The Reason Why – The God That Failed

 

How do you write a comic book?

I had crafted terrible, terrible stories throughout my youth. I have a blue beat-up notebook with the ongoing tales of the Threats based on the adventures of my sister and friends. I had various files on the computer with a bullet list style outline of ideas here or there but there was never a real chance to actually get a comic going. And then somehow I found myself with a very random opportunity after spending a few months talking about writing in the back of a comic shop.

There were some artists who met up there as well and somehow there was an opportunity to do something short. 8-pages.

I didn’t go back to any of my old ideas. In fact, I wasn’t really sure how to go about writing a script for an artist. I don’t think I’d really seen anything at that point. But there was a bigger problem:

I didn’t have an idea.

It was a struggle to try and find some kernel of an idea. Sure I had 60 issue epics planned out, but only 8 pages? What in the world could I tell in such a short amount of time?

And then it hit me one day while I was at work. Over the next 10 minutes I roughed out the full script on a bunch of scrap papers. The idea of having a hero who had a very limited time in the world. I don’t know if I was feeling my own mortality as I approached my 30s or if there was something about comic book heroes never getting to see the last of their stories, but that’s what I set out to do.

Again, it was a bare bones script at best that I handed the artist, John Etienne, the next meeting. He might have asked a couple of questions, I can’t remember. All I knew was there was a chance this bit of words on a couple of pages might get transformed into something bigger.

 

Evolution-Book-one-cover-lo

Since the internet loves a list, here are 9 things (Why 9? Because that’s how many I came up with!) about my first comic that might strike your fancy, a behind the scenes, if you will:

1- John Etienne was the artist on the story. The only reason that Etienne was my artist is because I had approached him a couple of months earlier, before the idea of doing an anthology was even a real thought in anyone’s head. However, it wasn’t because I had this story lined up. No, instead I had wanted him to draw an 8 page Moon Knight story for me (not sure what my goal there would have been). Lucky for me he didn’t have time right then to work on anything, and when the anthology project was finally launched I had a story of my own.

2- John Etienne happens to know my Mother-in-Law. She played a trick on him once the comic was out by telling him that not only had she gone to Dragon Con, but she had bought this comic book and wondered if he was the artist on it. “I always go to Dragon Con, and I love comic books”. After a few dumb-founded seconds she fessed up, but both of them later relayed the story to me (and the look on his face as he wasn’t sure if he’d stepped into Bizzaro world or not). I believe Etienne’s words were to me that he just couldn’t see her at Dragon Con. Though, I would pay good money to see her downtown on Labor Day weekend.

3- There was some debate about the order of the stories within the book. I generally like to be the nice guy about most things, but by my thinking I believed you either wanted to be the first story or the last story in the book (actually we all may have thought those spots were the best). I ended up with the last story position, but when the first story ended up delayed (or abandoned, I can’t remember) everyone agreed to put The God That Failed into the first position. Again, I have to thank Etienne for actually being the first one finished with his pages which made the choice fairly easy plus they looked pretty damn good as well, which did not hurt our cause).

4- I mentioned in the blog that my favorite superheroes are Spider-Man and The Flash. The God That Failed was my idea of what would happen to a guy who received the abilities of The Flash, but that power was burning him up inside.

TheFlash

5- In my original script, page 7 was actually page 6, and page 6 was page 7. Given the way the narration was done the story wasn’t as much linear as it was a guy talking about his friend who was disappearing from the world. When I actually saw the finished pages I had those two flipped given the way the story played out. That being said, page 7 is a “what if” moment, not something that the character actually did (he didn’t need to get more power, he already had way too much).

6- Though I love the serialized format of comic books, this was always a stand-alone story… a cautionary tale, a new myth or something. Thus began my apparent need to tell complete stories (done in one) in comics. That continued with The Gilded Age. But the real reason that I didn’t want to have him as a new hero for future stories was that I had no idea if or when I’d ever get a chance to do more comics. And as a reader there is nothing more frustrating than buying a comic that says “To Be Continued” and then not ever finding the rest of the story.

7- The main character’s name was John Smith; however, it wasn’t because two Johns worked on the story. I wanted a generic name, someone who might be easily forgotten regardless of all the good deeds he might have done. That fear is something that I know I have and I was channeling that fear into John Smith. This is really summed up to me on pages 5 & 6 but mostly in panel 4 on page 5. John carving into the Easter Island statues is not him destroying something precious; it is his attempt to prove that he existed at all. I sometimes wonder if he did that all over the world.

8- The title is taken from the title of a song on Metallica’s Black Album. I just liked the way it sounded, and since superheroes many times are considered gods, it fit exceptionally well in my mind.

Now I probably owe them money or something.

9- My favorite page of the story is the last one. I think (I hope) that I dodged becoming too preachy by having that last panel thrown in there. I love the idea of another what if… this one being, of course, what if John Smith had lived. The shot of The Fruit Fly conjures up memories of a 10-year old me. I think he would have gotten a kick out of that.

***

I’m not sure John truly knew how excited I was to start seeing those pages. And while the narration and idea was mine, it wouldn’t be anything without his wonderful artwork. He took a bare script and made it look like a true comic story. And when he was done, that’s when I got that first true rush I hope everyone who creates something gets when they see it finished. It’s an odd moment where you know no matter what else happens, a little piece of you exists in the world. Something permanent which sprang from your mind.

My own Easter Island carving if you will.

***

John McGuire is the writer of the sci-fi novel: The Echo Effect.

He is also the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Click here to join John’s mailing list and receive preview chapters of upcoming novels, behind the scenes looks at new comics, and free short stories.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Tales from Vigilante City, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

10 Years Later – Part Two

We’re now on the other side of 10 Years worth of posts. A time where I’m hoping that I can push myself to write more on the various projects I have going. Though sometimes the amount of bandwidth feels too much. Like too much time is spent doing everything but the writing.

I think it is a good thing to reflect back on what I’ve done and accomplished through my posts. Highlight a handful of others that might have gotten lost in the shuffle over the years. So many words…

Stan Lee

Without Stan Lee I might not be a writer. His work on those early Marvel comics helped to pave my way into the fandom I have today. Though all the collecting and reading, it was comics that I wanted to write more than anything else. So without him, I’m not sure I would have gotten even half as far as I have.

30 Years Ago

I’d completely forgot about this blog post. But it is the origin story for Courtney and me. And while I don’t know every thought going on in 17 year old John’s mind, I remember enough of it to put it out there for everyone to read.

I’m The Problem

Egg Embry and I have a joke about how the two or three comics he is currently collecting is the only thing staving off armageddon for the comic book industry. And every other week there is an article out there discussing why comics are not doing as well as they used to do. Or why can’t they get more fans. Or what things could they do to improve things. I read these articles and try to take in everything I can, even if I literally have zero power to do anything more than what I am doing.

Except I had this thought, maybe I am the problem. Maybe you can pin it all at my feet. Maybe I’m the bad guy?

 

The Darkest Timeline

Weirdly, I’m writing this particular blog post in the hours after another Atlanta Braves postseason loss. Another year where they should have won more games in the post season. Career years for many of the players… I don’t get the feeling very often, but I really thought this was going to be the year. Other teams manage to do it, and yet…

(Note to self – this post was prior to the 2021 season where we did win it all, so while it is dark, it isn’t as dark as it had been.)

 

To Become A Super-Villain

Written during the shelter in place for Covid, the lack of interaction with anyone other than Courtney started me thinking that this could be her villain origin story. So this one is more of a list of things for us to avoid.

Westley

I merely clicked on the link to the one, and I started tearing up again. A reminder of the hole this little guy left in my heart. But I am especially proud of this piece because it is raw. It is as much as I could think of in those days after he was gone. The words flowed because I had to make sure I remembered everything I could… that if I did that then I could feel like others could understand how that little cat filled my life in a way I didn’t know was possible.

 

***

I hate leaving on this down note, but the last one is likely the most important thing I’ve ever written on this site for what he meant to me. So go hug your pets. Give them treats and kisses and snuggles and enjoy every moment you have with them.

***

John McGuire is the writer of the sci-fi novel: The Echo Effect.

He is also the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Click here to join John’s mailing list and receive preview chapters of upcoming novels, behind the scenes looks at new comics, and free short stories.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Tales from Vigilante City, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

 

 

Repost – I’m the Problem

Image by Arek Socha from Pixabay

I’m the problem.

I’m supposed to be out there, trying new things.

Sampling the comic books that are worth sampling.

And I do.

Sometimes.

***

Except there is Comixology.

Did you know that pretty much any comic book that you buy in print for $3.99 is very shortly thereafter going to be about $1.99 for the digital copy? Oh, I don’t know the exact timeline on such things. You see, $1.99 is still far too much for me to pay for that thing I want to read. So I wait for better sales. Hey maybe when it gets down to $0.99 an issue, THEN I’ll give your book a try.

What’s that? You are about to package the first 6 issues together in a trade and offer it for $3.99? Well, that sounds like a deal.

***

Your new independent comic is coming out through Image or Ahoy or Aftermath or Boom or…

So you need those early issue sales, right? I mean, if I want to REALLY help you out I should get my local comic book shop to order me a copy of issues 1 through however many you are going to print. That’s where you are going to make your money and show the big wigs that your comic is the one they should bet on to go far.

Because the way comics work for as long as I can remember, is that you have to have good orders on Issue 1 so that when you get to the dip that happens with issues 2 and 3 and 4… you can survive the fall. Survive that for long enough to get to issue 6 and the 1st trade. Which might buy you another 6 issues.

Might.

***

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Except there is waiting for the Trade.

Because I don’t know if you really are going to make it. I have a couple of long boxes full of the NEXT BIG THING that sputtered out. Plus, I don’t know how you are going to tell your story. What if you really want me to read it over the course of 1 sitting… why would I get those individual issues when I can have them on my shelf as a trade? If I want to potentially read them all together, it would be nuts to buy them in any other format.

Right?

***

It is the best time to be a creator. You can do anything right now. You can build new worlds. You can show us what is inside your mind. There are no limitations.

That’s what is happening out there. Kickstarters are firing up at an awesome clip. People offering their ideas to a world and you don’t need any of the other companies. You can be your own company. You get to effectively do a pre-order of your comic. Hey, buy my issue one and hopefully, I raise just enough to find issue 2 and slowly this thing will grow to the point where they can continue forever.

I even got in on the Kickstarter (and now Indiegogo thing) with Gilded Age.

So all I need to do is help you on this issue 1 and HOPE you come out with an issue 2. But without my support, you may not even get that much. Well, sign me up!

***

Except, maybe I should only get your digital stuff at first. Or, maybe I’ll WAIT FOR THE TRADE… something even more suspect that the more traditional way we get our comics at the store.

***

But I’m the problem. I have the core books I want to read. Those Batman or Flash or Avengers comics (Walking Dead, RIP). You know, those books that will definitely, absolutely make it to a trade. But then I see something like The Wrong Earth (from Ahoy Comics), it about superheroes in parallel worlds and Tom Peyer was a great writer on the 90s Legion of Superhero books. This is a comic I need to support.

And I say – “I want that in a trade format.”

What is wrong with me?

***

I’ve convinced myself that it is two things:

Space & Money

***

The Space issue. My house is only sooooo big. The life of a part-time author doesn’t pay enough to do that add-on basement. So I think about whether adding another longbox a year is the way to go, or… perhaps, the better way is to make use of bookshelves for the comics?

Again, I don’t know if that solves any kind of problems or not.

***

You see, the price of comics continues to rise. When I was 16 and had a job at Kroger making $4.25 an hour, I could buy an infinite number of comics at $1.00 each.

And I did.

I probably got 90% of what Marvel offered at the time. The longboxes upstairs share that reality very well. Today, even though I don’t make $4.25 an hour, I probably spend double on comics for a quarter the titles. As things move to $3.99 and then $4.99, I’ve found that I stick with what I like and I try the occasional thing… once in a while. So the way I can try more and stretch my dollars is to find the sales and the trades instead of the brand new stuff the moment it comes out.

I’ve convinced myself that maybe supporting things a little bit is better than not supporting things at all.

I don’t know if that is true or not.

How to Make Me

Sometimes the best way to inspire yourself is to look back at the archives of this very site and see what you’ve written before. I’ve done that over the last couple of years, doing repost blogs since there are likely more than a few people who might not have ever seen some of my earliest tales of fun and woe. But sometimes it is also worth it to take a look back at what others were doing and then steal the idea and make it your own.

So as I was doing so, I glanced in the “Drafts” folder for Tessera and found something that Chad Shonk (who wrote for this site many years ago) wrote up, but never actually published. The idea of “How to Make a Me” where he posted these images of things that he felt contributed to who he was at the time of the blog post (or would have been at the time of the blog post). I like this idea of trying to Frankenstein’s Monster myself

 

Comics

Comics are the great, singular passion for me. I couldn’t quit them if I tried. And while much of my collection is focused on the superheroes, that doesn’t mean my love doesn’t extend to the independents. If you have a compelling story, I’m in.

Blast from the past: Comics Are My Time Machine

Music

I’ve written about my love affair with Pearl Jam, but like so many people, music has been the time machine of my life. A song can signify a period that I might have long since forgotten. The nostalgia for those old memories and feelings are a great drug.

Blast from the past: I Like To Swim… Into the Mosh…

Movies

I joke that had I not seen Jaws, I would have gone into Marine Biology. But with my family getting HBO when I was around 10 years old, watching movies was just one of those things I always did. And rewatching your favorites give me a certain level of comfort.

Blast from the Past – My Top Ten Horror Movies

Sports

A long time I wrote about how my two main teams had only delivered one World Title while I’d been a fan (and that was probably one of the years I hadn’t paid as much attention to the Braves). If you aren’t a Lakers/Yankees/Patriots fan, it can be a bit of slim pickings. Of course, with the Braves winning the World Series last year, I finally got to experience that ultimate joy as a fan.

Blast from the Past – Finally!!! Atlanta Braves Win!!!

Books

Jack London was the first author I really recognized from name alone. Call of the Wild was one of the few books, as a young kid, that I’d read and reread. Over the years I’m not sure I’ve found anyone to replace him at the top of my pantheon.

Blast from the Past – Books That Changed Me – Part 2

Poker

Courtney and I play poker. We strategize. We watch Youtube videos. It is one of our great bonding pieces of our relationship. And it is one of those things we can always get better in through practice.

 

Pets

I’ve had cats my whole life. Something about pets overall helps fill in the pieces of your soul. But these two knuckleheads are the best I’ve ever had. And while Westley passed away last year, Inigo has been a rock since.

Blast from the Past – COVID Through the Eyes of a Cat

 

***

Of course, there are other pieces of me not reflected here (family, the beach trips, the travels), but these all consist of the bigger things.

***

John McGuire is the writer of the sci-fi novel: The Echo Effect.

He is also the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Click here to join John’s mailing list and receive preview chapters of upcoming novels, behind the scenes looks at new comics, and free short stories.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Tales from Vigilante City, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

Repost – Searching for a Super Power

I’ve been busy with prepping for the upcoming Kickstarter, so I thought a look at an early blog might be interesting.

Oh, and if you’d like to sign up to be notified when the Kickstarter goes live, you can do that here.

***

I’ve been thinking about the scene in Mallrats where they are playing their version of the Dating Game and Brody (Jason Lee) is asked “If you were a comic book character, what character would you be?” Brody then begins to break it down: “What does one gauge his response on? Physical prowess? Keen detection skills? The ability to banter well with super villains?”

dating_show

He never gets to really answer the question, but it is certainly one that I’ve asked myself. Or more directly, what power would I want? So I’m going to break it down.

Flight – Let’s face it, flight is an amazing ability for those of us who must move along on the ground. To be able to reach up into the sky and really see the world as it is, in a way that very few ever could.

But, eventually they are going to make that hovercar technology and then everyone is going to be able to fly and you’ll just be sucking fumes.

manofsteel

Invisibility – This could be a good one. I’m pretty sure that there have been more than a handful of times that not being able to be seen would come in handy… get your mind out of the gutter!

I’ve seen Hollow Man. I’ve read the Invisible Man. It seems like madness is truly the biggest side-effect to having this power. I mean, even the Invisible Woman has had her bouts with it from time to time. And I’d be worried that an ability like that pretty much can only make you the biggest pervert in the world… now get your head into the gutter.

invisible

Telepathy – To be able to read people’s minds. To know when someone is hiding something from you. To see when they are lying to you. To find out exactly what people really think about you…

The Twilight Zone even had an episode where the guy suddenly could read minds and as we all know (A Penny for Your Thoughts), if that show does an episode on something then it always… turns out… good?

Come to think about it, that might not be the best idea. Ignorance is bliss.

Super Speed – The Flash makes it look so fun. He can move so fast, vibrate through objects, even create sonic booms. In the comics they always show him as the guy who helps rebuild the city because he makes it look like things only take 5 seconds.

Here’s the thing, something that I’m not entirely sure has ever really been broached by the comic books or the tv shows… it still has to be done by him. ISo for him, even moving really fast, he has to actually shovel the snow out of the driveway, he has to clean the house one room at a time… yes, to the rest of us he gets it done fast, but he still gets to deal with the part of actually doing those crappy jobs. And he can’t ever complain about it because everyone else will tell him how long it will really take them to do the same task.

Sounds like a lot of work.

Super Strength – Awesome, you have a power that will come in handy if you need to… hmmm, I’m trying to figure out when this one would come in handy in every day life. I guess the pickle jar will never remain stuck. The groceries will never be too heavy? Luggage?

Yeah, might be cool for a second, but I need something bigger and better.

Laser Blasts – Unless I’m fighting a villain, I’m not sure I need to be a living weapon. I certainly don’t need anyone and their brother trying to use me to whatever military purpose I might be suitable for. I’m probably missing a cool application of this power, but since Doctor Doom is not on my dance card most nights, I’m not feeling it.

Teleportation – To be able to move great distances in a split second. To no longer need to use a car or a plane or whatever to get from point A to point B. To be able to roll out of bed and be anywhere in the world with just a thought. I mean, sure there is that whole making sure that you don’t teleport into a solid object, but you could always scope things out beforehand. Set up particular spots to go to and from. Heck, I could live on a luxurious beach and still work wherever I wanted.

Star_trek_beam

And sure, maybe that means when your wife sends you to the market, she means the market in Hong Kong for that authentic Chinese Take-out, but hey, that may be a price worth paying.

So for me, I think I’ll go take a quick trip to Hawaii where it is nice and warm as opposed to the beginning of winter that I’m already tired of.

 

***

John McGuire is the writer of the sci-fi novel: The Echo Effect.

He is also the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Click here to join John’s mailing list and receive preview chapters of upcoming novels, behind the scenes looks at new comics, and free short stories.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Tales from Vigilante City, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

Bracketology

Image by Jeff Jacobs from Pixabay

Little teams facing off against Goliaths. The blue bloods going against the mid-levels. The unknowns hitting their last-second shot. The upsets.

That’s exactly what indy comics feels like.

It feels like you are the unknown quantity and you know that you just need one chance in order to prove that you belong. But the thing is, during the regular season those big dogs never want anything to do with you. They don’t want to schedule games against you. Heck, they wouldn’t know where to go if they did. So you have to struggle and scratch and claw alongside others of your ilk. You’ve got to put in the work the same as if you were playing in the big arenas across the country.

You’ve got to create for yourself because no one else in the big leagues is going to be of much help to you.

Those dark hours you spend in front of the computer, all those loose scraps of paper with little bits of genius on them, the whiteboard where you’ve mapped 60 issues of your storyline out, and everything else you do to keep those ideas alive. Trying your best to wrap your head around the plots and put them in a coherent format so that an artist can bring your vision to life. The Fear has to take a back seat during those moments when you are creating.

 

But in the tournament it’s different. You finally get your chance to show off your skills and your stories to an even bigger audience. They can’t ignore you completely anymore. They can’t outright dismiss you, even if they would like to.

But here’s where the analogy fails. You see, while those little schools are all competing for the handful of slots just to get on the big stage, it doesn’t have to be like that for the independents. We don’t have to be competition for each other. Instead, we can be another ship in the fleet, raising the sails of anyone and everyone we can.

Hopefully, as the world begins to return to something that might resemble “normal” (though that word feels like it will always have an asterisk beside it, much like we say pre-911, I see us saying pre-Covid19), we’re going to start venturing out to the comic book conventions. You’re going to walk down those aisles where the big creators are, and that’s great. I love doing that as well, but I would say that maybe, just maybe, you take a venture down to where the indy creators are. Take your time down there. Those guys and gals have poured their free time into those books. Each one might not appeal to you, but I’m willing to bet that there are a few in there which will feel like they were made just for you.

This might be the closest thing to the Big Dance many of us are ever going to get to (and that’s ok). Not everyone is trying to work at Marvel or DC. Many creators just want to be able to put their vision of the world out there in some form or fashion. They are hoping that a handful (well, maybe more than a handful) of people are going to give them a chance. That they are going to stop and look. Pick up a comic and flip through it. To have those conversations where you can hear the excitement in their voice while they pitch you their stories.

It’s not always about the big splashy moments. Sometimes it can be about the little ones. A reader and a creator connecting with their mutual love of the form.

***

John McGuire is the writer of the sci-fi novel: The Echo Effect.

He is also the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Click here to join John’s mailing list and receive preview chapters of upcoming novels, behind the scenes looks at new comics, and free short stories.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Tales from Vigilante City, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

 

Interview with Wishful Thinking’s Jack Raines

A little while back I ran across a comic on Kickstarter that just spoke to me: Wishful Thinking. The story was about a ex-Genie who becomes a wish consultant. That Kickstarter went on to fund, and now Wishful Thinking is back with their second issue on Kickstarter.

Jack was kind enough to take a few minutes and let me pester him with questions.

At what point did you sit down and think “I want to be a comic writer?”?
When I was a senior in high school I finally got my license. It was during the same year I learned my small southern town had a comic shop! I hadn’t read a comic in years, at the time I was more interested in manga just cause it was more available online at the time. So when I stepped into my LCS for the first time I was greeted with a wealth of cape comics (superhero comics are my FAVORITE), most notably Mark Waid’s Daredevil, Scott Snyders Batman, and Matt Fractions Hawkeye. Their ability to weave imagery with narrative made it hard to put those books down. When I learned Scott Snyder would be in Charolette for HeroesCon I just had to go.
There I met so many creators both professional and independent that were more welcoming than I could believe. Everyone was so down to Earth and there to showcase/talk about what they loved. It was then I learned that anyone could be in this business, and that’s when I started practicing turning my story ideas into comic form.
I’m a big fan of all those comics, too! And Mark Waid’s run on The Flash is by far and away my favorite run on the character. Who inspires you? Or do you have a favorite writer/artist or creator?
Scott Snyder has been both my favorite creator and biggest inspiration. Everything connects in these wild stories he puts out in such a complete way, all while being a total class act with his readers!
How do you manage your daily/family life with your creative work? Is this your 9 to 5 or is this your 10 to 2?
It’s hard, especially now that I’ve started working 3rd shift and going to school. My biggest key to success is writing down a list of things to do each day. I try to go for 4 things max, and plan my week accordingly. I have a white board next to my desk for this purpose. If it’s been written down I get a sense of satisfaction from crossing it out, and it keeps me from feeling overwhelmed. Doubt I could do what I do without a calendar of some sorts!
I do much the same thing with my to do tasks, but sadly the thing that probably is the hardest to figure out is promotion. It’s often difficult to get word out about independent comics. What do you do to market and promote your books? Anything work really well or really poorly?
Social media is tough for me. I’m moreso a lurker than anything else so it’s been a challenge getting myself out there. So far my biggest success social media-wise has been on Instagram, but even then it’s hard to fight against the algorithm to get the word out there. My mailing list has been the best and my most favorite way to connect with readers. It feels more personal which allows me to write more about what these projects mean to me as well as what I’m up to.
What’s your process look like when you’re writing? Do you go with the full outline? Or are you a fly by the seat of your pants type?
Little of column A and a little of column B. Often my story can change depending on how the pages look. I like leaving character appearance to the artist’s discretion. I’ll write about their personality and demeanor, then it’ll be up to Trigo to handle the rest. When seeing how he frames each panel and designs these characters I find new avenues to take the story. So even if I am a few issues ahead I usually end up rewriting it by the time we get there.  The collaboration between my crew (Carlos, Ester, and Justin) makes writing fresh and exciting!

Wishful Thinking Issue 2, Page 1

I love the idea of Wishful Thinking! What inspired you to write Wishful Thinking?
Thank you! I was introduced to urban fantasy through The Dresden Files. It’s really fun to think of how fantasy creatures would interact with our society. I knew that I wanted my story to be under the same genre, but didn’t know the specifics.
I then began thinking about what I wanted to write about. What kind of feeling did I want to convey? During the time of Wishful Thinkings’ inception, I was around 23, working as a custodian, and not having a solid idea of how I wanted to tackle my goals. I didn’t have much of a grasp on myself either, so the thing I wanted to write about most was identity. It was something everyone struggles with, and I wanted to personify that conflict through comic form.
Around that time I caught wind of a 6-page story contest. The top 3 would get looked at by an editor from some indie publisher (it’s been too long I can’t remember!). I’m not entirely sure what I was looking at when I came up with this, but I remember thinking of how if a djinn was a human it’d be Jim. Why would a genie need a human name? Well, I guess if he wasn’t a genie anymore. What would he do if he wasn’t a genie? Probably the only thing he knows how to do, help with wishes. When I told my buddy this he gave me the name for Jim’s business, Wishful Thinking, and the rest was history.
What’s been the reaction to the book?
So far I’ve heard nothing but compliments!  This project has been in development for 3 years, and seeing that work pay off in the form of satisfied readers has been a blessing. It makes all the stress worth it lemme tell ya! This issue dives more into the fantasy side of things and is a bit of a bigger story than the first one. Very curious on how it’ll be received!
Are there themes and/or subjects you find yourself drawn to again and again in your work?
Definitely identity, as it’s still something I’m figuring out.  It’s a thing everyone must go through on their own, and can only be found with complete honesty of one’s self. I think Wishful Thinking and my webcomic, Spectre Protector (illustrated by Sarah Burgess) talk of different methods of searching for that identity.
You ran your first Kickstarter for issue #1 and funded. I’m interested in the idea that you weren’t using the Kickstarter to fund the comic but instead used it to “introduce” yourself to the greater comic community. Do you feel like you succeeded in that goal?
Yes, I believe it did a good job. It definitely exceeded my expectations for my first Kickstarter! I tried to play it as safe as possible so that I can just get used to running a campaign.
I intend to carry that energy through future Kickstarters. In my opinion, it’s only to fair to fund as much of the book myself before going to Kickstarter. I want you to know this is a story I believe is worth telling! It also helps speed up the fulfillment process which is a plus.

Wishful Thinking Issue 2, Page 2

I’ve found that the difference between having the book done or still waiting on the book to finish after the Kickstarter can be stressful, so I’m going to try and have any future issues done before then. Now that you’ve just launched your second issue on Kickstarter, what have you learned about the process of Kickstarter? Something that afterward you “wished” you knew?
The biggest thing I learned was the process of shipping these books out. I haven’t heard any complaints about damages or packages that never showed up so I’m glad all was well on that front. It was pretty nerve-wracking, but now that I’ve done it once I feel more comfortable with all that’s involved in shipping, and now that I know all the steps I can better plan out how to go about them without any need for stressful crunch time.
What’s the overall plan with Wishful Thinking? Do you have an overall target for the number of issues?
I’m shooting for 7 issues, each one being roughly 32-36 pages long. I have other stories to tell in this world, and if it continues to gain support I wouldn’t mind diving into that. For now though 7 issues is the plan!
Comics is an amazing collaborative medium. Tell me a little about working with Carlos Trigo, the artist on Wishful Thinking.
He’s been amazing throughout the whole process! I tend to give my artists a lot of space in the design department (the only character I’ve been picky on is Jim), and he’s given new light to each character he touches. For instance, the bank teller in this story doesn’t have a name. I just refer to her as Teller given that she’s just a side character. Actually, she used to be a he until Carlos suggested otherwise. After seeing what he’s done with the teller and how her personality comes alive in the panels I was inspired to write her a bigger role in the next issue! His experience has helped greatly when it came to refining how I structure my panels. I feel with each new issue I grow a bit more as a writer thanks to his, Ester, and Justins collaborative efforts.
If you could go back in time ten years, what advice might you have for your younger self? Something you wish you knew?
Honestly, I don’t have anything to tell 16-year-old Jack. Maybe ask if we can switch places? All he had to do was play video games and go to school. No bills no nothin…lucky dog.
Anything else that you’d like people to know about you (Hobbies? Passions? Favorite TV Show)?
Unfortunately, I don’t have much time for them now, but I do really love fighting games. That community has the same vibe as comics. I ran an online tournament with a friend called Bapmasters and met so many cool people! That lead me to go to Chicago to see a tournament live, it was an amazing experience. I’m not too good at them (yet) but I love figuring them out.
Other than that I’m into the gym and hiking. Both are great ways to clear my head. I would recommend either of them to anyone going through a tough time right now. I promise getting your body moving will provide some excellent mental results! Especially when you see physical improvements.
Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions. Where’s the best place to find out more about Wishful Thinking and maybe any other projects you have in the pipeline?
The best place would be my email list! During campaign times I try to post once a week. Non-campaign times every other week. That’s if you want to see progress on my work. If you just want to chat with me feel free to find me on twitter @mysticmike8 or instagram @zach_brains.
I have a webcomic that’s free to read titled Spectre Protector. It’s about a ghost named Vera accidentally becoming the superpowers to a high schooler named Liam. Link is below!
Jack Raines is a comic book writer based in Greenville SC. When he’s not writing stories such as Wishful Thinking or Spectre Protector, you can find him writing mile-long notes trying to understand networking.
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Thanks again, Jack! You can check out Jack Raines latest Kickstarter for Wishful Thinking #2 right here!

Variant Cover by artists Ted Brandt (@ten_bandits) and Ro Stein(RoStein404)

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Also, just a reminder that my newest book, The Echo Effect is newly released and only $0.99 for the first week! Check it out here!
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John McGuire is writer of the sci-fi novel: The Echo Effect.

He is also the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Click here to join John’s mailing list and receive preview chapters of upcoming novels, behind the scenes looks at new comics, and free short stories.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow EmpireBeyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

Comics Today

Almost a year ago I wrote a post about how I was a part of the problem when it came to potential problems in the comic industry. I listed a myriad of ways that I consume my comics, but what it boiled down to was that the act of buying single issues of 30 comics a month has long gone the way of the dodo for me. -(see this blog post for more on that I’m the Problem).

In light of the recent layoffs at DC Comics (and across the greater businesses that own them), so many people want to point out the problems with the industry right now. They are ready to pin the problem on one or two reasons… which is really simplistic when you think about it. In almost any other company, when there are layoffs, it typically is due to many things. In fact, many times it might even have less to do with what is happening in the here and now and go back to something that was set into motion months (or years) previous.

The thing is, I don’t have any great insight either… not really. I’ve done a handful of independent comics. I know a couple of people who have done work for Marvel and DC. At the end of the day, I’m a reader and consumer of the product. And just like last year when the realization hit me that I might be (a part of) the problem, someone else posted something that made me start thinking about the current titles I get month in and month out.

The question was simple – if Marvel and DC had to reboot everything and you had very little information on what was going on with the relaunch aside from the titles, what comics are you almost certainly still going to read.

It made me think for a minute as there are comics over the years that I have loved in the moment, or maybe I collected for 200 issues, or maybe the title just keeps getting canceled on me every so often, but I still like to support it. There are those comics I like a lot, but maybe don’t read anymore because the creative team changed at some point and my interest waned. There are certain spots where a comic got relaunched and I used that as my jumping-off point.

What comics would I stick by no matter what in this weird/strange dystopian world?

Avengers

This is the comic for me. It was my first favorite comic beating out Spider-Man and Transformers. I’ve always collected it save for about six months right after I started college when I trimmed my comic buying down to one singular comic during that time (more on that in a minute). Avengers is the comic that I currently have a full run from issue 190 until today (500+ issues there) and I have my oldest comic of my collection – Avengers #9

Good storylines or bad ones, I’m all-in with Avengers.

The Flash

This is my DC title. While my collection doesn’t go back as far as my Avengers one, I also have a complete run of the Wally West Flash. If you watched Justice League Animated Series, he was your Flash. The idea that he is a guy who “just” runs fast always has cracked me up. He is so much more than that. He is the heartbeat of the DC Universe in my mind. He has the second-best rogues gallery of anyone in that universe (Batman gets the automatic nod for first place). The stories told about him are about Hope and love and family which sometimes is hard to get from comic books. Even now with Barry Allen having returned to the prime Flash role, I love the book.

It also doesn’t hurt that two of my favorite writers, Mark Waid and Geoff Johns have epic runs on the book.

The New Warriors

This would be with the caveat that it would have to be some version of the original team. This was a 90s comic through and through and yet I loved these mismatched characters. You might even argue that the one character with the most name recognition outside of comics, Firestar, was someone, who up till that point, had been underused and underdeveloped. The whole teenagers banding together to prove something to the world and to themselves was excellent.

This was the one comic that I never stopped buying. It’s also the one comic that after that initial 75 issue run has been brought back multiple times to little fanfare. I’m not sure if it just doesn’t have that same magic or if it was a product of its time and that doesn’t work anymore or what.

 

Those three are my absolutes, but there are also that next level of comics that I would think long and hard about – The Fantastic Four, Green Lantern, Legion of the Super-Heroes, Aquaman, and Guardians of the Galaxy.

So maybe there is hope for me and the industry at large. It’s got problems, but that doesn’t mean it’s beyond repair. We just have to remember why we fell in love with it in the first place.

 

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John McGuire is the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Click here to join John’s mailing list and receive preview chapters of upcoming novels, behind the scenes looks at new comics, and free short stories.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow EmpireBeyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

Announcement – The Crossing #1 Kickstarter is Live

 

The Crossing Kickstarter is LIVE

Go here and check out the Kickstarter for the Crossing (Co-created by Robert Jeffrey II and Sean Hill and in conjunction with 133art).

Robert came to me a couple of years ago and we talked about working on a comic book series with one another. The plan was for each of us to bring an idea to the table and then we’d work on both concepts, alternating who wrote each issue.

Funny enough, both were science fiction stories, with mine focused on a post-apocalyptic section of the galaxy and the few people who manage to survive in it. Robert’s was this story inspired by Sliders and Quantum Leap and the DC Comics Elseworlds stories and the Marvel What If stories.

All of which pressed all my buttons. Because if there is one thing I love as much as a good time travel story, it is a good multiverse story!

From there it was all about brainstorming ideas. There was a fugitive, Dr. James Kincaid, who has kidnapped his kid and jumped to alternate worlds. There was an FBI agent who saw this as a second chance. There was the inexperienced scientist who was trying to prove herself to everyone, and who was clearly in over her head.

Art by Sean Hill, Colors by Sunil Ghagre

It was one of those conversations where things just fell into place. Robert would mention an idea and then I would see how that could connect to another moment and before long we had the four-issue story laid out.

Flashforward a couple of years as we’ve pitched the concept to a few comic companies. 133art saw the concept, saw the artwork from Sean Hill (always amazing), and said: “Let’s do this thing!”

So here we are on March 3, 2020, and we are doing this thing. Come over and check out the Kickstarter page to see more of the artwork and get a little more of the characters.

I think this is going to be one of those comics where it is going to be crazy worlds and amazing artwork, but also the characters are going to be the type you can get invested in.

 

Art by Sean Hill, Colors by Sunil Ghagre

 

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Be sure to go to the Facebook Page and like it so that 133art knows people are interested! And make sure to check out the Kickstarter!

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John McGuire is the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. The Trade paperback collecting the first 4 issues is finally back from the printers! If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Want to read the first issue for free? Click here! Already read it and eager for more?

Click here to join John’s mailing list.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow EmpireBeyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

The Immortal Hulk

I’ve never been a “Hulk” guy.

Sure, I watched the old tv show with the sad music playing at the end as he hitchhikes across the country. I actually think of those types of shows as “Incredible Hulk” style shows, with the story or the week, the guy helping people in a town, etc. I’ve waited for him to say “Don’t make me angry… you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry”. I’ve seen the tv Hulk movies (not much to write home about, though I’m pretty sure Thor and Daredevil appeared). I dug the Ang Lee “24” version up until the end of the movie. The Ed Norton one was ok at best.

And then there have been the Avengers movies where it just works.

You see, in the comics, he was an original Avenger. He was there for all of like 2 issues. That was it.

Because, the dumb, Hulk Smash version of the character isn’t really a “team player”. In fact, in those early days, he was a bit more of a bad guy when he popped up in some of the comics. But, that version never much appealed to me.

However, I have a friend, James, who is a Hulk guy. He has hundreds of issues. He’s read it when it sucks and he’s read it when it has been really good. So when the newest series: The Immortal Hulk came out over a year ago, James immediately raved about it. But it wasn’t that it was just a Hulk book that was good. He talked about it like it was a Horror book.

Uhm, what?

So, after much talk about it, I picked up the first trade and read that first issue.

It’s a Horror comic.

In fact, if it had been a Tales from the Crypt episode where instead of the Hulk rampaging and breaking a bunch of bad people it was a random monster… you wouldn’t even question it. Or maybe a dead comes back to life story… like this:

“At a gas station in the middle of nowhere, a desperate man ends up killing a trio of innocents in a robbery gone wrong. Three bodies were delivered to the morgue this afternoon. By morning, only two remain. And the ones who killed them are dying or broken.”

I mean, that is the plot to an undead creature movie.

Even the way that Joe Bennett draws the Hulk… this isn’t a dumb Hulk and this isn’t a Hulk where Bruce Banner is in charge. This is something else. Something with a sparkle in his eye when it is time to do some damage. An avenging devil? Or something worse?

Al Ewing even starts off the comic with a thought about human nature. It’s the idea that everyone is two people:

“The one you try to be.”

“And the one you try not to see in the mirror.”

The answer he gives tells you everything and nothing at the same time.

It tells you that this isn’t a regular Hulk book. This isn’t just another superhero story. This is something different. Something which ties to ideas in the past. Something which allows Al Ewing to use the character in a way that hasn’t been done before. What does it mean to have a Monster inside you? All that power… and yet, the character has mostly feared it. Maybe due to losing control and hurting someone. Maybe due to not wanting to understand his own duality.

And now, just maybe, the monster within has some other ideas…

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John McGuire is the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. The Trade paperback collecting the first 4 issues is finally back from the printers! If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Want to read the first issue for free? Click here! Already read it and eager for more?

Click here to join John’s mailing list.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow EmpireBeyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

 

We’re In the End Game Now

At some point, there was an idea. An idea to take those comic book characters who only lived in a 2D world and bring them to life on the Big Screen. Marvel Comics licenced out a handful of their characters and we got our first taste of what comic books in a live action format was going to look like.

It was clearly a hit or miss situation.

At the same time, there were cartoons to be watched where your favourite characters could actually swing through the air on a spider’s web or fly around completely on fire. It was bringing the characters to life in a way that was both faithful to the comics and… well… wasn’t cheesy looking.

Nothing wrong with this!

I remember thinking that Marvel wasn’t ever going to get it right on the movie front, maybe they should just concentrate on making good cartoons. Heck, there had been a couple of cartoon movies here or there that did alright (I was thinking Transformers and later on the Batman: Mask of the Phantasm movies that both were released to the theaters). Maybe that was the way to go for them?

But you’d hear rumors of them working behind the scenes to get this movie made or that character a try-out. And we still got this:

Although, in light of the movies we ended up getting, maybe this wasn’t soooo bad.

As I continued to read the funny books into my college years, I’d given up much hope for anything great to show up. For whatever reason, the Marvel characters just didn’t seem like they were ever going to work. Even if DC had managed to somewhat crack the code with Superman and Batman, Marvel always seemed to just lag behind.

And then it happened…

Ok, maybe not that one…

This guy. Here was where they got it right.

And you know how sometimes all you need is a little bit of success and that will generate more successes for you. Like a snowball rolling down the hill, you pick up speed and suddenly you’ve got it going in the right direction. Suddenly we get an X-Men movie. And a Daredevil movie. And a Spiderman movie.

Even if you didn’t think they hit every beat or story or special effect just right, the fact that those movies existed at all was mind-blowing.

When the first Spiderman came out after the credits rolled it was like you could have had to use a jackhammer to get the smile off my face. This character I’d read for so many years looked like I wanted him to look, he sounded right… he could swing through the air!

A few years later, Marvel decided that since all their big name properties were with other studios, due to those 90s deals, they needed to reach out and get another one of those characters from the toy box. Being a big Avengers guy, I knew who Iron Man was, but most people would have had no clue. In fact, the Avengers weren’t the A-Listers at Marvel at the time. They might have had one comic series for the Avengers and then one for Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor… and that was it.

Yet, the Iron Man movie worked.

And now, here we are after 21 some-odd movies the culmination of 10+ years for the studios will be on the Big Screen. But more than that, those characters who I thought only would ever work in a 2D environment are living, breathing people. Everyone in the world seems to know who they are. It’s crazy that these movies not only exist but are actually pretty good.

I always wonder if I could talk to my younger self and let him know these things were coming, what he’d think. All those days spent with my nose in the colorful pages, watching the Avengers defeat Doctor Doom or Baron Zemo or even Thanos… those toys are out of the sandbox for everyone to get a chance at.

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John McGuire is the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. The Trade paperback collecting the first 4 issues is finally back from the printers! If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Want to read the first issue for free? Click here! Already read it and eager for more?

Click here to join John’s mailing list.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow EmpireBeyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

My Top 5 – The Avengers

I was reading Avengers before it was cool to read Avengers.

When everyone else was buying X-Men and hoping to get multiple copies of what was sure to be the next comic worth $100 plus, I was a devoted fanboy of not only Avengers but also West Coast Avengers (ok, I have some copies of X-Men #1 from that time as well). While everyone else was busy watching the X-Men cartoon, I was sticking it out with the lesser heroes; you know the guys and gals I’m talking about: Captain America and Iron Man and Black Widow and Hawkeye and…

I was holding the flag for a group of characters that the company itself didn’t know what to do with. It got so bad that when the opportunity arose to have some of the Image Comic guys come back and work on the characters, they wouldn’t dare give them Spiderman or the X-Men, so instead they got the characters not as many people cared about (apparently) – so the Avengers and Fantastic Four were shunted off into another universe where their stories could be told.

Given that the biggest movie in the world (or at least for the year) is opening at the end of the month, it is hard to rationalize those early and not so early days of reading the Avengers. Once Iron Man became a hit and the ball got rolling into the first Avengers movie, Marvel seized on the idea and suddenly where there might have been TWO Avengers titles, there were like 50 titles (and I’m only exaggerating a little bit on that number). For someone who has a copy of issue 9 and a complete run from around issue 140, it became a bit much to try to keep up with.

But two of the first comics I ever bought with my own money were Avengers and West Coast Avengers. Along with Spiderman, these were my windows into the world of comic books. They were the ones whose stories I looked forward to the most every month.

Firestar

Yes, because of the Spiderman and his Amazing Friends cartoon.

But also because when I saw another book on the stands: New Warriors, she was one of the original members. I’d never read her before, but I was struck by how she was someone trying to find her place in the world. Then later, during Busiek’s run on Avengers she got called up to the big leagues. Something about that idea really caught me. Another mutant that the Avengers somehow got a hold of, she (and Justice) sorta acted as the reader’s eyes while they fought alongside the Big Three (Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man).

Scarlet Witch

I think it is partially because when I started reading they (Scarlet Witch and Vision) weren’t a part of any Avengers team, so it felt like a big deal when they did join back up. Wanda has always been a cool character because she has feet in both the X-Men world (what with her father being Magneto) and in the Avengers world. Back in the 90s when it seemed like if the X-Men sunk their claws into you, then your character might never show up in any other book, the fact that she always remained on the Avengers side meant something to this reader.

Even before Bendis had her destroy the Avengers team in Disassembled, even before she wiped out the mutants at the end of House of M, she was this woman who was trying to balance having a family and saving the world and having powers that were probably too much for anyone to handle. She seemed to offer opportunities for storytelling in a way that so many other characters cannot.

Wonder Man

The oldest comic I own is Avengers 9 which features Wonder Man’s origin. He joins the team in that issue, but it turns out that he’s an infiltrator for Baron Zemo to take down the Avengers from the inside. Of course, at the last minute, he has second thoughts and turns on the villains only to perish…

And that might have been the end of it. But in comics, death is not something that lasts. And sure enough, nearly 140 issues later, he “wakes up”.

He’s one of those characters who is tied to so many cool plots and storylines. His brother is the Grim Reaper, an Avengers baddie. His brain patterns were used to bring the Vision to life, making them defacto brothers… which gives him a tie to Ultron. He was “created” by Baron Zemo.

Moon Knight

Yes, Marvel’s “Batman”. He’s one of those guys who is flat out insane.

No, really, he’s legit crazy pants. He has voices in his head talking to him. He develops alternate personalities under the guise of trying to infiltrate the criminal underground and ends up with a fractured psyche. He talks to an ancient Egyptian god: Khonshu, for whom he acts as his hand of vengeance.

I had hopes that he might be the next Marvel character used by Netflix for a new show, but with them pulling their properties back in house (I’m guessing), I’m wondering if that is now more or less likely to actually happen.

Hawkeye

Yes, the Bow and Arrow guy from the movies. When I started reading, Hawkeye was the leader of the West Coast Avengers, and in stark comparison to someone like Captain America or Mr. Fantastic, he led in a very off the cuff sort of way. He was definitely the type of person who leaps, doesn’t worry about where he might land, and somehow makes the best of the fall. And unlike the East Coast squad, he both understood that they might be the “B Team” but he wasn’t going to treat them as such.

Plus, I loved that he had been a villain to start out (one of Iron Man’s villains in fact) that realized he wasn’t doing what he was supposed to be doing, then launched an attack on the Avengers in their mansion, all to prove to them that he deserved a chance on the team.

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While I obviously dig the Captain Americas and Thors and Iron Mans of the Avengers, the above are the types of characters that, as a reader, you can “claim” as your character. There is something special about that.

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John McGuire is the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. The Trade paperback collecting the first 4 issues is finally back from the printers! If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Want to read the first issue for free? Click here! Already read it and eager for more?

Click here to join John’s mailing list.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow EmpireBeyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

Legends of Tomorrow

I’ve written about there being maybe, possibly too many superhero shows. As in, I can’t keep up with every single one of them. It feels like I might call watching all those shows a second job unto themselves at this point. All that to say that sometimes choices have to be made.

Cuts had to be made.

Cuts had to be made.

And Legends of Tomorrow was one of those unfortunate casualties from the original trimming. Which sucked. If any show was going to be directly in my wheelhouse it should have been that one. Time travel to different eras, an immortal villain, alternate futures, and a couple of my favorite heroes/villains from the various CW shows: Captain Cold, White Canary, and Firestorm. But by the end of the first season, my wife and I just weren’t feeling IT anymore. And when the next season started we focused on the other 3 shows and left Legends to build and build and build up on the DVR.

Two seasons passed.

Somewhere in the back of my mind there was this feeling that I left too soon. I mean, I’d thought it would have only lasted one more season and then they’d been done with it for good. Yet, here we were. A 4th Season about to begin.

Had I missed something? Had I judged it too harshly? Should I give it another chance?

I fired up Netflix and watched the first episode of Season 2 one night after Courtney had gone to sleep. And things felt a little different. And then at the end of the episode, these guys showed up:

These guys and gals!

The Justice Society.

Damnit! I guess I need to watch another episode to see how this turns out.

Then the Reverse Flash showed up. And Damen Darque. And Malcom Merlyn. And the show seemed to be having a little more fun. And the alternate history stuff was put back to the forefront with our heroes being in charge of “fixing” history.

Over the last month I’ve watched all of Season 2 (liked it alot), all of Season 3 (was even better), and have started Season 4 (which was building up on the DVR again). Multiple times I’ve been watching thinking that “This is my favorite episode.” Then a couple of episodes later: “No, this is my favorite episode.”

Look… they are playing… well, fast and loose isn’t strong enough, but let’s say fast and loose with the rules of time travel. And honestly, I don’t care. You tell a decent story, and I can accept that not everything is going to line up perfectly.

Still, I wanted to spotlight a couple of episodes for anyone who maybe has a Sliders style itch (and much like many episodes of Sliders, you should probably just roll with it):

Raiders of the Lost Art – Season 2 Episode 9

Changes to the timeline mean that George Lucas never became a film maker. Which means that Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark never existed… which means that Ray Palmer (The ATOM) and Nate Heywood (Steel) never get into science and history respectively… which means no powers.

It’s goofy as hell, but for some reason it works.

Moonshot – Season 2 Episode 14

Apollo 13 experiences some problems, Houston! And they are brought on by the Reverse Flash.

Any episode that features a hero needing to team up with a villain or they both won’t survive is fine by me. But the surprising part of the story revolves around Nate and his father and his grandfather. Even when I saw where the storyline was going, it still managed to get me a little bit.

Phone Home – Season 3 Episode 4

If you like E.T. or the Goonies or Flight of the Navigator or Stranger Things and don’t mind that this is a very blatant rip-off of many of those things, then you will love this episode. This is a Ray Palmer focused episode, and while that might have been a bad thing in Season 1, this allows the viewer to see why he is who he is and still let him retain some of his positivity.

Here I Go Again – Season 3 Episode 11

It’s Groundhog Day for one of the members of the team (Zari)!

Nuff said.

I will say that the fact that the way she convinces one of her team mates she’s stuck in a time loop is by referencing Groundhog Day makes this a win all around. Just good stuff that actually manages to give a ton of insight into all the characters.

***

So if you abandoned ship like I did after season one, this is one of those shows that might deserve a second chance.

***

John McGuire is the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. The Trade paperback collecting the first 4 issues is finally back from the printers! If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Want to read the first issue for free? Click here! Already read it and eager for more?

Click here to join John’s mailing list.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow EmpireBeyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

Stan Lee

I thought I’d sit down and pour out the words about Stan Lee passing. I thought that it’d be easy to put into words what his creations have meant to me for pretty much my whole life. But it turns out that it isn’t an easy task to figure out what someone you’ve never met dying actually means to you.

There was a point in my life that I didn’t read anything other than comic books. If you’d asked I would have told you that books were boring.  Not comics though and specifically the Marvel superheroes. They kept me comfort on rainy days with their adventures. They inspired me to fill a tattered blue notebook with my very first (terrible) stories about a super team called the Threats.

Back when I started collecting comics, Stan Lee wasn’t writing them anymore (aside from the Spider-Man comic strip, I believe). But there was a comic series called Marvel Saga coming out at that time. It was effectively a “history” of the early (1960s) comic stories. And I might not have known it, but Stan Lee had a hand in many of those stories during the founding of the Marvel Universe. For a ten-year-old, it was like having a crash course in comic books. Characters I was slowly becoming familiar with… now I got to read their origins. At the time, I don’t think I would have understood that they had a nearly 25-year lifespan already.

The fun was built in. Lots of articles will talk about how he made characters who had problems just like the readers had. Or that he gave them flaws. Made them more human. And he did do that. But for me, he’d created fun characters I enjoyed reading.

This hobby has gone from niche to people buying 10 copies of an issue #1 in hopes of funding their retirement to bankruptcy and now movies. What’s even more amazing is that I’ve been collecting long enough where the rest of the world has only now caught up to what us funny-book readers always knew: this stuff was never just for kids. It was always for everyone.

It is possible I could have discovered comic books without Stan Lee’s creations. I wonder if my love for the format would have been possible without his influence. Would the medium be something that I have not only dedicated 30 plus years to supporting, but also in creating my own comic books… my own characters.

I’m glad I don’t have to figure that out.

Throughout our lives, there are people who have influence over us that we will never meet in real life. Those people can create things which leave the world in a far better place than it was prior to their existence. Those items floating out there waiting for you to stumble upon them somehow. And others are touched by these things leading them to create and those things only add to a person’s legacy. Like a family tree which grows stronger and stronger with each passing year. It stretches out and up to inspire others.

Stan Lee was one of those people for me. And now he’s gone. But I can’t feel empty because he’s filled my mind and heart with so many stories and ideas.

Thank you, Stan… for everything.

***

John McGuire is the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. The Trade paperback collecting the first 4 issues is finally back from the printers! If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Want to read the first issue for free? Click here! Already read it and eager for more?

Click here to join John’s mailing list.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow EmpireBeyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

Halloween Costume Ideas

They’re everywhere. Little kids dress up like them. Adults sometimes dress up as “sexy” versions of them. Every week there seems to be another one appearing on the theater screens.

Superheroes.

Yeah, I love them, but when it comes to Halloween, it is always the same things. Spider-Man or Superman or Batman or Wonder Woman or… just the same characters over and over.

But what if you could be a hero/villain that no one has heard of? You could be on the beginning of the bandwagon for once! Plus, if they had easy enough costumes, then you wouldn’t be out tons of money.

So here are your newest inspirations to make everyone ask: Who the hell are you supposed to be?

Turner D. Century

Are you a man? Can you grow a handlebar mustache in the next week? Do you have white pants and a striped jacket and look like you stepped out of the early 1900s? Then I have a villain for you!

You see, apparently, Turner is not a fan of “modern times”. He longs for the days of his great-grandfather’s youth. When women couldn’t vote and everyone was hoping the Titanic would make it across the ocean in one piece. A simpler time before the century of wars. He longed for those days so much that he tried to send San Francisco back to the stone ages and then rebuild that glorious society once again.

Spider-Man stopped him, have no fear.

Crazy Quilt

I know, we all have those blankets our Aunt Bertha knitted us. We have a smile on our face when we open the gift (“You shouldn’t have!”), and then it gets stored in the upstairs closet until there is a snowstorm and we lose power. Otherwise, it is never seen again.

Well, why not dig out that bad boy and give the gift one more ride!

If anyone asks, you can tell them that you can use it to send powerful laser beams (maybe bring a laser pointer too?) which can blind, kill, confuse, and possibly control other people. However, if Batman or Robin are at the same party, you should get out of there… because Robin is your arch-nemesis.

Peek-A-Boo

Do you like to roller skate everywhere you go? Do you often think that life can be solved by going as fast as humanly possible on those skates? Then maybe you should give Peek-A-Boo a go!

When asked about this one, you can always go with the idea that you can teleport as far as you can see, making you theoretically as fast as… The Flash (yeah, I don’t think so).

Still, she only got into villainy because she needed to steal a kidney for her father.

Madame Fatal

Not in the mood for villainy? Looking to put a use to your grandmother’s clothes? Here’s a hero:

Richard Stanton decided that he needed to go undercover to infiltrate a gang. So what better way to do just that, but as an old, elderly woman with a cane? Apparently, gangs were just letting in the elderly left and right in the 40s.

Dazzler

Are you a fan of the 70s? Do you have the platform shoes? The white bell bottoms? Maybe even an outfit that might be better featured on Saturday Night Fever? Then she’s the hero you’re looking for. It’s not that it is a bad costume, but instead one very much of the time she was created. However, the nice thing is that Dazzler goes with the current trends, so you could always update it to a modern pop-star and be fine… as long as you’ve got some glitter for your face!

***

These are the types of costumes you don’t have to do much more than go up into your attic/ down to the basement or maybe raid a thrift shop somewhere. And then you too can become part of the superhero craze!

***

John McGuire is the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. The Trade paperback collecting the first 4 issues is finally back from the printers! If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Want to read the first issue for free? Click here! Already read it and eager for more?

Click here to join John’s mailing list.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow EmpireBeyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

 

 

Ode to Free Comic Book Day

I’ll be at Challenges this Saturday with brand new copies of the Gilded Age Graphic Novel!

This Saturday is the annual Free Comic Book Day event. It’s a time where the comics industry hopes to bring energy and excitement into the comic book stores by coordinating and putting out free comic books (hence the name). Whether you read comics back in the day, never read comics before, or have been reading them for over 30 years there is apt to be a comic being given away that might interest you (yours truly).

I always try to snag a couple of the kiddie comics to give to either my niece or nephews or kids of friends. As someone who’s been reading for so long and as someone who creates comics, I think it is my job/duty to try and pass along that same love to the next generation. And the thing is I don’t know if it will work at all. I figure it might take doing this every year and still not have any luck swaying the next generation. I’m still not sure why it clicked in my own head all those years ago. Technically it took four tries before I actually began picking up comics on a monthly basis.

The first time I remember even seeing a comic book had to have been when I was 4 or 5. I would sometimes get babysat by a woman whose husband had a bin in one of the rooms filled with comic books. They were neatly stacked up and I can recall seeing some of the crazier comics that existed back in the 70s: Ghost Rider and Man-Thing come to mind. I didn’t try to look through them… maybe I wasn’t supposed to touch them, but I did stand there at the edge and look at the covers with some wonder and awe not knowing exactly what it was these magazines represented.

The second time was when I picked up an issue of Transformers from the hospital gift shop (my mother was a nurse there). I was pretty much locked in on Transformers, constantly watching the show after school. Always conspiring on what I might be able to get when Christmas came around (sadly relatives thought Go-Bots were the same thing – I’m surprised I didn’t yell at them to try to get them to understand the difference!). I read that comic over and over again. Maybe it was because the cover said it was the last issue of a 4 issue limited series, but it never occurred to me to even seek out more issues. This really should have locked me in but it didn’t.

The third time was my elementary school’s book fair. Armed with a little bit of money, I stumbled across a collection of comic books. Again, not knowing the characters, I grabbed one that looked interesting – Fantastic Four. The story was in the middle of a story-arc about a little boy and what only could be the devil and these heroes who had to fight… demons? Again, it never occurred to me to seek out more issues.

And maybe that would have been it. I would have had 2 comics to my name and a bunch of money in my pockets from then on. I watched the Spiderman and His Amazing Friends comics, fascinated whenever some new hero might show up on-screen. In later years I would come to realize how many members of the Marvel Universe made little appearances on the show. After Spiderman, the Hulk cartoon came on and I watched that. I’d seen the Superman movies, watched episodes of the live-action Hulk, the 60s Batman and Robin, and the Wonder-Woman live-action shows.

Still, I didn’t seek them out. Maybe I didn’t know where you’d buy them?

On top of all of this, my dad read comics when he was a kid, but before I started collecting I don’t think we ever talked about it.

Then one day it happened. My step-father dropped me off to get my hair cut while he ran some errands and left me with $5 to go next door and get a snack and a drink. Next door was a 7-11. Needing to kill time, I wandered through the aisles trying to figure out what kind of candy I was going to get (I’m sorry… candies… plural). I wondered to the magazine rack and began looking when I saw a Spiderman comic book. Picking it up, I flipped through it amazed (pun intended) that Spiderman wasn’t wearing his traditional red and blues, but had a black and white costume that looked really cool.

Hmm… $0.75? OK. Sold! Wait, there are other comics? Who are the X-Men? And why are there two Avengers comics?

I bought all 4 and waited outside with my comics, soda, and maybe a candy bar (just one).

And it was over. I was hooked. It took 4 opportunities for the universe (maybe?) to ensure I went down that path.

Without comics, I don’t know if I would have read very much prior to 6th grade and meeting one of my best friends. Without comics, I wonder if I would have formed the same friendships which have lasted to this day. Without comics, I don’t know if I would be a writer of anything (the first thing I ever wrote was basically a comic).

So I’ll be out there on Saturday watching new faces light up to their first comic book and other faces light up to their 10-thousandth. You just never know when the magic is going to happen.

***

John McGuire is the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. The Trade paperback collecting the first 4 issues is finally back from the printers! If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Want to read the first issue for free? Click here! Already read it and eager for more?

Click here to join John’s mailing list.

His prose appears in The Dark That FollowsTheft & TherapyThere’s Something About MacHollow EmpireBeyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

Steampunk Fridays – Batman: Gotham by Gaslight

A quick one this week… as the Holiday Season gets its full weight down on us.

Years ago there was this comic called Gotham by Gaslight. It featured Batman living in a turn of the century style world where Jack the Ripper had come calling to Gotham.

If you went down the checklist of comics that I should read, this one might have checked all the boxes:

Elseworld – If you are a Marvel fan, this is DC’s version of What If where they showcase alternate timelines or alternate stories from the main ones. It means they can do pretty much whatever they want and not have to worry about Continuity of why Batman might be in the early 1900s.

Jack the Ripper – There is something about Jack that makes him this fascinating figure from history. The fact that no one knew who he was. The various theories over the years about his identity. The gruesomeness of his crimes.

Batman vs. Jack – Take one of the greatest characters, a detective, and put him against this one person who apparently had us all fooled.

So how was the comic? I don’t know. I’ve never actually read it.

I don’t know why. Even as I’m writing this all out, I don’t know why. I always meant to pick it up… it is a comic fail for sure.

Soon though, I can potentially make up for my egregious error (or at least partially make up for it) as they are going to release it to DVD next year! And I think now would be a perfect time to visit that world and enjoy the movie before finally reading the graphic novel. I won’t sit there the whole time comparing it because I’ll watch it first!

It’s kind of a win, win… right?

Ok, it’s kind of a cop-out, but at least I’ll be righting my own 20-year error!

You can check out the trailer here:

 

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John McGuire is the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. Want to read the first issue for free? Click here! Already read it and eager for more?

Click here to join John’s mailing list.

His prose appears in The Dark That FollowsTheft & TherapyThere’s Something About MacHollow EmpireBeyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

 

LEGION – A Review

I love it when I’m surprised by something. I’m not talking about jumping out from behind an object and trying to get me to an early grave. I mean when some piece of entertainment shows up and completely flips all your thoughts and feelings about it in one episode.

Legion wasn’t going to be something I would bother with. Oh, it’s comics related, so I needed to at least check it out, but this was a character who I don’t believe I own one comic book with him in it. It was going to be this show that really didn’t tie into anything else that Fox was doing with the rest of its X-Men or Spider-man related properties. And it didn’t even have the bonus of being a Netflix show where maybe they might be able to get away with a little more (and possibly use that as their calling card for why you could check it out).

Legion defies all of that.

In fact, Legion sort of defies being identified at all… I’m getting ahead of myself. For those who don’t know, here’s the synopsis from Wikipedia:

David Haller was diagnosed with schizophrenia at a young age and has been a patient in various psychiatric hospitals since. After Haller has an encounter with a fellow psychiatric patient, he is confronted with the possibility that there may be more to him than mental illness.

Does that scream: Superhero to you? Because it doesn’t to me. And it is a good thing because it is barely a superhero show. Yes, there are characters with powers, but half the time I’m not entirely sure they are powers anyone would want. David is the worst of them all because he may be one of the most powerful mutants (yes, like the X-Men) in the world… and he’s pretty convinced he’s completely insane.

The show screws with the viewer almost as much as it screws with the characters. Half the time you can’t be sure anything you’re seeing is actually happening or if it is just something David thinks is happening.What year does this show take place in?

It is both linear and non-linear. It is psychedelic and perfectly normal. Everyone is crazy… or perhaps no one is.

What year does this show take place in? From the look of everyone, I might think some late 60s mod-style, but then there is a mention of email or something which derails that thought process. Maybe David is seeing the world as he saw it when he was a child, and so for him, it looks like something from 40 years ago? Or maybe I’m just trying to let my own brain make sense of the show and story.

The monster in David’s head.

Within the 8 episode season, it becomes apparent that there is someone else… something else who has its designs on David. The entire show is about putting together the fractured pieces of one character’s mind without having any idea what the final picture is actually supposed to be of. And then when you get to the end, you realize there are a handful of missing pieces… except, maybe there isn’t.

I wanted to write a proper review of this show. I wanted to dig into the nooks and crannies, but the more I think about it, the more I wonder if this show could be deconstructed in a regular way. The surprises announce themselves at various times so that you may figure out a piece here or a piece there, but what the bigger picture looks like becomes something else.

I want to praise the actors’ performances. Especially Aubrey Plaza… but to say too much about any of them would potentially give something away. This may be one of those shows where the less you know about what’s going on, the better off you might be (though, if you are an X-Men Historian, you should be fine also).

***

John McGuire

John McGuire is the author of the supernatural thriller The Dark That Follows, the steampunk comic The Gilded Age, and the novellas Theft & Therapy and There’s Something About Mac through the Amazon Kindle Worlds program.

His second novel, Hollow Empire, is now complete. The first episode is now FREE!

He also has a short story in the Beyond the Gate anthology, which is free on most platforms!

And has two shorts in the Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows anthology! Check it out!

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com.

The Agonizing Art of Writing Book Blurbs – Challenge Accepted

In the late moments of the day, when the wife and the cats have settled into sleep, I sometimes find myself struggling to come up with the next week’s blog (in between editing one novel and trying to finish up a novella at the moment).

Leave it to Mr. Neill to help a Guildmate out. He wrote a bunch of 1-sentence blurbs for each of his books, and then challenged anyone who happened to read his post to do the same for their own works. As this is a skill I certainly could use work on…

Well, Challenge Accepted…

The Dark That Follows by John R McGuire

 The Dark That Follows – A fortune teller comes to realize that his latest customer no longer has any future left.

HollowEmpireEP1

Hollow Empire – Twenty years after the Great Lichy Plague wiped out fifty percent of the population, the next generation struggles to find their way in this dark and desolate land.

BeyondtheGate

Beyond the Gate – A country surrounded by an oppressive Fog, where nightmares and monsters live, these are the stories of the Ruddermouths, the Sky Captains, and of the children of the festivals.

Machina Obscurum

Machina Obscurum – Dark tales of death, betrayal, and the end of all things.

VMars_SAM

There’s Something About Mac – When Cindy “Mac” Mackenzie’s younger biological sister goes missing, it is up to Mac to track down the missing teen.

PIECE-BY-PIECE-COVER

Piece by Piece – Jason Mill’s fortune reading becomes an exercise in the Butterfly Effect as he examines a myriad of possible futures for his latest client.

The Guilded Age

Gilded Age #1 – Hannah Lancaster leaps at the opportunity to help the Branning Troupe’s Stage Magician, only to discover that his latest trick might be played on her.

TGA02_cvrsPRESSb_Page_1

Gilded Age #2 – When you are known as the Fastest Gun, there will always be those who want to challenge for the crown.

tigerstyle-tessera

Tiger Style #1 – A kid with a Robin Hood complex discovers that he’s targeted the wrong “Rich” men, and these are willing to do anything in their power to reclaim a mystical artifact.

Terminus Team-up #2 – Amber Fox’s journey to the Gilded Age takes a detour through time as her companion seeks to understand how era’s end.

That definitely used a few different writing muscles. If you like any of these, click the pic and head to Amazon to pick up your copy today!

***

John McGuire

John McGuire is the author of the supernatural thriller The Dark That Follows, the steampunk comic The Gilded Age, and the novella There’s Something About Mac through the Amazon Kindle Worlds program.

His second novel, Hollow Empire, is now complete. The first episode is now FREE!

He also has a short story in the Beyond the Gate anthology, which is free on most platforms!

And has two shorts in the Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows anthology! Check it out!

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com.

Taking a stab at the DC Movies

There was a time… not all that too long ago where if you were to ask which of the Big 2 comic companies made the best movies, the answer would have been DC comics and it wouldn’t have even been close.

We no longer live in that time, but now we are on the verge of a true beginning of sorts from DC. Their cinematic universe truly begins this week. So now seems as good a time to rank the old movies. Note, I have only included those movies I’ve actually seen (so no Jonah Hex, Steel, or Catwoman… though, if I had to hazard a guess on where those might end up…)

2010-Biodiversity_countdown (1)

15. Batman and Robin – No doubt, just awful. I didn’t see this in the theater, and word of mouth spread pretty quickly on this one. And so I avoided the suck for so long… until one night I’m in my apartment with nothing to do and guess what’s coming on? I knew and I still watched it, trying to convince myself that there was NO WAY it was as bad as everyone made out. That worst case I could find some redeeming quality to it. Somewhere.

No. There is none. NONE.

14. Supergirl – I have seen it, but damn if I remember very much about it. I remember it being cheesy and… that’s pretty much it. Given that we never got another Supergirl movie I might not have been the only one.

13. Superman Returns – So Superman goes out into space for 5 years and only now comes back so that he can effectively redo his very first movie except that he has fathered an illegitimate child with Lois Lane? And Lex is doing a land grab? Again?

12. Superman IV – The Quest for Peace. Is that Ducky from Pretty in Pink? Oh, Lex, Lex, Lex… what happened? Oh Clark, what happened?  Has the Nuclear Man ever appeared in the comics? Yeah, I think that says it all.

11. Superman III – Why didn’t they use Red Kryptonite? Just why? I enjoyed seeing a mean Superman, but when you get right down to it, he’s really just having a Nic-fit, right?

But hey, Richard Pryor is in it. And I love Richard Pryor.

10. Batman Forever – It doesn’t hold up, I know that much. The Riddler, while way over the top (tell us something we don’t already know) is actually fine, but Two-Face… dear lord. Ugh. I don’t know who Tommy Lee Jones is playing, but that is not Two-Face.

unite the 7

9. Green Lantern – I love Ryan Renolds. I love Green Lantern (not like I love the Flash, but I have been collecting a Green Lantern comic since the early 90s). So this should have been a slam dunk, no doubter. And I enjoyed the movie, but I also know that it isn’t the greatest movie either. But I don’t know what exactly to fix… it seems like there is a lot. I just can’t see it.

8. Man of Steel – A lot of my thinking on this movie will/may be changed this weekend. There are tons of things I have problems with in this movie. Pa Kent’s death, the 45 minutes of disaster porn at the end, the fact that there is very little joy in the movie. Probably the only thing I don’t have a problem with is the ending. No, Superman doesn’t kill, but I’m not entirely convinced he’s Superman just yet. I think he’s still Clark Kent playing dress up trying to figure out how he fits into this world.

7. Batman Returns – Let’s forget about the Penguin storyline. No, really. If it was just Catwoman and Batman we’d put it on repeat and never leave the house. That’s how good their scenes are (and how good Michelle Pfeiffer was). Sadly it does have the Penguin and so it doesn’t end up higher on the list.

6. Superman – The glasses. It may be the dumbest thing in comics. I can’t explain it to my non-comic book friends and family. I just shrug and shake my head. Yet, Reeves made me believe that a man could wear glasses and no one would know. There is a scene (I think it is in this movie… it may be Superman II) where he’s about to tell Lois that he’s Superman. He takes off the glasses, stands up straighter, and projects his voice… and then thinks better of himself. By the time Lois has turned around he’s back to the nerdy Clark Kent and Superman is long gone. It’s a powerful moment that Reeves pulls off that not many could have. And if that was all this movie did, it would be enough to be this high, but this movie also gives us “Otisburg”… and I will forever love it for that.

otisburg

It’s an itty bitty place.

 

5. The Dark Knight Rises – Yes, I know. Your Batman would never retire. Your Batman wouldn’t mope and cry over the loss of a woman. I get it, and I got over it. Not a perfect movie, but it wrapped up the Nolan movies in a pretty satisfying way. Bane, Catwoman, Talia al Ghul (another one I didn’t think would show up on the big screen). Flaws and warts and Joseph Gordon Levitt.

4. Batman Begins – Tell me a Batman story I’ve never seen on screen before. Show me a version of his origin story that doesn’t begin and end in Crime Alley with pearls scattering onto the ground. This is my first “grown-up” superhero movie. It is grim and gritty, but more than that it is the journey from the Batman we know and love and that little kid in the alleyway (at least until Gotham, I guess). And it introduced everyone to Ra’s al Ghul. What more needs to be said?

3. Batman – I didn’t collect Batman comics in the 80s, so my 2 biggest exposures to Batman was the old live-action tv show and Super Friends (and I guess his occassional appearance on Scooby doo). I didn’t know anything about Frank Miller and his ground-breaking update of the Bat. So when I say that Tim Burton blew me away, I’m trying not to undersell it.

Oh, and Michael Keaton is still my Batman.

2. Superman II – For over twenty years this was my favorite superhero movie. It’s cheesy, I know. And I don’t care (though I’m still not sure why they thought Superman needed new and weirder powers). This movie gave us our first super powered fight. But what seals it for me is how he wins. After all the chaos and destruction, it isn’t through brute force that Superman saves the day… no, he does it by outwitting his enemies (even the great Lex Luthor). This was no naive kid from Kansas, but a hero worthy of watching.

 

i believe in harvey dent

1. The Dark Knight – And it wasn’t even close. Not only a great Batman movie, but a great movie. Period. Nolan had updated the Batman myth in Begins, but here he provides us with not only the most worthy of adversaries, but a character who I wasn’t sure would ever get a fair shake outside of the animated series in Harvey Dent. They gave us the true fall into insanity the character deserved.

 

***

John McGuire

John McGuire is the author of the supernatural thriller The Dark That Follows, the steampunk comic The Gilded Age, and the novella There’s Something About Mac through the Amazon Kindle Worlds program.

His second novel, Hollow Empire, is now complete. The first episode is now FREE!

He also has a short story in the Beyond the Gate anthology, which is free on most platforms!

And has two shorts in the Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows anthology! Check it out!

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com.

Convention Update – Atlanta Science Fiction and Fantasy Expo 2016

This past weekend was the second annual (assuming we haven’t all killed the Expo organizer yet after 2 years) Atlanta Science Fiction and Fantasy Expo. Probably the biggest thing that sets this little (though already more than doubled the number of vendors from year 1 to year 2) convention apart is the cost: FREE. You see, it is set up near the food court of one of the malls (North DeKalb Mall, just outside of Atlanta) and so anyone who wants to can take a stroll through the tables and maybe spend a little cash or just keep on walking. And while you certainly can’t beat the price, over the course of the weekend there were tons (I mean, I don’t have an exact number for you… let’s just go with tons) of people who had come for some shopping or the movie theater and found this weird little event going on right in front of them.

And while those random walk-ups may or may not bother to really read any of Terminus’s comics, it was still a chance to expose them to us, to some of the other indy comic guys from the Atlanta (and beyond) area, and to some of the novelists, costume people… all sorts of people really. People who might have tolled over their wares for years.

Now if you read my report from last year (go ahead, I’ll wait) you’ll see that I had very low expectations and then was pleasantly surprised throughout the weekend by the foot traffic we got. So this year I had hopes, expectations about the number of comics we might be able to sell. Of course we had a couple of new issues we debuted at the Expo (and that didn’t hurt):

Route 3 #3

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Gilded Age #2

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But that wasn’t all as we also had a rebranded cover of Terminus Team-up #1 (the comic featuring Terminus’s Amber Fox – a cross between Doctor Who and Laura Croft). In the past, for whatever reason issue #1 of that comic didn’t sell and therefore issue #2 didn’t sell (I mean, who is going to buy only issue 2… it’s all or nothing most of the time)… The new cover turned that around. So many times we had people grab the whole series (Team-up, Gilded Age, or Route 3) all in one purchase. And just that very fact meant that instead of only selling one comic to a potential customer you are easily selling 2 or 3.

Business Aside – I learned something more important than anything else I’ve mentioned in this post. You know how when you get gas there is always a $XX.X9.99 amount to it? Or when you go shopping in general and things are priced $10.99 instead of just saying $11.00. For someone with OCD I could see that possibly driving them nuts (or maybe soothing them, I guess, according to how their particualr OCD works). But the business people all swear by it… people get fooled and buy the item even though there is really no good difference between the price and something one cent more.

That also works just because… math, I guess. We had a sign which said: 1 comic for $4 and 5 comics for $20.

I’ll wait while you determine how much better that $20 deal is.

Got it?

Yeah, its the same amount. Obviously.

Actually, maybe not so obviously. So many people (not quite the tons of earlier… perhaps a different large number) ended up seeing that and buying 5 comics from us… I guess in order to get the “Deal”.

Note – we didn’t put the sign up that way to try and trick anyone. It was only after the other guys had put it there that I pointed out the difference (or the lack of difference between the prices). Still, it was a strange thing to think that maybe those $X.99 guys and gals might have been onto something this whole time.

End aside.

Atlanta Expo-1

Me and Robert Jeffrey II talking about our Funny Books.

 

So aside from meeting people and having a decent set-up, Terminus also was able to have a panel where we not only talked about our comics, but also we had someone from the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) to discuss some of our motion comic footage we’ve been doing for them. This was the project that seemed to really interest people as they started asking questions about the project, about the focus groups, and even about what things they might want to see (one thing I definitely think we’d do if we get to do more episodes). And a member of Shadeaux Media sat in to briefly touched on the Video Game they are developing (using Amber Fox as the star). Plus, if you click on the above link it will take you to their Facebook Page where you can see a little bit of the digital world

I’m not going to lie, shaking hands and… well, shaking hands and talking to people all weekend – you’d think that wouldn’t tire a guy out, but it certainly does. But I’m glad to have done it, and fingers crossed I’ll be there next year, ready to go!

 

***

John McGuire

John McGuire is the author of the supernatural thriller The Dark That Follows, the steampunk comic The Gilded Age, and the novella There’s Something About Mac through the Amazon Kindle Worlds program.

His second novel, Hollow Empire, is now complete. The first episode is now FREE!

He also has a short story in the Beyond the Gate anthology, which is free on most platforms!

And has two shorts in the Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows anthology! Check it out!

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com.

Comic Challenge, Part 7 (25-28)

For the first 6 in this series, check out: 1 & 2 & & 4 & 5 & 6.

25. Comic Book City/Universe You Wished You Lived In

This is a head scratcher as I actually think most of them would be absolutely terrible to live in. I mean, yeah, it would be cool to see Superman streak overhead while living in Metropolis or see the Avengers Tower in New York, but I also think seeing them means that some villain (with little regard for life) will be stumbling into view shortly – and nobody wants that, right?

And if you go outside the superhero comics – do you really want to live in the Walking Dead universe? Again, interesting to have thought experiments on how to survive the zombie apocalypse, but I don’t think I need to live through it.

So I think I’m flipping this one on its ear and choosing the absolute last city I’d want to live in:

gotham-city

Gotham

That thing I said about villains around every corner – true. Plus you have various mob style gangs running around the city trying to kill some mythical “Bat” while shooting things up themselves. Occasionally they’ll need to seal themselves off because of a Contagion or an Earthquake “Event”.

Oh, and don’t forget some psycho-clown looking guy forever trying to combine items in order to cause you to grin to death.

No thanks.

 

26. Favorite Comic Book Artist

Mark Bagley

I think Bagley might get the least respect of most artists I read. Because he is a constant. Month in and month out there is going to be a comic drawn by him. And that is something to be commended in a time where doing 12 issues a year is not really possible for most anymore.

Thunderbolts_Vol_1_9

But the reason his name always jumps to the top of my list is he is the first artist I remember verbally saying I really liked his work.

Yeah, I liked the Image guys, but it was reading one of Bagley’s New Warrior’s comics that I realized I liked his style. And then when this new artist took over on Amazing Spider-Man I commented “I really like this guy’s work… I wonder who it is.”

 

27. Most Annoying Character

Lobo_DC

Lobo

Everyone has their favorites. And I know tons of people who have nothing but love for this character. And I get that he’s a reaction to the edgier comics. That he’s poking fun at them at.

I just don’t like “The Main Man”.

And what’s weird is because his presence pulls me out of whatever comic I’m reading. He’s just too much. I know it’s crazy to put it that way.

You can deal with men flying or radioactive spiders or clown psychos, but Lobo is where you draw the line?

Yes. Yes, it is.

 

28. Worst Villain

2657747-mojo_annihilators_earthfall_1

Mojo

I literally cringe every time I see him mentioned in a comic. I dry heave whenever he graces my pages. And a little bile rises to the top of my throat when I realize he is going to be the villain of the month for my most recent purchase.

He should have been a one-off villain. The sort who is the result of a dare lost by the comic creators during some drunken festival. And yet he somehow appears time and time again to ruin whatever it is I’m about to read. I get it, you run a tv station in another universe and created the X-Babies (seriously, look it up), and you… just… suck!

Arghhh!

***

John McGuire

John McGuire is the author of the supernatural thriller The Dark That Follows, the steampunk comic The Gilded Age, and the novella There’s Something About Mac through the Amazon Kindle Worlds program.

His second novel, Hollow Empire, is now complete. The first episode is now FREE!

He also has a short story in the Beyond the Gate anthology, which is free on most platforms!

And has two shorts in the Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows anthology! Check it out!

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com.

Dragon Con/ Labor Day Weekend: Seen Through New Eyes

dragoncon

A couple of weeks ago I made my annual pilgrimage to Dragon Con. Heading to the Southeast’s foremost sci-fi/ fantasy/ cosplay/ comic book/ art expo/ geek party convention is a trip that I always require myself to take.

It’s a release of sorts for me as it allows my inner geek to chill and unwind. It’s like Christmas and Mardi Gras for nerds, and it’s fun as heck.

A place which has created a ton of fun memories including hanging with friends and now family, meeting celebrities, watching my friends run away from said celebrities (a story for another time), spending long hours in ticket lines discussing a host of nerdy topics, finding awesome deals with vendors, and getting my first shot in comics.

So to introduce this fun and crazy world to a newbie was a fulfilling experience, one I found myself enjoying a bit more than I’d expected.

My wife and I invited our nephew to spend the Labor Day weekend with us, which included taking him to his first convention, his first comic book store, and him handing my butt to me several times over in video games.

A quick rundown of the weekend:

Day One: After starting the morning with me getting my butt handed to me in the DC Comics fighting game Injustice: Gods Among Us (the less said the better) my wife, nephew, and I headed down to the greatest convention on Earth.

Yeah, I said it. It’s fact.

Researched by scientists everywhere. 🙂

Most regular attendee’s to the event understand if you wait until the day of to buy tickets for the event, then you’re sort of S.O.L in terms of having to wait in a long line. No biggie, but it just requires you to be extremely patient.

But if you’re my nephew, possible frustration is trumped by excitement as a result of the unofficial parade of cosplay that’s on display. This kid was constantly picking out favorite characters from such animated offerings as RWBY and  Steven Universe. Taking pictures, pointing them out to my wife, and just having a great time in line.

0-steven-universe

This excitement carried on into the day, as he continued to take pictures galore of the event, and had his mind blown when we hit up the vendors area where he bought a Steven Universe sword, and a set of customizable Lego’s.

He was so hyped that we wound up taking him home halfway through the day, as he was filled to the brim with geekery.

Day Two: After breakfast at Golden Corral (where you can find a breakfast of champions for folks like myself who love to chow down) my wife and I decided to take my nephew to the local comic book store in our area. Here was another first as he’d never been to a comic book store.

Are we an awesome aunt/ uncle pair, or what?

This kid’s mind once again was blown as he walked around the shop, taking in all of the superhero related merchandise adorning the store. When I showed him an Avatar: The Last Airbender trade paperback he was extremely excited, as this series and The Legend of Korra are personal favorites of his. The smile that stayed on his face when we bought the book for him will be an image that’ll stay in this ‘ole noggin for a while.

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I tried to keep that  smile in my head as he continued to kick my butt later on in Injustice. Seriously, no one should be that dang good when it comes to that game.

It’s not natural.

Injustice-Gods-Among-Us

Present: Fast forward to a family get together we had last weekend, and my wife calls me into the room to see something my nephew has.

He hands me a Manga that he’s drawing/writing, and as I flip through it I’m getting extremely proud of this kid. Not that I wasn’t before, but this just added like 10K more cool points for him in my book.

So to the organizers of Dragon Con, and our local comic book store: thanks. Looks like you might’ve inspired a future creator to take his first steps into creating comics.

And that’s never a bad thing.

Comic Challenge, Part 6 (21-24)

For the first 5 in this series, check out: 1 & 2 & & 4 & 5.

21. Comic That Changed the Way You See the World

spawn-1

Spawn #1

Yeah, I know. It’s a weird one to put as the answer to this question. A query which deserves some great piece of art as its answer. Something that truly stupefied me when I read it for the first time.

Before Spawn I didn’t know who created my comics. Obviously I knew Marvel or DC or occasionally Dark Horse, but I didn’t know who the creators were that were writing or drawing (or inking or coloring or editing or… you get the point) my favorite comic books. I never spent all that long on the credits page – get me to the MEAT!

Even when Todd McFarlane was drawing Spider-man, I didn’t really notice anything special (yes, I am the only one). But even I got caught up in the hype of Image Comics and the big name artists who were leaving Marvel in order to start their own company. Suddenly I knew at least 6 names of artists – and suddenly I realized how much I dug McFarlane’s art. So when he launched Spawn, well… it was the first time I was reading something because of who was doing it rather than the character they were writing or drawing.

22. Underrated Comic Book Series

Annihilation_Prologue_Vol_1_1_Textless

Annihilation

For the longest time the Marvel Cosmic Universe was this thing that got shoved to the side. No one really mentioned it other than an occasional Silver Surfer appearance in some random comic here or there. Which was a little annoying since I was always a fan of those stories. For some reason they felt like anything could happen because they weren’t confined to make sure New York appeared the same issue after issue. This was a place where alien races, some we’d known from the 1960s and some we were just discovering ruled and schemed…

And all that came apart at the seems with Annihilation. A wave of destruction that sought to wipe out all life throughout the universe.

It was a mini series that was left to tell its own story (again, not worrying about what was happening this month in X-Men). And the characters were not the ones you might expect. Nova, Silver Surfer, Super-Skrull… heck Star Lord made his “modern” debut.

Without this comic series I’m pretty sure that no one would know who Star Lord or Groot or Rocket or Gamora or Drax were. This is where things got started again for those who lived in the cosmos.

23. Old Comic You Love

what if

What If?

All those movies about alternate worlds, all those episodes of Sliders, all that thought after watching Twilight Zone or Star Trek’s Mirror, Mirror episode… what if a comic did that monthly for their own stories they were telling?

Well you’d get a comic book that is right in this guy’s wheelhouse.

And it’s not so much the stories themselves. Sure I’ve often wondered what might have happened if Gwen Stacy hadn’t died, or if the Fantastic Four had different powers, but the key thing was taking these ideas into very dark places the writers didn’t have a chance to do normally. You think that hero would probably die now due to X thing? Well, then he’s probably dying.

I still haven’t read all the ones from the original series, but I do have an older trade which collects a bunch of them, and then I have a bunch of the run from the 90s… but if you wanted a series where you might not legitimately be able to figure out the ending, then this was the one.

24. Comic Series that makes me smile.

Starman_Vol_2_57

Starman

Legacy character in the DC Universe. Check.

Reluctant hero. Check.

Once a year talks to his dead brother and gets advice. Check!

Starman was one of those comics that shouldn’t have really worked all that well. I mean, Starman had a comic in the 80s, a failed experiment in the 70s, and he was typically one of those characters who was just “around”. But James Robinson pulled together a family legacy of the surviving son doing his best to live up to the ideals of his father, while still retaining his own personality.

What really amazed me about the book is that nothing feels wasted. Nothing is really a throw away issue. Everything builds on itself, not just continuity, but the feel of the book. Maybe Robinson was getting more confident as time went on. Maybe those early seeds he plants in the comic are growing in just the right way. I don’t know the why, but I do know I devoured it each and every month. It is currently on my list of comics I need to reread (just as soon as I catch up on my current stack).

***

John McGuire

John McGuire is the author of the supernatural thriller The Dark That Follows, the steampunk comic The Gilded Age, and the novella There’s Something About Mac through the Amazon Kindle Worlds program.

His second novel, Hollow Empire, is now complete. The first episode is now FREE!

He also has a short story in the recently released anthology Beyond the Gate, which is free on most platforms!

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com.

Creative Interview with Martin Powell

Martin PowellThis week’s creative interview is with author Martin Powell, who I wish I had met at JordanCon back in April, but our paths never crossed. We connected afterward via Facebook and it’s been wonderful to discover Martin’s amazing library of talent. I hope you’ll be delighted too!

Tell us about yourself, where you’re from and what you love.

Well, I’m an insomniac writer of prose, graphic novels, and children’s books, with hundreds of published credits, which I suppose is proof of my restlessness. I was born and raised in Louisville, Ky., spent a number of years in the Twin Cities, but now I reside in Florence, Alabama with my wife, Leia Barrett Durham Powell.

Did you always know you wanted to be a writer, a creator of stories?

I did, actually. Although I was also interested in many other things like stage magic, astronomy, and my formal education was in paleontology, which I’m still deeply connected with. But the writing bug bit me very early. I wrote my first book during Christmas holiday when I was in the second grade. So, yeah, I’ve always been lucky enough to know exactly what I wanted to do.

Martin Powell and the Komodo Dragon

 If you had to pick a favorite genre, which would it be and why?

Martin Powell and the T-RexNot sure if I really have a preference. I’ve pretty much written in every conceivable genre, from mysteries, science fiction, horror, comedy, westerns, and over two dozen children’s books. Ray Bradbury was a great friend and mentor, and he always stressed remaining flexible, which is crucial for the survival of a full-time writer like me. Happily, I’ve be able to write some of the industry’s most popular characters, such as Superman and Batman, Sherlock Holmes, Popeye the Sailor, and Tarzan of the Apes. I’m a very lucky guy.

We never officially met at JordanCon this year, but I saw you there. How and when did you become a part of this amazing event?

It was an amazing show, for certain. Actually, I sort of tagged along with my wife, as she’s a regular presence at JordanCon, with her novels and stained glass art. We both had a great time and, as a first-time guest, I felt very welcomed and at home there. Next year, please come to my table and say hello!

Martin PowellWhat are you working on now? And where can we find more?

Well, my most recently published books are JUNGLE TALES OF TARZAN, from Dark Horse/Random House (which, amazingly, sold out within a couple days of being released), and a new children’s graphic novel version of ROBINSON CRUSOE, from Stone Arch Books. Currently, I’m writing seven different weekly online comic strips for Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., and Leia and I are co-writing the prose novel, THE HEART OF FRANKENSTEIN, a genuine sequel to Mary Shelley’s original book. A number of other new projects loom in the near future, but I can’t talk about them yet. I’m looking forward to all of it. I always believe that the best is yet to be.

You can Follow Martin Powell on…

Amazon
Facebook

Thank you, Martin for taking time out of your busy schedule for our little interview. I will definitely stop by your table next year!!

Doom

Doctor Doom.

This is one of those things I can’t get my head around. Why is it that the Fantastic Four movies can’t get him right? Why is it that they want to tie him into the origin of the rest of them so badly?

And why oh why do they constantly turn him into a one dimensional character. Doctor Doom is nothing if not nuanced.  He’s not going to be concerned with a stock going up or down. He’s not going to be concerned with what the rest of the world thinks of him. He’s no…

Actually let me tell you why he is an interesting character, and then you tell me if they f-ed him up or not.

 

Every year he journeys to Hell in order to try and save his mother’s soul.

drs strange and doom 00

Oh, yeah, years previous his mother made a deal with the Marvel Devil (Mephisto) and when she died went to Hell. So every year Doom summons up the demon and challenges him to a duel (which he loses every year). He loses every year, gets to face some of his worst fears, is truly humbled… and then comes back the following year to do it again.

 

He Learned Magic from Morgan Le-Fey.

While not the exact version from our Arthurian Legends, it’s a pretty close version.

I mean that’s gotta be worth a couple of points right there.

 

He is as smart as Reed Richards.

If you were to rank the the characters in the Marvel Universe, Reed Richards would place as #1. Then if you examined things a little further you’d realize that while you ranked Doom #2 – he has divided his attention between both scientific pursuits and magical ones. Magic – that thing Richards thinks is just another form of science he hasn’t quite figured out yet.

Ergo, you might say that he is smarter. Or at least that’s what he’d say.

 

He’s the leader of his own nation!

Latveria, located somewhere in eastern Europe, is not only run by Doom (giving him Diplomatic Immunity when he is in the USA), but the people there legitimately LOVE him. There was a story where he was disposed and things went to complete shit… to the point the Fantastic Four had to help him get back in power.

 

He’s the godfather of Valeria Richards.

190760_original

How many people would allow their daughter to have a godfather who constantly tries to kill them? Well when Susan Richards went through a life or death pregnancy and Reed was nowhere to be found… who did they call for help? Victor Von Doom. Who then named the little girl.

Mostly I just love the fact that he genuinely cares for this girl in a way that I wasn’t sure would be possible. And woe onto anyone who tries to harm the child.

 

He wears a suit of armor and still doesn’t sweat Magneto

DoomvMagneto

 

He once took over the world and then actually made the Earth a paradise!

In the Emperor Doom graphic novel, Doom is able to use the Purple Man’s powers of persuasion to gain control over everyone on the planet (save for a couple of Avengers… meddling do-gooders). And when the Purple Man calls into question how legitimate the victory really is, Doom steps into the room with him and removes his mask and the following happens:

Doom and purple man

 

He’s taken the Beyonder’s powers.

In the Marvel Universe the Beyonder is one of the ultimate power movers and shakers. A god of sorts who, for his own amusement, brought a bunch of heroes and villains to an alien world to watch them fight it out.

Well Doom is no man’s puppet.

2407785-marvelsuperheroessecretwars10

He took the “god’s” power and for a short time, kept it.

 

There are tons of others:

He saved Kitty Pryde’s life when she had been injured by the Marauders (with a tiny bit of help from Reed Richards).

He’s fought Iron Man in Arthurian times.

He’s appeared on the old Spider-man cartoons! I mean, that’s probably the biggest reason right there.

So you tell me, did the movies do him justice?

***

John McGuire

John McGuire is the author of the supernatural thriller The Dark That Follows, the steampunk comic The Gilded Age, and the novella There’s Something About Mac through the Amazon Kindle Worlds program.

His second novel, Hollow Empire, is now complete. The first episode is now FREE!

He also has a short story in the recently released anthology Beyond the Gate, which is free on most platforms!

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com.

Is it too late for the Fantastic Four?

So the Fantastic Four movie came out this weekend. I did not see it. I will eventually see it when it hits OnDemand or some such nonsense, but I was kind of iffy on the whole idea of them rebooting the franchise in the first place after they did such a bleh job with the first two movies.

FF movie poster

Let me set the record straight though… I try to maintain an open mind when it comes to these movies. Just because it is not Marvel Studios does not immediately mean that it is going to be terrible or awful or whatever. Most of the X-Men movies would like to explain that they vehemently disagree with such a statement (as would the first 2 Rami Spider-man movies, but I digress). I try to keep an open mind when it comes to Ben Affleck as Batman because I remember reading about how no one thought Michael Keaton could do the job in the 80s and he killed it.

is-michael-keaton-jealous-of-ben-affleck-s-batman-michael-keaton-batman-returns

<Alright John, they get it. Now on with the skewering.>

Right, the FF movies. What is going on over at Fox? I can’t believe that they can’t figure this property out. I wrote about the seeing the trailer back in January and just the overall concept of the Fantastic Four here. But what I can’t figure out is that they have 50 years worth of stories with these heroes and they keep going off the rails trying to make it different or trying to tie Doctor Doom in with their origins.

So it makes me ask: is the Fantastic Four something that just can’t work in a movie format? Are they too much of a product of either their time or the idea that they are not really superheroes first (they’re explorers). If that is the case it is nothing to be ashamed of. There have been plenty of excellent comic book writers who didn’t seem to “get” one aspect of the FF or another. It isn’t an easy concept to wrap your brain around because if you only have them exploring the unknown then are audiences going to wonder where the heck the superhero fights are? And when they treat them as more superhero than not… well we get what we’ve always gotten.

So now, after such a dismal opening weekend (about 1/2 of what they were expecting) it’s caused the hard-core Marvel Studios fans to hope that THIS might be the thing to get control back in the right hands. These are the same people that prior to the movie’s release were hoping for this exact outcome. That if FOX loses too much money they will “come to their senses” and send the property packing.

The thing is, had Marvel Studios had the rights to Fantastic Four and X-Men and Spider-man we wouldn’t have the Avengers franchise (or certainly not the way it is today). Marvel had to look at their library and realize “we don’t have some of our top line characters… what the hell do we have?”

If FF were brought back into the fold, would they even want to focus on those characters for the time being? Sure we’d get mention of the Baxter Building, but those types of Easter Eggs are for the hard-core fans. Marvel already has its slate of movies for the next 4, 5? years it seems. They have a plan and seem to want to stick to it. The last thing you want is another of these movies pushed just because they have the rights back (plus the movie-going audience may not forget how bad this one seems to be – that’s going to be an uphill battle just to start).

I guess there is one reason for me to get on the bandwagon in regards to Marvel getting the rights back… maybe Doom can show up in an Avengers movie. Maybe that’s the one thing that might be able to rehabilitate the first family of Marvel?

Victor_von_Doom_(Earth-616)

A well done Doom would be amazing.

 

<Oh and why can’t they just steal a rocket in order to go into space? Given the private industry side of things when it comes to rockets to outer space… this idea makes more sense now than it did in the 60s (Space Race aside)… Stop trying to reinvent the wheel. Please.>

<Just something else I don’t understand.>

***

John McGuire

John McGuire is the author of the supernatural thriller The Dark That Follows, the steampunk comic The Gilded Age, and the novella There’s Something About Mac through the Amazon Kindle Worlds program.

His second novel, Hollow Empire, is now complete. The first episode is now FREE!

He also has a short story in the recently released anthology Beyond the Gate, which is free on most platforms!

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com.

Checking In: Writers Edition

Taking a cue from my fellow Tessera Guild member, John McGuire, I’m going to list out my writing related to do list for current/ upcoming projects. These run the gamut from super heroic tales of daring, to action adventures spread across alternate dimensions and space.

Superheroes and sci-fi?

I know, I’m a big nerd.

Comics:

Promo R3#3 2

A scene from Route 3 # 3.

 

Route 3 #3/Vol. 1: After getting the final draft edited by the esteemed Mr. McGuire and my Editor in Chief @ Terminus Media, Tony Cade, the book is now 9 pages in at the pencils/ inks stage.

I’m kind of biased on this front, but Sean Hill is killing it on the art duties, and I’m looking forward to seeing Omi Remalante’s masterful colors applied once this is all done.

Promo R3#3 1

A scene from Route 3 # 3

Setting aside any further delays, I’m hoping for a late September, early October release for the book. The final plan will be to compile issues 1-3 into a trade paperback (Vol.1), and get them into comic book stores and book stores all across the country, and *gasp* maybe even the world.

This issue will round out the first story arc of Route 3, and hopefully I’ll get a chance to tell more stories of Sean Anderson’s journey in the future. Once the book and collected edition drop I’ll be in overdrive mode promoting, while also continuing to generate ideas for future tales.

The Best: A zombie outbreak set against the backdrop of an intergalactic war. That’s the most basic pitch for a 10 page short that I’ve written in collaboration with the esteemed Takeia Marie.

zombie-horde-the-walking-dead

Zombies. And even more zombies.

 

You know those artists that once you see their work you really want to have an opportunity to collab with them? Takeia’s one of those creators, and I think she’s the best person to bring this space based action-horror hybrid to life.

The story will focus on two soldiers and a seemingly impossible mission they’re tasked to take on. Here’s hoping that this will turn out to be a small drop in a wider pool of awesome storytelling opportunities, because I’d love to widen this world out a bit more.

I had a lot of fun with this one, and hopefully it shows.

Radio Free Amerika: Season 1:  So yeah, I got my first graphic novel/ trade paperback released. 😀

Cover for Radio Free Amerika: Season 1.

Cover for Radio Free Amerika: Season 1.

Still kind of on cloud 9 on that front. Not coming down anytime soon.

It’s too cool for school up here.

My co-writing duties on B. Robert Bell’s Radio Free Amerika have been collected in a really nicely bound book, collecting issues 1-3. I’m really proud of how the story, and just the book overall, came out. By year’s end/beginning of 2016 you should see the collected edition at your local comic book store, books stores, libraries, bodegas, outer space, other dimensions. Just everywhere.

Barron and I will continue to generate ideas/ start scripting for Season 2, while spreading the word about Season 1. The plan is to try and get the trade in as many hands as possible.

 

 

 

 

 

 

-Stealth: The Life and Times of Allen White: A while back, I was hired by the

A page from Stealth: The Life and Times of Allen White.

A page from Stealth: The Life and Times of Allen White.

talented William Satterwhite to bring the origin of his character, Allen White, a.k.a Stealth, to life in the pages of an original graphic novel.

William’s web comic, Stealth, is a fun action packed tale of super heroics that deserves

to be checked out. So, to say I was beyond ecstatic to help tell a new story featuring this character was an honor. Add to that, the book is being drawn by the talented Jamar Logan. I think we’ve got a bonafide hit on our hands.

A sort of “issue 0” is scheduled to be released later this summer, which will serve as a preview of sorts, giving fans a look into what the future holds for our creative effort. Continuing to put the final touches on this script.

 

 

 

 

 

-The Crossing: John McGuire. Robert Jeffrey II. Sean Damien Hill. Alternate dimensions. High paced action. A story of loss and betrayal. What’s not to love?

parallel_world_by_ayronstorkarynx-d48sl11

Inter-dimensional travel: the only way to travel.

 

Still working on applying final edits to the pitch for this sci-fi adventure that my fellow Tessera Guild/ Terminus Media writer in arms and I have come up with.

John: I’ll get the edits to ya by this weekend. I swear.

Next will be finding a publisher for the book. But once we find a home for it, you all are going to need to hang on to your seats. Like, “get some seat belts installed in home” type of action.

Also working on a prose novella set within this universe, so stay tuned.

Blogging/ Journalism

-Tesera Guild: My commitment is to up my postings to 2-3 Friday’s a month, so get prepped to see more of my random rants on this page.

Comics, sci-fi, life musings, you’re gonna get ‘it all.

BLACKSciFi_4WEB-BlackSci-Fi.com: I’m honored to write for this awesome website, and things are going to be picking up A LOT on this front over the next few months.

Within my capacity as contributing writer for the website I get a chance to speak about a well established and constantly growing arm of this awesome genre we call sci-fi. Whether it’s prose, comics, movies, video games, etc, I’ll have articles coming down the pipeline about the work that African Americans are contributing and have contributed to the science fiction arena.

And as always, you can visit me here for a rundown of past projects, maybe buy some books,  and get updates about anything else I have coming up.

If you just want to chat, that’s cool too.

 

Comic Challenge, Part 5 (17-20)

For the first 4 in this series, check out: 1 & 2 & & 4.

17. A Comic That Reminds You of Someone

This is one of those things that I don’t really think about all that much. But if I had to choose it wouldn’t be just one comic book, but a comic series.

Legion

Legion of the Superheroes reminds me of my Dad. It was his favorite comic growing up. On more than one trip down to visit my grandparents in south Georgia he would tell me about this group of teenaged heroes from the far future who fought various villains… who were inspired by Superman himself and often hung out with Superboy.

At the time I was just beginning to discover comic books and Marvel was more to my taste, but to hear the various crazy characters and just how he talked about those old stories… well, when DC rebooted them in the early 90s, I jumped on the chance to start reading them, fresh and free from any continuity.

And they were great. Obviously this version was slightly different than the one my Dad read, but it was still the same core of great characters. And it became one of my favorites (right up until they rebooted it again… which we won’t get into).

It’s nice when things come around full circle.

 

18. Favorite B List Character

For years I might have answered this with Hawkeye and prior to the movies you would have scratched your head (or maybe said “The Bow and Arrow guy”). But now that does seem right.

So I go with my back-up character.

Moon_Knight_Vol_3_2

Moon Knight

Here’s the thing, Moon Knight gets a bad wrap for being “the poor man’s Batman” or “Marvel’s Batman”, but that’s not who he is. Where Batman is thought of as having a screw loose…

Moon Knight is legitimately crazy. He’s got a whole mess of personalities living in his head (a play off the phases of the moon). Sometimes the line between an “undercover” identity and a new personality gets blurred for him.

Oh yeah and he talks to an ancient Egyptian god: Khonshu who may or may not talk back to him.

 

19. Favorite Comic Book Cartoon Series

YoungJustice

Young Justice.

Yes, I realize that Batman the Animated Series exists. And I realize that Batman Beyond exists. And I personally loved Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends.

But Young Justice just clicked for me in a way that I can’t explain. I’m not sure if it was because I dislike Teen Titans Go so much (sooo much – which is fine, it is not made for me anyway).

Young Justice focused on the “side-kicks” while still having members of the JLA show up. They actually had to train… and we saw it. The various members of the cast had about as equal time as you could get given any ensemble. And they had a multi-season story-line while still being able to tell these amazing small stories.

The show introduced me to the new Aqualad (not sure why the new 52 hasn’t brought him back yet), Miss Martian (who might be my favorite character from the show), Tim Drake Robin… Dick Grayson Robin… Conner Superboy…

I loved everything about this show.

 

20. A Comic With Witty Dialogue

 

arms2Archer and Armstrong

I have to admit, I came to the 90s version of Valiant a little late. By the time I hopped onboard they were nearing their height, print runs were getting out of control and those low print runs of the earliest issues made it impossible for me to go back and grab the issues I was missing. So I started with X-O Manowar and Turok, Dinosaur Hunter, but I think I really liked the idea behind a 3rd Superhero Universe more than trying to get into a 3rd universe.

Flash forward to a couple of years ago and Valiant relaunches. So I grab all the launch titles. One of which is this odd story of a sheltered kid who has some kind of special abilities (Archer) and the man he’s supposed to kill (Armstrong). They fight, they argue, they really are the comic version of the Odd Couple. And it is goofy and odd and funny…

And it works.

I assumed that this comic would be the one that I’d drop first, having no connection with the characters from back in the day… and yet, somehow, someway, it became my favorite of the new Valiant books.

***

John McGuire

John McGuire is the author of the supernatural thriller The Dark That Follows, the steampunk comic The Gilded Age, and the novella There’s Something About Mac through the Amazon Kindle Worlds program.

His second novel, Hollow Empire, is now complete. The first episode is now FREE!

He also has a short story in the recently released anthology Beyond the Gate, which is free on most platforms!

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com.

Comic Challenge, Part 3 (9-12)

For the first 2 in this series, check out: 1 & 2.

9. First Comic Series You Seriously Pursued

avengers-movie-poster-1

Avengers

I was reading it before the rest of you even knew who Iron Man and Black Widow and Hawkeye were!

I mean, two of the first 4 comics I ever bought were Avengers related. I’m not sure why I gravitated to them more than the X-Men (who I liked, but never really loved). I think I dug the idea that the roster could change. That you’d have a couple of the Big Guns (Iron Man, Thor, and Cap), but you also got the other guys (and gals): Hawkeye, Vision, Scarlet Witch, Wonder Man, etc.

They had some of the best villains because they didn’t have to stick to “only mutants” or “only Doctor Doom” or whatever. Loki, Kang, Masters of Evil, Grim Reaper, ULTRON…

It’s really one of 3 comic series that I’m hoping to have a full run of one day. The other two I’m effectively done with (The Flash (Wally West) and Firestorm). With The Avengers the biggest gap now begins with issue 1-120 (pretty much the 60s). Mostly because those are the pricier ones. Slowly but surely I’ll get them.

 

10. Comic That You Love That You’ll Never Read Again

This makes me sad to even think that might be the case. I’m always hoping for a little extra time to maybe take another read through my comics. It would be a true walk through my own timeline in a lot of ways.

So the answer could possibly be all of them (or any of them). 30+ long boxes would take a fair amount of reading to catch up on (and I’m a fast reader).

I think I have to cop out on this one. It’s just too painful a thought that those old stories will never pass by these eyes again.

 

11. Comic That Makes You Wanna Have Sloppy Make-outs With Someone

fraction annual

Sensational Spider-Man Annual #1

I’ve mentioned this comic before in my Spider-Man post, but I think that anyone who can invoke these feelings of love between two fictional characters has done their job. And it’s no small feat to do it with a character that others can’t figure out. They didn’t know what to do with this marriage, this relationship, and so they retconned it out of existence. Luckily I still have this issue… they can’t take that from me!

 

12. Great Plot Twist

A little background as this one is very comic nerdy.

Back in the late 90s Marvel licensed out some of their comic that weren’t doing so well to some of the Image guys. These were Avengers related titles (and Fantastic Four) (which is strange to say nowadays, but back then X-Men ruled the Marvel roost and Cap and Iron Man were just kinda there). Since those comics were going to be in a new continuity, the regular Marvel Universe had a big story line which got rid of them (see Onslaught for more details).

However, just think about it. Pretty much half of your major heroes were gone and the X-Men pretty much keep to themselves. So who’s going to stop Kang or Graviton or whomever is going to try and take over the world?

Enter the Thunderbolts. This new group of heroes who arrived on the scene and saved the day against the Wrecking Crew. They were unknowns, but their leader had taken his name from an old WWII hero – Citizen V. The people of Earth needed someone to believe in. Needed someone to help them sleep peacefully at night.

And then, in the closing moments of that first issue, we get the reveal. The Thunderbolts were not heroes, they were villains. In fact, they were some of the worst – The Masters of Evil.

Thunderbolts-1-1997

My jaw hit the floor upon reading this issue. I knew exactly who they were and could not wait for issue #2 to arrive the next month. And Thunderbolts became one of my favorite comics for a long while.

***

John McGuire

John McGuire is the author of the supernatural thriller The Dark That Follows, the steampunk comic The Gilded Age, and the novella There’s Something About Mac through the Amazon Kindle Worlds program.

His second novel, Hollow Empire, is now complete. The first episode is now FREE!

He also has a short story in the recently released anthology Beyond the Gate, which is free on most platforms!

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com.