The Saturday morning line-up of comics here at Laughing Reindeer World Headquarters has just increased. As promised, this week starts what I hope will be a long run of my original Creepsville comic strip.
I have to add that this week is actually the first page of a story originally published as a back-up in the first issue of the second Trollords comic series (ooh, I'm getting dizzy). The story was originally printed in black and white. Starting today and serialized here each week will be that story... but this time in color.
As I was looking at this story, it occured to me that maybe a few of you have no idea what a "Toy Pirate" is. Back in the day (and I suppose there are still some who do this), the action figure toy market was infested with a number of dealers who specialized in high-desire collectible toys, specifically those hard to find chase figures... or short supply figures in cases delivered. Initially, the chase figure might be the toy the company thought might be the least desirable of the line, very often female characters because action figures were considered boy toys. Later, seeing the chase phenomenon evolve into madness, the toy companies might release a short figure deliberately to induce insanity among the toy collectors who just had to have that Punch-Himself -in-the-Head Lex Luthor. Serving this market were Toy Pirates, who did things like buy toys out the back door of large toy chains only to sell them at much higher prices via mail order or toy and comic conventions. They found that some desperate completists (an all too common disease of comic book collectors) would pay the big bucks just so they could show they had Malebolgia.
Now, I'm sure some of you are just thinking, "What in hell is he talking about?" Before you dismiss this outright, Toy Pirate wheeling and dealing had such an effect on the big biz of toys that even the Wall Street Journal looked at the phenomenon in a front page story. In fact, it was that WSJ story that prompted and inspired me to do this draw the story at that time.
Okay, now that I've let the Creepsville genie out of its bottle, what am I gonna do? Well, once I get done posting this story, I will start putting up page-by-page something you Creepsville fans have never seen (with the exception of a teaser piece of art I posted here last year), a complete issue of the original series that was never published with the intriguing title of "Dangerous Spooky Theatre." If that sounds familiar to some of you, go back to some of my previous blogs here and check out the Johnny Ruckus/Monster Patrol story I posted here last year.
Running at about 40 pages, it is the longest story I have ever done in the series. When that finally starts here, I'll provide my usual background info and liner notes on the creation of the comic.
Okay, let us not forget that this week also sees the latest installment of the Agents of Peril online comic strip. I've mentioned in the past that the story is going to get very weird (as if it wasn't already) in the weeks ahead. Even as I worked on the all-new upcoming pages (for the first time in years on this strip), I wondered if I had gone too far.... Hmmm... Nah!
Last but not least, here's this week's latest page from Nightmare City featuring AoP's own Dick Protozoa.
As usual, click on the artwork here and check out the much larger, easier to read and more satisfying scans for fans of insane inking textures that you've come to expect here.
After you've done that, have a great weekend, which carries you through to a great week, great month, great year, great life... and a new era of world peace and stability. Noble Peace Prize administrators should now consider me nominated.
It's Saturday and time for this week's strips: Creepsville, Nightmare City and Agents of Peril... Hold on, where's Agents of Peril?
