Creepsville Progress Report (Plus Tidbits)

Things are moving along nicely on the Creepsville book. Very soon now... wait, I've got to stop saying that. It won't be very soon and it's not the artwork that's holding it up. It's the writing, scanning and putting together the whole book. Still, even the original comics must be scanned again, followed by lots of new stuff. When I talk about very soon, just pretend I'm Video Watchdog honcho Tim Lucas talking about his Mario Bava book. That took a long time, but it was worth it.

When the time is right, I will start posting material from Creepsville #6, the Christmas issue that was never published, right here in this blog. Soon afterwards, I will be offering the collected book for sale. I'm also hoping that it will be carried in local comic and book stores, of course.

Right now I'm debating on showing the whole story or just a good sized chunk of it. I'm leaning towards the latter. I change my mind on this point all the time. Initially though, I was strongly leaning on giving it away. If I choose to do that, odds are I will also serialize a page each week.

It may be a bit early saying this, but after I do whatever I'm going to do with the 6th issue contents online, I'll also post some material from what I've been calling the 7th issue... though it isn't really that. I'll explain when it goes up.

Besides those original stories, there are loads more materials (artwork, notes, etc.) created for or had inspired Creepsville all along the way. This will mean lots more scanning on my part. I'm also hoping that the finished book will also provide at least a glimpse on the creative process of making comic books (at least my creative technique). Maybe I sound a bit pretentious, but I'm honestly trying to make this more than just a collection of back issues.

To say the least, I have my work cut out for me.

That gets me to the "Tidbits" of this Blog posting. While I've been digging through art, I have found what I consider interesting bits and pieces of artwork, some of which will make it to the book while others won't.

For the moment, I thought I would put a few pieces up that you might find interesting. The first two items are covers for a modest publication I was going to call Ruckus, a name I've been wanting to use for a long time.

Besides Creepsville, I also created a fun concept that I called Monster Patrol. I have a full length first issue done and pencils for the second. While I was thinking about what I would do with it back when I got that issue done, my good friend Chris Ecker contacted me, asking me if I'd like to do an 8 page back up story for Big Bang Comics, which was published by Image. I've told the origin story of this team before on this blog. Read it if you haven't by looking through the subject list on the right side of the screen and click on "Monster Patrol."  

So, I still had a full length first issue and didn't know what to do with it. For a short period, I was toying with breaking that story down in to a 4 or 5 part adventure in Ruckus, in a 8 1/2" by 5.5" mini-comics size. Perhaps I was influenced at that time by a visit to my house by my friend John Porcellino, creator of King-Cat Comics. John had stopped by one night while he was going on a cross country tour.  [Check out John's blog; MAYBE BLOGGING WILL HELP at http://johnporcellino.blogspot.com]. He has links to his online store, too.

Doing mini-comics is not alien to me. In fact, years ago I had done mini-comics featuring several characters who ended up in supporting roles in Creepsville.

I also wanted to try something that I had seen on other mini-comics... my plan was to present covers with interesting images that might not suggest anything in particular specific until you actually read the comic. I wanted it to be unusual, a little mysterious, and deliberately vague thus the cover doesn't say Monster Patrol. Eventually, I held off doing it because I had determined that Monster Patrol is a comic about giant monsters. I wanted to see those creatures presented big.

Monster Patrol will be back... Sounds very James Bond.

The third piece here is artwork I forgot about which looks like it was intended for a set of buttons. There were 3 buttons each for Creepsville and Agents of Peril. I'm only showing Rat and Percy right now. I'll get the others scanned and up on this Blog soon. Oh, and the Agents of Peril story will be back and will actually come to an end... though I have plans for at least two more stories after that. I will be working on these forever...

As usual, click on the images to see larger versions.

Also, please let me know if you enjoy this sort of stuff. I have quite a bit more I can show you all.

I've spent a lot of time writing the blog this week but have plenty more work to do right now on the Creepsville Collected book. Until next time, back to work... and "Toodles!"

-- F Kurtz