Great Art: Catwoman and Batman by Terry Moore!

Earlier this week, I mentioned Terry Moore had an upcoming new series called Five Years, bringing all the series he's written and drawn over the last three decades together. But while Terry's indie credentials are strong, he's dabbled in mainstream comics more than once. And it seems he's more than willing to take commissions of the like as well.

He shared this piece of Catwoman overcoming the caped crusader on his blog a few weeks back, where you can find a higher res version of it for your own use and enjoyment.

As always, you can check out a lot more Great Art over on the Tumblr. And after you're done admiring some great art here, don’t forget to check out some of the other great stuff from me this week!

Coming Continuing Comics 2: a look at March 2019's most intriguing solicits

This one is a bit late, mostly because I didn't see a ton of stuff that really intrigued me in this month's catalog of stuff. But I do have the ends of two trilogies to talk about, plus another new comic that takes an existing universes in new and different directions.

Batman / Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III

James Tynion IV and Freddie Williams II have finally reached the volume of their crossover events that averages their own Roman numerals. But just as the announcement came that DC animation was working with Nickelodeon to produce the first volume of their series as an animated feature, they announced this concluding chapter to a series that in no way was planned to be a trilogy. The creative team has put together two great series. With the addition of Kevin Eastman on variant covers and apparently some interiors, this one could be the best yet.

Got to love that raw Eastman art with bonus Batman! 

X-Men Grand Design: X-Tinction

I know Ed Piskor's work isn't made for everyone. But I've absolutely loved the previous four issues of this series that covered the first twenty-five or so years of X-Men continuity. He streamlined the history to make things fit together without contradicting the established history. It's been really cool and the style he developed on Hip Hop Family Tree works wonders here.

The new run takes the team through the Australian years and into the Silvestri / Lee era of grand art. I expect the X-Tinction Agenda storyline to play a large role here, but the cover below makes it look like we will see plenty from the Reavers as well. Whatever the case, I'm ready to see two more superb over-sized issues of this series!

A simple design evokes the classic cover to Uncanny X-Men 251.

Five Years

Terry Moore has written for Marvel and DC among others before, but the Strangers in Paradise creator has often been known for his more nuanced down to Earth approach to comics, both in that seminal series and his later books like Echo and Rachel Rising. Following a year's return to his original title in Strangers in Paradise XXV (for the 25th anniversary of the property), he's now doing something other publishers have been doing for years: a crossover.

The story spins right out of the previous series but Moore promises it's a jumping on point for everyone. It does star every major character he's introduced so far from all those series above and his short-lived Motor Girl as well. All have played at least brief roles in the last year's storylines, so it will be interesting to see exactly how everything comes together for this one.

The one thing I can say for certain: with Moore on art it will be gorgeous.

That wraps up this month's comic picks. What upcoming books are you most anticipating? Let me know in the comments.

 As always, all cover images are copyright their respective owners. 

Cosplay Friday: Serpentor

In many ways, I am a slave to my childhood. G.I. Joe is a property that still holds a lot of sway on my brain. It's one that I often marvel at how little remains from the classic line. Hasbro hasn't produced new toys since the release of the last movie. The only exceptions are the collector's club figures, but I'm not one of the fans obsessive enough to spend $40 on a new 4 inch figure.

But the property still remains heavy on my mind. I have more than one half written Kindle Worlds stories that will now never be published. But I've also considered designing my own international defense force. I could wax on for many more paragraphs about that, I'm sure, but we all came here for Cosplay didn't we?

Drizzy Designs isn't a name I knew before I stumbled across this amazing costume on Pinterest. The alias of one Drisana Litke, she managed to make a Serpentor costume out of actual materials that doesn't look like it weighs a hundred pounds. Her page on Facebook has another half dozen pictures of this costume, plus a ton of other stuff, so be sure to check it out.

You can check out a lot more great Cosplay pictures over on the Tumblr. And while you are admiring some great cosplay here, don’t forget to check out some of the other great stuff from yours truly this week!

It's a marvelous life! (WIP Wednesday)

Over the last three weeks, I've fought two head colds but still managed to get a decent amount of work done on the ongoing projects that have been debuting as part of Patreon. I clocked about five thousand words in the last week on Shockwave and Lightweight. Lightweight is just about done while Shockwave currently sits at four chapters of a planned six in the first book.

Next month will be my twice annual Camp Nanowrimo month, where several of my writing friends and I get together and push each other forward on writing projects. My plan is to complete the next three chapters of Quadrant over that month of writing. That will bring me right up to the finishing line with that one as well.

My big goal is to wrap all three novels by the end of May and set out on the next writing journey, which will include a short story or two plus the next phase of Lightweight!

I'm also working on a new scheduling format for Patreon releases, one that will see all the ongoing books update about every six weeks. That one will depend a bit on how things go as I move into the second half of 2019 however.

I went with my wife and the youngest to see Captain Marvel over the weekend. The family and I loved the very different take on the mythos of Mar-Vell and Carol Danvers. A lot of the negative reaction is confusing to me, as I felt it was the best use of Carol since the Brian Reed Ms. Marvel series of the mid-2000s. It gets a thumbs up from me, yet another in a solid string of really great Marvel movies in the last two years.

Today's image is of Carol in costume, drawn by the always amazing Sana Takeda, taken from a variant cover of Life of Captain Marvel. Character owned by Marvel.

Don't sleep on Newer Gods!

While this site focuses much on my own writing and other areas of interest, I have other blogs out there to focus on expanded views of things outside the purview here. One such outlet is the nearly year old blog Newer Gods, where I am doing a week by week rundown of comics featuring every appearance of the New Gods after Jack Kirby's initial run.

Now seems like the perfect time to mention it, as I just reviewed the beautifully rendered Uncanny X-Men and New Teen Titans, where the two heroes from different universes suddenly exist in the same one to conveniently team up to fight Darkseid and a reborn Dark Phoenix. Written by Chris Claremont and drawn by Walter Simonson, it's just amazing to look at. The story is all kinds of crazy as well, so be sure to head over and check out both parts of this epic review.

A new update will debut on Thursday and every Thursday for the foreseeable future. (There's a lot of New Gods appearances to cover.) So strap in and be sure to follow the fun of Newer Gods.

Great Art: Boom Boom by Mike Maihack

I've been a huge fan of the work of Mike Maihack for quite some time. His prints are all over our house, including my personal favorite featuring Yukio. His work on Cleopatra in Space has brought one of the most fun series of all ages graphic novels to life and I recommend it to everyone, especially with Fallen Empires, the fifth volume, only a few days from release. Last year, he did a series of X-Men pieces and this one featuring Boom Boom in her original look is one of my favorites.

As always, you can check out a lot more Great Art over on the Tumblr. And after you're done admiring some great art here, don’t forget to check out some of the other great stuff from me this week!

Kickstart the Week 72: Flying the 1959 Hellride to Section Zero!

This time around I wanted to shine the light on a couple of Kickstarters that have both fully funded but that are excellent comic projects by some truly cool talents.


Jim Lawson has been a favorite artist of mine since the 90s when I first discovered him as a regular artist (and later writer/artist) on Mirage's original version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He's got a unique but shockingly deep art style that I will always enjoy whether it's in black and white or color. He's produced a couple different books on Kickstarter, but right now he's got two new projects I'm excited about in one great Kickstarter.

The first is the complete edition of Dragonfly, the first part of which he funded on Kickstarter several years ago. It's the tale of a turtle like being, a woman, a dog and some aliens on a strange island where everything is pretty much not quite right. The first volume was fun and now this edition will finally bring the story to completion.

Hellride is the second title, and while Lawson is a bit more vague on the subject matter, it sure looks like the description is in the title. Our protagonist in on his motorcycle for a ride straight through Hell!

Both books look superb and you can help fund one or both at the same Kickstarter.


The second project of the day is the long awaited second volume of Karl Kesel and Tom Grummett's Section Zero. After funding the completed version of the original six issues as a book, they've got the new book on the market both as a Kickstarter exclusive and as an upcoming series at Image. (I'm enough of a fan that I'm supporting both.) Now they're going back in time with the series to explore the early days of Section Zero in Section Zero: 1959.

If you're wondering what it's about, think Challengers of the Unknown meet Area 51. I'm not trying to spoil anything else for me with this book though, so anymore details you will have to find at Kickstarter.

Kesel and Grummett are two of the finest comic creators still going. They've both been at it since the 80s and together are probably best known for creating the Kon-El Superboy. They had two amazing runs with the character in his original series and Section Zero is the continuance of one of the best creative pairs in comics. Head over to Kickstarter to support it!

Cosplay Friday: Cassie Hack

One of the delights of this year in comics has been the return of Tim Seeley to the world of Cassie Hack and Vlad in Hack / Slash vs. Chaos from Dynamite Comics. It's a series I could honestly read for months to come but alas it is just a limited series.

Yet even should it serve as a swan song to Cassie and company, Seeley and company built a strong legacy for the characters. That can be seen in several amazing cosplays of Cassie, with perhaps Tata-Chan1012's look here the best. Big ups to both her and photographer Laernu Sinatas for making this a reality.

As always, you can check out a lot more great Cosplay pictures over on the Tumblr. And while you are admiring some great cosplay here, don’t forget to check out some of the other great stuff from yours truly this week!

The roller coaster ride of the writing life (WIP Wednesday)

February is done and March is here. It feels as though 2019 has flown by so far for this writer. I've published five stories so far with twenty plus still coming later this year. It's been good to bring new material out into the world once again, something I didn't do nearly enough of in the previous two years. I still have a lot of publishing ahead of me though, so other parts of the last month are a bit disappointing.

I managed just under 29,000 words for the month, shy for the second month in a row of my 35,000 word monthly target. It is still ahead of my January count however and probably would have came much closer to my goal if I had the three extra days of the previous month.

So I'm starting out March with a goal to pick up speed again. I've been working hard to start producing more content across the internet in the next few weeks as I start to stagger things a bit in the coming months. One of my goals is to make sure I'm releasing something new five days a week across my various sites. This site will remain an aggregate for where my current projects are coming and going however.

Right now, those projects include the final draft checks of Quadrant 7 and Lightweight 18 in preparation for their release later this month on Patreon. Like the previous stories, they will be up for pre-order at the same time with release dates about seven months from now.

I am also toying with a story idea to start out a new serial to be published on my Medium account. So far it has mostly been used as a hub for talking about the art of writing and deep dives into the world of comics. But I have a new narrative that I might test out as part of Medium's paid service, but more research will have to take place before a final decision is made on that one.

Sometimes the challenge feels like I'm staring up at a skyscraper that is the future. But much like King Kong, I'm going to make that climb.

So work remains in progress. I'm currently working on a future installment of Shockwave, one with major implications for the future of the series. Next up will be the final chapter of the current Lightweight saga plus the final three Quadrants for the next year. From there, I will start on some of the bonus stories I haven't even started to talk about for the second half of the Patreon in 2019...

Photo by Devon Divine on Unsplash.

Gallur-y: The Burden of Death

Over the last few years, Mexican artist Rafael Gallur has become a go to painter for action. A regular painter of amazing lucha libre magazine covers, he channels the energy of Frazetta into modern cover art, something very lacking on this side of the border. And since his art doesn't quite fit into the usual comic-oriented Great Art feature, I thought it was time to give him his own feature here at Super Powered Fiction. Few painters can match the power he brings.

We start the feature off with an amazing Blue Demon piece, "The Burden of Death." It's one of his older pieces on the site, a cover to an old lucha comic. And no, I don't have a clue as to why he's fighting a 19th century United States cavalrymen.

So I'll open up a challenge. Tell me why this heroic Mexican hero has come to this position. I will award the best reason a copy of Quadrant 7, the launch of the second volume of that title, days before anyone else sees it! 

Be sure to head over to Gallur's DeviantArt to check out more work by him and order some of his amazing work as prints. After you're done admiring his work, don’t forget to check out some of the other great stuff from me this week!