10/05/2014: This Week's Creepsville Page Plus King-Cat Comics John Porcellino the DVD

October... and Halloween is upon us. I'm sure it won't surprise you to hear that Halloween is my favorite holiday. As it came into view, I started getting grandiose ideas for an all-new big Halloween story for this blog. Honestly, though I would dearly like to do that, the timing is too late. Add to that the Herculean task of the Creepsville Collected book. That must be my main focus now (reminded Frank to himself, pounding his fragile skull).  So, I'll hold onto those story ideas until the summer (possibly earlier) and have it ready to go next year, after the book is done.

Whew! That was close. Anyways... here's this week's Creepsville page. Click on the image to see a larger version. Meanwhile, I'm still going to get the decorations out and get some scary Halloween stuff up at the Laughing Reindeer ranch. I will still have some stuff up here, too.

 

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE DEPT: This is a rarity for me, posting an updated Laughing Reindeer blog, but I just have to alert all of you that Dan Stafford's documentary, Root Hog Or Die, about John Porcellino and King-Cat Comics is out on DVD. It's an eye opening look at John's life, creatively, philosophically and surviving illnesses, among other things and how they all came together in King-Cat Comics. There's so much I didn't know about John, who turned up at my comic book store in St Charles, IL, back in the late 80s with his photocopied comic (he still photocopies it, but collections are in trade paperback or even hardcover). I liked it from the giddyup and encouraged my customers to try it out. I'm actually in the documentary for a short time, too. In making this movie, filmmaker Dan Stafford joined John on a coast to coast self-propelled tour, wherein Stafford had a chance to talk to a good number of folks who know John. The DVD (which includes the 104 minute documentary, 40 minutes of bonus features, and a new 8-page comic about John and Dan on the road) is available now from Kilgore Books (http://KilgoreBooks.com) for only $15.00. I still can happily encourage everyone to read King-Cat... and get this DVD.

 



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