The Phantom Hawk Rises (Kickstart the Week 64)

It's been a great Memorial Day weekend, but it's Tuesday now, and late or not, it's time to Kickstart the Week.

I have to admit there's something about a caped, low-powered vigilante that just seems awesome. From The Shadow to Batman to Night Man to Moon Knight, they all tend to work very well in the comic form. Now upstart publisher Apogee Comics is out to debut their own such character and he looks to offer some new ideas to the archetype.

Phantom Hawk focuses on Max Malone, a man accused of treason and injected with experimental nanites. He fights to clear his name while also scouring his home city for evil. The book features stunning artwork by Dino Agor, a name I've never seen up until this point, but I suspect will start to gain some recognition after this is complete.


The book has some really great pledge levels, but what drew my interest was an excellent $5 digital level. In addition to the first issue of Phantom Hawk it also includes two previous Apogee Comics Universe titles, Crimson Guardians #1 and Bengali #1. That's a truly great way to drum up interest in a new super-universe and it certainly got me on board.

The campaign has just under two weeks left as I write this and has just barely passed its goal. Support is always important to projects like this, so be sure to go take a look and throw it a few dollars.

Cosplay Friday: Crystal

With a deep dive into Kirby's characters at DC on the horizon, it seemed fitting to feature one of his characters for this Cosplay Friday. We turn once again to the always talented Florencia Sofen as she brings Crystal of the Inhumans to life!

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 on Super Powered Fiction this week!

The Newer Gods are coming!

Inspired by far too many listens of various shows on the Fire & Water Podcast Network, I came to the realization that the world does not have nearly enough coverage of the Fourth World. And while Kirby's work has been covered in various amounts of detail, I thought it would be a worthy endeavor to look at the works featuring the stars of New Gods, Mister Miracle and The Forever People after their initial runs by Kirby himself came to an end.

The blog kicks off on June 4th with its first three updates! From there, it will continue on with a new comic every week! In the meantime, be sure to bookmark NewerGods.blogspot.com so you don't miss a single update!

Great Art: Invaders by Tom Grummett

Tom Grummett is one of the greatest talents in comics, a criminally under-rated talent in modern comics. The fact he's not regularly drawing a book for either of the book two is sheer insanity to me. It does mean he's working on Section Zero however, a graphic novel I cannot wait to see.

His rendition of the core three Invaders seems like an apt choice this week, with Memorial Day only days away.

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 on the site this week!

A game of Cat & Mouse (Kickstart the Week 63)

Art by Dean Zachary. 

It's been a very long time since I last posted a Kickstart the Week on this column. It's been a year since I last ran a Kickstarter and almost as long since I last backed one as I have worked hard to pull myself out of the hole I buried myself in in 2017. But that has changed as of now, with the first comic I couldn't resist backing upon its return.

Flashback to the early 90s. As a twelve or thirteen year old, I first learned about the wild world of indie comics and I really wanted in. Unfortunately, I couldn't get to a comic shop regularly in those days. Fortunately, I was able to find the early issues of Malibu's Protectors as the publisher made in-roads into newstand publishing. I quickly became a fan of a bunch of stuff from that line, but didn't learn of the precursors to it until years later.

One of those precursors was a series called Cat & Mouse, which was something of a crime and martial arts comic mixed with superhero tropes. It wasn't quite as all out superheroic as Protectors would be, but it certainly had similar traits. And the editor of Protectors happened to be the writer of Cat & Mouse.

Roland Mann proved to be a great writer in the early 90s, even if the death of Malibu cost him most of his avenues for comic writing work. Thankfully, the power of Kickstarter has changed that for him as he's launched a new version of Cat & Mouse right now on the site.


As a bonus to yours truly, one of my favorite artists of that Malibu era is back working in comics to draw Cat & Mouse. Dean Zachary has worked on books from The Ferret to Stargods to Hawk & Dove, but hasn't done a lot in the last few years. It's great to see his line work back as the artist to the new edition of Cat & Mouse.

Go check out the new series over at Kickstarter now. 

Cosplay Friday: Two Mummies for the price of one!

Ancient Egypt has been on my mind as I continue my work on the next few chapters of Quadrant. I can't really say why without a bunch of spoilers, but it seemed like an apt time to show off some mummy cosplay. Of course, I couldn't find just one great one so everyone gets two great pieces. First up is legendary cosplayer Yaya Han as Anck-su-naman of Mummy Returns fame. Then I've got an Ahmanet from the otherwise lackluster 2017 The Mummy as portrayed by It's The Fa. Enjoy!

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 on Super Powered Fiction this week!

WIP Wednesday Late Edition

It's been a hectic week so far, hence this post hitting as the midnight hour nears.

I'm hard at work on the second draft of Project FOXHUNT as I type this. I hope to wrap it in the next day or two and get it submitted to the fine folks at Pro Se Press. From there, it will be up to them to see it come full circle for publication.

Quadrant falls by the wayside for a bit as I focus now on edits for a couple long gestated projects and the prep stages for my next mystery project for Pro Se. This one is going under the code name INDEPENDENCE. This tale is much closer to my usual super powered fiction wheel house than FOXHUNT. It's honestly the anthology project I'm most looking forward to working on this year as it features a character I'd like to write a lot more about.

Once I finish the edits on the three outstanding projects and the final draft of FOXHUNT, I hope to bounce between INDEPENDENCE and the next chapter of Lightweight. My current hope is to start a full fledged publication schedule for Quadrant and Lightweight early next year, but I need to get at least a half dozen tales for each in place before I start to look for new avenues for delivery of the tales as serialized content.

Today's image is the Marvel Comics character Free Spirit, created by Mark Gruenwald and Dave Hoover. This is a recolored version by original artist Hoover, and sticks quite in my mind as All American heroes are definitely brewing in this twisted head of mine.

Saying goodbye to old friends...

The original Lightweight tale.

When I first started to publish Lightweight, my original plans were to be individual chapters every one to two months. They would each tell their own story, but at the same time build to a greater old, not unlike many comic books of the past several decades. I published ten chapters this way, all of which were collected in the books Lightweight: Senior Year and Lightweight: Black Death.

As I published them and looked at the history for both the single stories and the collections, I quickly realized that Amazon's setup isn't really made to sell short fiction in such a way. So when I wrote the next five chapters of Lightweight's tale, they were only released in a full book format as Lightweight: Beyond.

Now as I work to streamline my work, I realize the individual stories really just clutter up my Amazon Author page. Few sell by themselves anymore. So it seems obvious that it is time to remove them from circulation.

However, in fairness to folks that might have been reading the series in individual chapters, I will leave all the current stories up in their old form until May 31, 2018. After that, they will be removed from Amazon and Lightweight will continue their as only a novel series.

That is not to say I do not have plans to serialize Lightweight in the days and months ahead. I have a new plan in place to do just that, but that is for another time and another place as it is still a few months down the road.

Get the first Quadrant Universe book free!

The Super Powered Newsletter needs new subscribers. So I've decided to up the ante!

Starting today, anyone that subscribes to the Super Powered Newsletter will get my first novel, A Dangerous Place to Live, free of charge! Once subscribed and confirmed, the email link with how to get your copy will whisk your way. After that, you will start to get biweekly news from yours truly and all around the world of super powered fiction!

A Dangerous Place to Live introduces the world to Freedom Patton, my unique take on the patriotic hero trope. It focuses intently on a small corner of southern Iowa as a super-powered separatist foments rage across several small towns. Freedom and a ragtag bunch of friends and rivals must do everything in their power to stop the villainous Atlas!

Head over to the newsletter and subscribe already! There's never been a better time to read than right now!

Adventures on the Homefront now available!

The fourth installment of the Pen & Cape Society's The Good Front series is now officially available!

Head over to Amazon or Smashwords for your copy of The Good Front 4: Homefront. This new volume turns the focus towards the supporting cast of the heroes of thirteen different writers.

My tale returns us to the world of D. B. Cooper, where an aging Coop comes face to face with his daughter for the first time. She's not quite what he expected though and that quickly makes complications in Coop's life!

Check it and the other twelve tales out in print or digital format.