Ye Olde Comique Booke Airte Struggle

In the early 90s I got my hands on Will Eisner's Comics and Sequential Art. I never read it. Not really. I flipped through it a lot, and took notes from some of the examples. I might have read a few pages. But reading dry texts like that was not my strong suit. I'm sure I missed a lot of valuable lessons from Will.

Which makes me think about comics as an art form and how that a lot of folks talk about it, ponder it, and theorize about it. I love that they do that, but it's not my bag. Just like with tabletop roleplaying games, I love making them and playing them but I am not sure I have much to say about the philosophical side of it or the theory side of it. Why does it work if I put three dots after a word to convey a pause or some unspoken thing? It just does. I'm sure there are good psychological reasons and I know it's rooted deeply in the actual material history of language and writing. But all I know is I put three dots when I want to suggest that sort of thing. It's all feels.

It's ALL FEELS.

And I might not even be good at it. I don't know. I know that people always enjoy my comics, but is it because they like how I draw or because they enjoy reading my stories? I don't really know. But I suspect, honestly, it's because they like how I draw. I know that's why I pick up books from Philippe Druillet, Vaughn Bodé, or Richard Corben. It is not for the stories. Those are fine, and sometimes good, but it's all about the visuals. I love the styles, the colors, the lines. I love the mark making. And how those marks come together to convey movement, meaning, narrative. Even when the story being told is, let's be honest, forgettable as hell. Or disgusting. Or ham fisted. If it looks cool to my eyes, I'm still gonna love that shit.

For example, I just read Druillet's Vuzz for the first time and holy motherfucker what a nakedly savage and nihilistic read. Vuzz is a psycho and a killer and a rapist. He JOYFULLY rapes and murders. Yet Druillet's exquisite lines and pacing and figures are so compelling you have to love the god damn book.

I kept all this shit in mind while working on Hellion Cross. This is the first full comic book I've created in a long time. I look at the finished pages and I ask myself "are these good enough?". Dangerous question to ask yourself. I could scrap them and start over and improve them, maybe. But why the fuck would you do that? I'm not a perfectionist. The next iteration would also have flaws and I would have exactly the same thoughts.

But I worry about stupid things. For example, I kept the 4 fingers style. In the original Pan-Gea comic, all the characters have 4 fingers like in old cartoons. So I thought... well, this is a successor to Pan-Gea, I might as well be consistent. And that's cool. I like it. But there's a devil on my shoulder going "Do you really wanna do that? Some guy will pick it up and say those hands look dumb."

But I can't help that. When I did the original Pan-Gea comics I had a few comments that the hands were weird or that the chicks were too fat. I can't be bothered with any of that. What am I trying to do here, make art for the masses? This is my shit, and folks who like my shit will like this comic. That's really all I can do.

Perhaps the story is lame, perhaps the hands are dumb. I don't know. It's not for me to say, is it? I make the art, the world judges it. That's just how it is.

Hellion Cross Center Pages

When I drew Hellion Cross issue 1, I decided to have a centerfold type of piece. A two page spread. I usually shy away from doing them because of printing concerns but I went for it. And it looks pretty good, I think.

Except it has a glaring error. I must have been half asleep when I was laying that page out in Photoshop for printing because I repeated a caption twice.

Here's the thing. I drew it without fully considering how the captions would fall within the safe margins. So I had to scoot one caption over to the left quite a bit. The problem is instead of scooting the correct one, I just copied the other one and placed it. Didn't even notice until a friend pointed it out in the actual printed book. Egg on face.

Anyway, that means the first printing of this book (currently the only printing) has an error and will be worth at least $10,000 more. You know it's true.

For the record, here's the corrected page and spread. Sorry about that.

Hellion Cross Print Proof

The print proof of Hellion Cross looks really nice! I love the fact that you can do this shit in 2024 without a ton of monetary investment. Of course, I'll have to pay for the actual copies I plan to put up for sale. Final sale price will likely be $15 each. I wanted to sell them for less, but the cost of mailing and packaging AND the cost of printing the books... it adds up.

I'll post about it when the books become available. My plan is to sign each and include a sketch card. Collector's item!

Hellion Cross Cover Art?

Here's the cover I drew for issue one of Hellion Cross.

What do you mean those worms are phallic?

Now... I'm on the fence here, but I might do a different one and use this for the back cover. My reason is simple: I made this one as suggestive as possible without making it actually erotic.

This is not an erotic piece of art. This is a woman locked in a fight with a worm monster. Worms are phallic. I drew the worms the way I picture worms to be in my head. I didn't actually look up any worm images because they're gross and it wasn't necessary for the piece. I drew Fawn in a way that suggests she is nude (she is) but isn't overt about nudity (it isn't). She isn't having fun, obviously, and the worm monster isn't having fun either, obviously. It's a battle.

But god dammit, that's a lot of phallic stuff she's holding in her hands, right?

I'm such a bad, bad man.

Anyway, the comic is done except for any changes I might make in deciding the cover art. I'm on the fence. I'm not sure if this is the image I want on the cover. It might end up on the back cover instead.

Hellion Cross Pages

The interior of Hellion Cross is done! I'm rather pleased with myself because I haven't done a serious, long form comic book in years. And by serious I mean with jokes and worm monsters.

I started working on this comic around June 10 without much of a plan. I essentially wrote it as I went along, trying to tackle it page by page. I completed 25 pages by August 3. For me, that's lightning speed.

I attribute this to the fact that I refused to lock myself into a long-term trajectory, keeping the story moving along as quickly as possible and choosing to draw what I wanted to draw. See... I know my own worst habits. If I lock myself in, I get locked in... I can't seem to move forward. Keeping it loose works for me.

Black Pudding is loose. The reason I was able to do 8 issues at all was because I left myself tons of room in each issue to do whatever I wanted (within the scope of old school roleplaying).

Now that the interior is finished, I've been working on the cover (see previous post). More later.

 

Hellion Cross Cover WIP

The interior pages are finished... now time to do the cover art!

I struggled with an idea for this cover that made sense and was still visually interesting to me. It's a sci-fantasy with space ships, so I thought I would feature the primary ship of the issue, the SS Motorbreath. But my main character, Fawn Rainchild, is basically nude through most of the comic. How to show her on the cover without making the cover itself fully rated R?

In a sense... it doesn't matter. I don't suspect this comic book will ever grace Previews magazine or anything like that. This is a straight-from-me-to-you labor of love. I can show whatever I want to show on the cover.

So naturally I went with the perfectly normal option: woman fighting a worm monster. Right?

What we have here is the Worm Witch, also called K'lixtra, one of the members of the Pan-Gea pantheon. She's the goddess responsible for destroying the Isle of Gea, home to the mother goddess and all her daughters, the Princesses of Gea... of which Fawn is the youngest. When I started drawing this issue I had no idea where it would go. I didn't even know Fawn would be in it, but she very quickly inserted herself into the story (page 2) and took over as the protagonist. And her auntie, the Worm Witch, quickly asserted herself as Fawn's chief nemesis, just as she was in the previous Pan-Gea comics.

As I type this, the inking is finished and it turned out very nice, I think. I'm moving on to colors now.

I'm not sure how to promote the comic other than posting about it on social media and offering it for sale. My plan is to print 100 copies, each one signed and numbered. Stay tuned.

Hellion Cross

I have spoken many times about ZSF, a space game I was/am working on. I did a metric ton of character sheets for it, just for funsies. And I have several drafts of the game written. But I needed something to get me over the edge, to help me commit to the bit.

Simultaneously I started thinking about comics again. Like, a LOT. Finally these things are aligning. I'm working on a new comic, Hellion Cross, which is set in the world of ZSF. At this moment, I have 11 pages inked. I haven't decided yet if this issue will be 24, 28, or 32 pages long. Still on the fence about that.

It has been a long time, it seems, since I dived this far into making comics. This is all I used to do. TTRPGs were a distant second in the back of my mind, though I never stopped fiddling with them. All through the 90s, 2000s, and of course beyond... always, always noodling and doodling about the elfgames.

But comics were always primary for me. I started seriously working on them in 1987 and didn't stop focusing on them until around 2012 when I suddenly shifted gears into an obsession with roleplaying games, particularly the OSR-type. Even then, the result was Black Pudding... a zine that looks a lot like a comic book.

So, what's up with the new comic? I started with a short script wherein a salvage ship finds a frozen woman who bursts out of her ice cage and sort of barges onto the ship, taking over. Much to my surprise, the character morphed before my eyes into Fawn Rainchild, the primary character of my Pan-Gea comics. I didn't expect to see her again, especially in space. But there she was, demanding to be in the book.

Who was I to say no?

So the small crew of the SS (space ship) Motorbreath comes up on a frozen Fawn, naked on a small planetoid. She comes out of her frozen spell and boards the ship, using up the hot water for a shower.

Now... you lascivious types might be going "naked", "hot shower" and thinking this is a prurient comic book. Tut-tut as they say. This is a serious comic about space adventure. The naked woman bit is just because the god damned wizard who gave Fawn the freeze spell was a pervert, most likely.

Where does the book go from here? Well, there's a secondary storyline about a robot vs. human war. At some point these two storylines will merge and we'll see a bigger picture, I'm sure. But right now I'm doing this comic the way I like to do everything: page by page, idea by idea. Hey... Mat Wagner, creator of Mage and Grendel, did it this way. So can I.

You'll know when I know.

ABOUT THE ZSF RPG

Oh yeah. So the comic title is Hellion Cross (unless I change my mind). But it is set in the Zoa Space Frontier, or ZSF. This is the wild west of the galaxy, outside the Galactic Main where everything is safe and sanitized. It's a dangerous place. Apparently, according to what I've written so far, there's a fuckin' war going on. But I feel like this is a relatively trivial matter. The robots of the RIO (Robot Imperial Order) have been warring with the UHF (United Human Federation) for countless years. This current war is just one of many, with the robots and humans fighting over resources. Perhaps they fight so much because the humans created the robots and the robots have a lot of mommy/daddy issues as a result. The humans... they just like to fight over resources. Always have.

So anyway, the game. It is going to be called ZSF, unless I change my mind. It's a space romp RPG. The setting, the ZSF, is magical space, mind you. This is not "hard sci-fi". This is pure space opera and sci-fantasy. There are wizards and shit. You will see barbarians with swords and blasters. This is my shit.

The RPG is an original system. A big part of me wanted to use GOZR as the system, so I could just wrap that setting into ZSF more easily. But I foolishly created an entirely different one. Mostly because I wanted to get away from the d20 as the core die, even though I love it and I think GOZR's system is great. I wanted to peel away from that a little bit. Right now ZSF uses a d6 pool with exploding dice and stuff. But more on that later.

First step is to get the comic done. A setting, in action, with characters and visuals... this will help establish the tone and "what you do" in the game.

But I've rambled on long enough. Back to inking.

Here's page one of Hellion Cross, y'all. Colors later.

Aquabot

Spent much of today working on Hellion Cross, the new Troika! book. Here's the Aquabot background.

Aquabot

You were a simple mining bot crawling the ocean floors of Oceora until that weird coral started to grow in your head. Ever since then you've had dreams of... fun. Playing cards, driving fast ships, getting into fights. Not the sorts of things a respectable water bot should want to do. Yet here you are in this criminal dive, ready and willing to throw down.

Possessions:

-Deck of Sea Life Cards

-Fusil

-Robot Body (armour 2)

-Can of Oil

Advanced Skills:

1 Rifle

1 Swimming

1 Interface with Tech

2 Mining

2 Gambling

Special: You function underwater as easily as in the air, or in space, or in most other weird environments. You only need to power down and recharge once per week. If presented with a risky proposition, you must spend a Luck point to say no.

Hellion Cross

I might be hitting the critical mass or event horizon on a new Troika! romp kit. Working title is "Hellion Cross", third in the Cozmos series that includes such ancient classics as Supercalla and Cozmic Metal Heads.

For this one I'm presenting a seedy little backroads location called Hellion Cross and the 36 scoundrels, wanderers, barbarians, and wayward robots who might be there. This one is a little less laser-focused on a theme or setting as the Hellion Cross location is only loosely sketched in. Mostly this is about the 36 backgrounds and will include some random tables for running romps through the Coz along the old Supercalla Highway.

I'm working from existing backgrounds that I had on the cutting room floor plus new ones inspired by various pieces of art. The art is mostly coming from existing sketches and little drawings I had lying around that were unused in a publication. Like... if I have a cool looking robot sketch then I'm finishing it up and turning it into a background. Because this shit is fun and honestly I need to make a book because I'm having withdrawal.

Priest of the Upper Ocular Cavity

Priest of the Upper Ocular Cavity

Two middle fingers up and you are favored by the Cavity. But if the devil horns are brought to bear then woe to you and yours, for the Cavity's Eye will be upon you until your dying days.

Possessions:

-Coif of the Mind (blocks mental probings)

-The Ocular Habit (hard, course, armour 1)

-Cavity Staff

-Sack of Vitreous Fluid

Skills:

2 Upper Eye Sees You

1 Spell (Cavity Staff): Know Intentions

2 Spell (Cavity Staff): Obscure Vision

1 Spell (Random)

1 Spell (Random)

1 Spell (Random)

1 Staff

Special:

Alcohol, tea, and the juices of fruits and tubers are prohibited, as are most pleasures of the flesh. Life is hard. Cavity staff spells can only be cast with the cavity staff, naturally.

Dodecker

Lightning Monk

Petty Thief

Zoot!

Just a space doodle.

Supercalla Cover Art

As I said once or twice, I'm writing a Troika! space fantasy setting. At first it was to be called Zoa, which is kind of a larger broader title. Then I went with Hellion Cross, to focus on one little region. Then I shifted a bit and now it's a space highway called the Supercalla. Hellion Cross, being a large location on the highway, may get its own book later.

Anyhow... here's the cover art! I really loved drawing this one. It's one of those examples of an idea popping into your head fully formed and then falling down on the page without much effort. And I like that.

Armorhawk

For the upcoming Troika! setting, here is background 22...

Armorhawk

Back on the Hawkmoon there is a battle cry: Beak and steel, talons and will! Where there is atmosphere, you soar on feathered wings. Where there is naught, the jetpack will do. The Shrew Parliament are out to kill you and you're out to kill them.

Gear:
-Featherlite armor
-Blaster
-Arm canon (dmg as fusil)
-Jetpack
-Dried mice snacks

Skills:
2 Talons & Beak (dmg as small beast)
3 Fly
2 Pistol
1 Canon
2 Keen Vision 

Special: 
Fly twice as fast and twice as far by doffing armor (takes 1 minute; 5 minutes to don).

Decommissioned Warbot

Here's #46 on the Backgrounds Table for Hellion Cross. This guy has seen its better days but maybe it's got some spark left in its metal bones.

46. Decommissioned Warbot (AWOL)

In your heyday you were a first-class robot warrior with a really big canon. You used to level buildings. But too many drops into hot messes has left you battered, broken, and beset with bugs. They took your canon first, then they slated you for spare parts storage. That just didn’t sit right with your over-stressed AI... so you opted out of the program. With your fist. What will you do when the Law finally catches up with you? 

Possessions:
-Long distance scanner 
-Welding torch finger 
-Short distance boosters (for flying) 
-Detachable limbs 
-Pick one weapon: PL22, 11 gauge shotgun, revolver, RIG 207
-Robot body (armor 2) 

Advanced Skills:
4 Pistol 
4 Rifle 
2 Strength 
2 Fly 

Special: 
In times of stress, the GM may call for a Luck test. If you blow it then something inside you blows, at least for a short time. Your body has been scavenged. Roll 1d6 to find out how. 

1	Missing hand.
2	Missing arm.
3	Missing part of head.
4	Power module incomplete; 1d6 hour recharge time
5	Rust prevention gone; avoid water.
6	Hard skin stripped to 1 armor.