riding a horse to a motorcycle. Unfortunately, his take on “Weird Rider” didn’t fly, so he revamped it into his El Demon concept and took it back to BC. This is one story that went from a pitch to a proposal, to an illustrated story, but that’s where it unfortunately ended, as the story was never published. Fortunately for us, Gry still had all of the various stages of this process which he reprinted in this tome with truly amazing art by Ron Randall.

Next up is Hellrazers, which was a pitch to add to Phenomenal’s futuristic 2222universe. According to Gary, the Hellrazers was based off a concept he had a decade earlier called The Others. Calling once again upon Randall, Gary pitched his revised concept to a Phenomenal editor (Bobby M). Once again, it unfortunately went nowhere (Gary doesn’t remember if the title was canceled, or the entire 2222 universe was scrapped), but a 20-page story was mostly fully illustrated, which he reprints without the dialogue which was apparently lost somewhere along the way.

Gary did include his proposal for The Others, which was about a group of children who were taken from their homes in 1916 by aliens and taken off planet, only to be returned some 70 years later each child (who were handicapped when taken) have become enhanced by the aliens, and this group of kids were to be turned into a superteam.

Finally, we come to The Dark Man, A.K.A. Blackheart, A.K.A. Blackheart in Nightown, A.K.A. Bete Noire (The Dark Beast). Here Gary suggested to Dan Mishkin that they develop a Batman-like character called The Dark Man. Unfortunately, it went nowhere, but a decade later, Gary developed a new wrinkle to the character, where he lived in an alternate 1890, where vampires had come over on the Mayflower, and now the New World was populated by a hoard of vampires.

Gary cast Bete Noire as a mysterious creature of the night, very much in the mold of Batman who is pursuing a serial killer with a vampire modus operandi, leaving his victims bloodless. While pursuing the killer, somehow Bete Noire finds himself transported to an alternate dimension where “his” city is now a Victorian nightmare that is controlled by vampires. With no way back Bete Noire must now do what he can to rid the city of its nightmarish curse. This pitch also comes with art by Ron Randall.

Each of the above pitches are wonderfully entertaining not just from the concept of the pitch themselves, but in the way that we get to see the entire process, from idea, to pitch, to plot, to script, to art. Very rarely do we get to see the entire process of how an idea comes about, and being ale to see these older ideas of Gary’s is a real thrill. We know that Gary produces a small batch of these comics, hopefully, when he runs out he will either reprint them, or create another book, with other concepts of his. We can only hope.

10 years of Terrificon, and finally a comicbook!

For the past 10 years, Mitch Hallock has been helming Terrificon—a super-sized comicbook convention—at the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, on the eastern border of Connecticut. One of the things that makes the show so successful is that Mitch is first and foremost a comicbook aficionado, and his show is most assuredly comicbook-centric, concentrating on guests who have worked in or adjacent to the field of comics. He is especially adept in booking comicbook stars from the ‘80s & ‘90s. This was especially true this year when the show released its first show-related comicbook Captain Terrificon Presents: The Scarry Squad.

The comic, written by Paul Kupperberg, with art by Pat & Tim Kennedy, inks by Barbara Kaalberg, and lettering and color by the late Mortt Todd (who passed away about a month after the show). The 24-page comic has a three-page back-up strip (Harley the Terrifidog in A Study in Mylar) by Paul with pencils by Rich Maurizio, inks and colors by Ken Weaton, and colors by Robert Snyser. Interestingly enough, this comic was aided and abetted by a supporting eight-page comic strip that appeared in the convention’s program book. This supporting comic, written by Mitch, and illustrated by George Deep, tells the origin story of Captain Terrificon.

To start with Paul’s story (which was originally intended to appear in the sadly short-lived Charlton Arrow line of comics, itself a pro/fan reboot of the late great line of Charlton Comics.) The Scarry Squad is a group of four young cosplayers who keep losing the costume contest to a different group of entitled and slightly bullyish cosplayers who keep winning. After their latest loss, the squad is majorly disheartened, especially after being teased about their continuing string of losses.

After the con, the squad not only grouses about their most recent loss—which they attribute to their lack of funds to produce winning costumes—but are further disheartened over a humiliating video of them that was uploaded by the leader of their rivals. What lifts their spirits is when their leader, Ziggy Scarry, discovers the costume of a very cool character in an old Ditko story. The discover of the Winnie the Witch character leads them to discover others, including Countess Von Bludd, Baron Wearwulf, and Mr. Bones. His sister Winnie, who is also their costumer declares that she can make the new set of costumes.

Afterwards, she and Connie Sangra go off to locate materials for the costumes, While wandering through town they discover this odd curio shop, the Arcania Boutique run by a mysterious Professor Coffin. It is in this shop that they find all of the materials that they need to construct the new set of costumes. Just as they are checking out Winnie locates Ajax, an odd golem-like plushy to which she takes a shine and keeps as well. As they walk away from the shop with their purchases, the shop itself reverts to an abandoned out-of-business location. Fully supplied with their purchases, Winnie sets about crafting a new set of costumes that the Squad then wear to the next Terrificon. When they arrive at the show, they are greeted by none other than Mitch himself, who marvels over their amazing costumes. So impressed with them that Mitch invites them into Ballroom D which houses Professor Strangelo’s House of Horror, however, just as they approach the ballroom, a hooded and robed cosplayer bursts out of the ballroom carrying the Professor’s Amulet of Cthulhu, not only is the amulet priceless, but it is claimed to be an object of great evil.

As the Squad takes off after the hooded figure, their rivals, Reid Foster’s group—not to be outdone—also take up pursuit. As both Reid and Ziggy close in on the thief, Ajax (who has mystically come to life) manages to trip the thief up causing the demonic force that possessed him to transfer to Reid. The tale winds up with the police escorting the confused thief away, Ziggy and his squad being congratulated on stopping the would-be thief, and Reid and his crew also walking off with Reid now in possession of the mystical amulet.

In the back-up tale, all of the dealers at a comic show discover that their 8.5 and higher graded comics all mysteriously reduced to dust. As Harley the Terrificdog wanders through the show, it seems that every dealer has befallen the same fate. As Mitch arrives on the scene, he discovers only one dealer, Darryl Nearmint, has any bagged/boarded/slabbed 8.5 or higher comics for sale, and he is selling them like hotcakes. However, Harley discovers that Nearmint has used a teleportation device and a mouse to swipe all of the missing comics and replace them with dust so that he would be the only dealer at the show with any high-graded comics. Needless to say, this tale also ends with the culprit being escorted out by police as Harley is being praised.

Which brings us to Mitch’s story in the program guide. Here we learn of the origin of Captain Terrificon. Kyle Kirby, a lifelong comicbook fan is cosplaying as the good captain and is headed for the Mohegan Sun to go to the Con, when he is confronted by his arch enemy, Benny the Cranky comic store owner, A.K.A. Novelty Man. Who zaps Kyle with some sort of Cosmic ray gun, throwing them both through a portal into a different dimension. This act transforms each of them into the person they are cosplaying and sets them into an epic brawl. As the two bash each other out, they wind up at the Con. The fight (and the story) ends with Novelty Man in possession of the Cosmic Comic, and Captain Terrificon changed once again.

All three comic stories are fun, engaging, and we wish that Terrificon and other major comic conventions would create comicbook tie-ins to their respective shows. Not that it actually relevant or even important, while the back-up story and the program comic were specifically created for this show, the Scarry Squad story (as already pointed out) was originally intended for a different publication. The Scarry Squad story became involved with the “magic” of a change in a couple of dialogue word balloons, as well as the addition of in-comic references to Terrificon inserted into the story. All-in-all the three stories were fun and made for a very cool piece of convention swag, especially for those of us who really love comics. Hopefully we’ll see another Terrificon comicbook next year.

_____

For those comic collectors and fans who are unaware of the history, Charlton was a Connecticut-based comicbook company with a publishing history that not only ran from 1944 to 1985, but through which an impressive array of legendary writers and artists got their start. Though never as popular as DC, Marvel, or even Archie, Charlton had a long run and produced a line of successful publications like. While they didn’t produce the superhero icons that other publishers did, they released a variety of titles that have become beloved by millions. When Charlton closed shop, they sold off most of their properties, (including a group of which that wound up transformed into the Watchmen), with many others left to languish in limbo. However, if anything, appreciation of those old comics and the characters that populated them, has grown over the years. 

An itsy-bitsy Spider Tale

As anyone who has been reading this blog for any period of time already knows, not only am I a huge comicbook fan, but I’m specifically a major Spider-Man fan. As it turns out, my love of Spider-Man, has morphed into an appreciation of all things spider, so yeah, over the years I found myself following most (if not all) of the spider-related characters in the Marvel Universe; Joining on-line spider-related online groups, wearing spider-themed T-shirts, and of course spider toys.

As can be expected, I’ve also been drawn to other spider characters as well these include Dell Comics Spider Queen. Given that Dell is no longer in business and their Golden Age characters are all in the Public Domain, and that I now write for InDELLible Comics (where we use Dell and other PD characters in new stories) I’m in the process of crafting a story with Spider Queen as the main character.

Needless to say, a short while ago, I came across the female spider character, Arachna from X53 Studios LLC, and backed a three-volume set of her adventures. When the comics arrived, I was very excited and set about to read all three issues.  Unfortunately, my anticipation of reading the series simply did not measure up to my actual reading of the series.

I don’t want to say that it was a bad series, what I am going to say is that I’ve come to the conclusion that I was simply not the target audience of the series. Perhaps, I might have been a couple of four decades ago, but as I age, I find that I am interested in different things. My issue is that the character, Arachna is a young, buxom female whose rogue’s gallery tends to be other young buxom women. When they fight, their clothes (as can be expected with these types of indie comics) tend to get ripped off (as often as not fully exposing them).

As I said, when I was in my 20s this type of storytelling would perhaps have been more interesting to me, but as I close in on 70, I find it superficially banal. I get it that sex sells, but honestly, I would prefer an actual story. The problem here is that throughout the three-issue series, Arachna keeps making not just bad decisions but the same bad decisions over and over, getting herself beat up, captured, bound, and stripped (Fredric Wertham must be as giddy as a schoolgirl in whatever funnybook hell in which he currently resides).

Again, I’m not saying this is a bad Indie comic, I’m saying that it really doesn’t seem to be living up to its true potential Although, it is entirely possible that I simply because I grew up of Stan, Jack, Steve, and JRSr, I simply expect better from my preferred entertainment.

Your mileage may differ.

 

Let's hear it for James Gunn!

We honestly have to give Director James Gunn top marks for finally producing a superhero movie that I, personally, have been waiting years to see. He has developed the “initial” movie in a planned ongoing mythology that bypasses the (so-called) “mandatory” (re)telling of the hero’s origin when the lead actor has been replaced and does what I’ve been talking about for quite some time now. Just tell a story.  In one interview, Gunn said it himself. “We don’t need to go there.” Gunn’s statement acknowledges that—for all intents and purposes—we all know the basic elements of Superman’s origin and his arrival here on Earth.

Needless to say, while there certainly are many superhero characters who are not known by the general public, there are quite a few whose origins are already known or already explained in previous films. As I’ve pointed out elsewhere (over and over) retelling a character’s origin is something oddly specific to superhero films. Rebooting a story and retelling the main character’s origin is just bad storytelling. By way of example, Let’s look at the cinematic history of James Bond, perhaps one of the most well-known fictional characters who doesn’t wear spandex.

Since his debut film, Dr. No in 1962, there have been 29 Bond films (including the original Casino Royal and Never say Never), seven actors (including David Nivin) who have played Bond, and some 27 villains. Further, we never got an actual origin story for Bond until Daniel Craig portrayed him in Casino Royal (2006). Compared to Lex Luthor appearing in five of the seven solo live action films; Green Goblin appearing in three of the Eight solo live action Spider-Man films; Magneto appearing in eight of the 14 X-Men films; and the Joker appearing in seven of the 13 Batman films.

My point here is that many of these comicbook characters have been around for 87 (Superman) to 62 (X-Men) years, and yet the films keep going back to the same legacy villains when each of the various heroes has around 100 (or more) villains, not every film has to go back to the same small group of villains when each of them have such a wide wealth of a rogues gallery. This is why Marvel introducing movies with The Guardians of the Galaxy (under Gunn), Ant Man, and Dr, Strange, are important.

Hopefully, now that Gunn has brought the Guy Gardner Green Lantern, Metamorpho, and The Engineer into the DC Cinematic Universe (with the promise of more of the same) we can all move past that there are only a few heroes with only one villain each.