Merry Apocalypsemas: “Omen” by Wessel & Penfold

Hey gang. Been a good while. I’ll have a proper Catching Up post later this weekend. Right now tho, my semi-yearly Christmas Gift of Comics to YOU. And pretty topical, seeing as it’s the End of the World and all.

“Omen” is a story that saw print in Overload #1, put together by my friend, and the editor of Discharged, Martin Conaghan. He had asked for it kinda at the last minute, but I jumped at the chance because I’d actually been trying to tell this story for 5 years now. Of course, when “Omen” began life, it was as a 48-page (or 96 -page, depending) graphic novella that was meant to be the Be All End All Kaiju Story, a true apocalyptic story of giant monsters destroying the world on December 21, 2012, encompassing Godzilla tropes and Ragnarok, with some potent commentary on a certain right-wing doomsday cult masquerading as a news channel.

Early signs were encouraging: one of the first people who approached me after talking about it on Millarworld ended up becoming one of my best friends in this crazy ol’ world of comics, Hadron Colliderscope founder Michael Vincent Bramley. Another artist who initially approached me was Jeff Simpson, who of course draws that KEEPER comic I ramble on about sometimes. However, the best sign was from someone I already knew online from LiveJournal, and tho he had done some acclaimed work, he hadn’t quite become FAMOUS yet, as both Crossed and Neonomicon were still a little ways off…

Original sketch of the Creature by Jacen Burrows

I kindly asked Jacen if he could design the Creature as I knew he wouldn’t do the book as he was exclusive to Avatar Press (and still is), but he more than graciously took my suggestion of “Cthulhu type horror mixed with the Wolf Fenrir, and, well, the results speak for themselves. Now he draws for Alan Moore and helped create a mega-selling franchise. Ah, I knew him when…

In any event, nobody ever took the bait, the idea languished for a good long while, but I still had this sketch and wanted to get it done, somehow, eventually. Late last year, then, Rachel Deering, creator/writer of the “lesbian werewolf epic” Anathema, asked for stories for a horror anthology she was planning to do. I submitted “Omen,” then almost immediately she said she was cancelling it due to… whatever reason that I can’t remember. She’s since resurrected that idea (I think), but I guess she forgot to say something to me.

Which is OK, since Martin, for whom I already had a story planned for Overload #2, asked if I could get him something quick for #1. I finally got to write “Omen,” and did it in a weekend, distilling what was a graphic novella into 6 pages, truly ramping up the insanity of the certain cable news propaganda channel, but not so unbelievable. I think. Steve (Moon) Penfold drew it in his own crazy way, and it was good. Someone else started to letter it, but then he had a death in the family, so lettering fell into the ever-capable hands of (TA-DA!) KEEPER letterer Jim Campbell, and of course he rocked it.

Mind you, had I known that 2000AD / Judge Dredd veteran Gordon Rennie was ALSO going to do a “criticism of right wing politics using horror tropes” story, I’d not have submitted “Omen,” but as it stands, seems like there’s a bit of a theme running in Overload #1!

But, it is what it is, and what it is, is 6 pages written by me, drawn by Simon Penfold, lettered by Jim Campbell, edited by Martin Conaghan, with special thanks to Jacen Burrows.

Ladies and Gentlemen, enjoy your holidays, or Doomsday, or whatever you’re celebrating today, tomorrow, next week.

“Omen.” Thank you.

(click to embiggen)

And Then There Was The Time Mark Waid Said Something Nice About KEEPER

Earlier today on Twitter:

@MarkWaid – “Another digital comic worth checking out: keeper-comic.com –tell them I sent you!”

Well, there you go. Mark Waid sent you.

Tomfoolery

Hey gang.

We’re having, or had, depending on when you read this, some snafus with KEEPER‘s main domain not going to where it should. In future, you can also go to http://keeper.updownstudio.com if the main site doesn’t jibe. Sorry about that. Domain ownership transfer buggery I’m sure.

Meanwhile, both KEEPER artist Jeff Simpson and I made appearances in other webcomics last week. Jeff drew last Wednesday’s edition of The Gutters, a sometimes raunchy parody of the comic industry. I actually remember strip writer Ryan Sohmer talking to us at C2E2 back in April, so glad to see this turned out alright for Jeff.

For my part, I (or rather, my Twitter account) made a cameo appearance in last week’s edition of Insufferable, the webcomic by Mark Waid + friend of the program Peter Krause. I recognize some of the other Twitter handles there too.

Anyway, hopefully this’ll all be resolved by the time you read this. Carry on.

These and Thats

Hey gang.

* First off, KEEPER just wrapped up Issue 2 this week, the last two pages featuring some of the strongest art I’ve seen from Jeff in a while. So, wow, three issues (well, two-and-a-half really) done and dusted. We’re working on Issue 3. Jeff is also taking some time to redraw Issue 0, getting the format more print-ready. Because we need to make it ready. For print. Ahem. Stay tuned.

* Discharged is also coming along, Alwyn and I are near ready to unveil this for any and all interested parties to see. I’ve seen a bunch of art of Alwyn that, frankly, you haven’t, and it’s all pretty derned exciting.

* Oh, and if you care about such things, last week I wrote a guest editorial for an Arsenal supporters site called You Are My Arsenal. Some liked it, some didn’t. It happens.

* A couple of weekends ago I had an interesting incident happen that drove home Wil Wheaton’s rule of “Don’t Be A Dick.”

Bleeding Cool had reported on a new digital anthology that was being undertaken by none other than David Lloyd called Aces Weekly featuring, among work by Kyle Baker, John McCrea, and friend of the program Phil Hester, a work by someone named Yishan Lias called “The Keeper.” Hmm, a digital comic called KEEPER? Yeah I better look into this.

PMs on Twitter to Phil Hester (who of course has read my KEEPER, even contributed a quote for it!) lead to an email to Phil Hester, which lead to an email back from David Lloyd himself. Lloyd explained that the title was actually by Chinese UK manga artist Yishan Li (another infamous Bleeding Cool typo eh!), whereas I explained my position (some of which I don’t feel I can readily divulge yet!) about KEEPER. He said he would talk to Yishan about it.

Later that same day, I get a Facebook friend request from… Yishan Li! I accepted, and sent a DM acknowledging it. Happy to report that after a brief conversation, where I found out there were in fact some thematic similarities between our respective KEEPERs, she relayed to me that it was a working title, and she would talk to the writer (an unknown French woman, she didn’t say whom) about changing it to something else for the benefit of my strip.

See? No lawyers, no threats, but a nice couple of emails and IMs, and an issue that even 15 years ago might have taken weeks to resolve was done and dusted within 24 hours. And hey, I have a slight door opened to maybe working with Yishan Li… maybe even David Lloyd down the line? Time will tell?

* Meanwhile, an offhanded remark made to someone had lead me to working on a pitch that could see me in a magazine I’ve pretty much always dreamed of being in. This could get real interesting, folks.

* Speaking of interesting, had a reminder of the “interesting” that is Indiana weather yesterday. This is the state where I swear, in 2007, it went from shorts weather to snowing within 24 hours. Well, yesterday afternoon I happened upon this little critter, apparently a blue tailed skink, out in the wild of Indianapolis! Wondering if soon we’d be seeing palm trees any day now, within two hours we had a hailstorm that ended up borking up my backyard. The only explanation I can think of for all this is Bea left for the weekend — the last time that happened, I had to drive from Lafayette to Indy in the beginning of that megastorm that went all the way from Indiana to the East Coast, knocking out power all over the eastern part of the United States (my father in the DC metro area was without power for several days, couldn’t even see the Euro 2012 final!), on a trip that included me having to drive over a bridge that was on fire. For real. See, Bea just shouldn’t leave anymore…

Of course, the good news is, the drought that’s wracked Indiana and 26 other states seems to be abating a bit, and my backyard seems to be getting back some of its green color again.

* My stance on Kickstarter recently has, well, “softened” quite a bit from where it was. I still don’t think it is, or should be, the be all end all method of publishing indie comics, and in fact I think Penny Arcade is absolutely full of shit for pulling the stunt they did. But, be that as it may, I’m glad to see some projects from people I like and support have done well recently. Not the least of which is Duster by Micah Ian Wright & company (whom I did a very well acclaimed interview with for Comics Bulletin a couple of weeks ago). Also noteworthy is The Cabinet by Christian Sager and my artist for “Paint A Vulgar Picture”(+) / “Full Disclosure”, Kelly Williams. I also see Quandary by old Zuda era pal Janine Naimoli Frederick and her husband Ken, that thematically seems a bit similar to a project I abandoned, so she’s welcome to it haha. Look forward to that. A buck gets you a PDF of #1.

I am failing to see why a project by Jamie freakin’ Delano is struggling so badly. Has his star really fallen that low? Five days to come up with $18,000. Good luck, Jamie.

(+) – You can still buy Unite & Take Over Volume 2 and There Is A Light from me. Just sayin’.

* Anything else? Other than I told a B****e W******n creator to fuck off, not really. Got things to write, errands to run. Yup. Seeya gang.

Interview: Micah Ian Wright

Hey gang.

An interview I’ve conducted over the last week or so has just went live on Comics Bulletin.

I posed some tough questions to the extremely controversial Micah Ian Wright, as he makes his way back to comics via Kickstarter with a new graphic novel called Duster. There’s still 6 days and $6000 left to go on it, by the by.

That being said, I know how controversial he was, and maybe still is, but please have a read. What do YOU think?

Enjoy.

Three Pages of POSEY

Hey gang.

A fabulous artist named Sloane Leong, who currently does a webcomic called Alpha Princess Garou Shoujo, is displaying three pages of a comic I wrote.

It’s called Posey, and was originally done as a submission to an international manga competition that Kodansha was putting on. I remember saying something on Twitter about it, she piped up, we agreed upon it, but couldn’t get done in time for numerous reasons (not least of which the Halloween Laptop Theft of 2011). I decided to get around any potential translation difficulties, this would be a silent story, which I’d never done before, and I think I did kinda OK.

Sloane of course is fantastic.

We’ll get this out there once it’s done, one way or another. Yes.

Enjoy the teaser.

New KEEPER site

Hey gang.

Just a quick note to say the KEEPER website is now at a new host, with a new, hopefully much more user friendly layout than before. Please check it out.

Also, just a quick reminder, I still have some Smiths/Morrissey related comics for sale. And all.

Thanks.