Ad Astra, Et Cetera

I’m work­ing on a new book with the wicked tal­ented and wicked pro­fes­sional Vic Mal­ho­tra.
It’s called “Fort Rip­ley and the Gang­sters of Kala­ma­zoo” and you can watch our cre­ative process unfold before your very eyes on our pro­duc­tion tum­blr timetravelandtommyguns.tumblr.com
The url says it all.
It’s a story which takes place on the eve of pro­hi­bi­tion, with time trav­eler Fort Rip­ley get­ting involved with the noto­ri­ous and grue­some Pur­ple Gang of Detroit. He enlists the aid of a medium, a seemingly-immortal escape artist, and the leg­endary Paw Paw Negro Blow­torch: A. William Under­wood, in his quest to retrieve an ancient arti­fact and return to his own time! Time travel and tommy guns! Pro­hi­bi­tion and the Para­nor­mal! Moon­shine and Medi­ums! Gang­sters and the Grue­some! Love and Love­craft! Weird­ness in the time of Woodrow Wil­son! And How!
The blog will fea­ture art­work as it is drawn as well as images and arti­cles unearthed dur­ing our research for the project.
Look for “Fort Rip­ley and the Gang­sters of Kala­ma­zoo” to debut on the web in early ’11.

I will be at booth 541 for this year’s New York Comic Con, at the Cel­lar Door Pub­lish­ing booth along with Steve Bia­lik of Samu­rai Star Wars, Min­is­ter Jade and Mas­ter Jesus fame. I will have copies of the Mar­vel to sell! Hope to see you there!

It’s offi­cial! I will be exhibit­ing with Cel­lar Door Pub­lish­ing at booth 746 at C2E2.

Reed Expo­si­tions have set up a nice con plan­ner and booth loca­tor here. I’ve marked our spot on it for your convenience.

I will have a lim­ited num­ber of copies of “The Mar­vel” for sale, as well as some t-shirts from store.rscarbonneau.com

It’s look­ing to be a great show, and I can’t wait to see you there!

57 years ago this day Jack Par­sons died as a result of an explosion.

Today, much of his life and work remain as much of a mys­tery as his death. Most, though hardly all, of the pub­licly avail­able infor­ma­tion about Jack is second-hand knowl­edge, hearsay, and spec­u­la­tion. Like­wise, there is still a great deal of mis­in­for­ma­tion and mis­con­cep­tion sur­round­ing not only Jack, but the so-called occult prac­tices in which he engaged.

In the process of writ­ing “The Mar­vel” I strug­gled to only use infor­ma­tion which was cor­rob­o­rated by a num­ber of sources. Still, I did fill in a lot of the blanks myself, and over­all, while based on his­tor­i­cal doc­u­ments, it is pri­mar­ily a work of fic­tion. Our goal in cre­at­ing the book was not to aggran­dize the life of a Lib­er­tar­ian Lib­er­tine, but to spread the ideas expressed in Jack’s own writ­ings and the impact of the work he did in the world. I’m telling you this because the very last page of “The Mar­vel” is fin­ished. Robin and I are proud of the work we’ve created.

We’ve been wait­ing for the right moment to make the fol­low­ing announcement:

It’s with a great deal of hap­pi­ness that I am announc­ing today, on the anniver­sary of JP’s depar­ture from this world, that the com­plete graphic novel “The Mar­vel” will be released by Cel­lar Door Pub­lish­ing.

While the pages of “The Mar­vel” will still be avail­able online at webcomicsnation.com, there is much of the story that will only be pub­lished in the graphic novel. This includes new art­work by Robin Simon, and dozens of new pages of nar­ra­tive which tie together Jack’s last days and his early life.

Cel­lar Door Pub­lish­ing is a com­pany that spe­cial­izes in the pub­li­ca­tion of high-quality illus­trated lit­er­a­ture and graphic nov­els. We’ve cho­sen to work with them because of their com­mit­ment to qual­ity prod­uct, such as the award-winning graphic novel “Min­is­ter Jade” by Steve Bia­lik. The unique approach of pub­lisher Jade Dodge is a refresh­ing and encour­ag­ing one in this comic indus­try, and her sup­port and cre­ative direc­tion on this project have been invaluable.

While this is not an offi­cial press release, and no solic­i­ta­tion date has yet been set, I felt that now was the right time to announce our partnership.

Keep check­ing back for more details and be sure to fol­low “The Mar­vel” online, with updates every day this week!

Here’s a sneak-peek of the pro­to­type cover for the print edi­tion of the comic (be sure to click on the thumb­nail to enlarge):