Rook City bonus stuff!

This terrific image was done by Brad Heath, one of the regulars on the CCN message board. He downloaded a copy of Rook City and said the Rebuker is his new hero. It's always awesome to see another artist's take on my characters. Brad definitely got the attitude right!

Some of you might have noticed the "Suggested Soundtrack" in the back of Rook City #1. Well, here's a music player that features all of the songs on that soundtrack! And then you can read along with the music. How awesome.

Track 1- Johnny Cash "Folsom Prison Blues" (for the "Bullets and Bedpans" story):
This song seemed to capture some of the Rebuker's attitude as he tries to escape the nursing home. It's easy to imagine his voice sounding an aweful lot like Johnny's (although I doubt the Rebuker does much singing). "I shot a man in Reno... just to watch him die."

Track 2- Smashing Pumpkins "We Only Come Out at Night" (for the "Transformations" story):
This perfectly matches the Vlad Squad, for obvious reasons. The goofy instrumentation and slight creepiness of this track fits the mood we were kind of going for with these characters. I can see the Squad liking this track quite a bit.

Track 3- Miles Davis "So What" (for the "Sleuth" story):
Well, Toby is a big jazz fan. In fact, if you look closely you'll notice there is a Miles Davis poster on the wall of his room in this story. But more than that, the ultra-cool beginning of this song really nails the film noir feeling I wanted to get across in this "mystery".

Track 4- The Flaming Lips "Waiting for a Superman" (for the "Showtime" story):
Obviously the superhero references in this song match the epic battle between the Captain and Dark Star. And if you want enjoyably cheesy dramatic music, the Flaming Lips are always a good bet. But I also like how the line "Tell everybody waiting for Superman that they should try to hold on as best they can/ He hasn't dropped them, forgot them, or anything/ it's just too heavy for Superman to lift" matches the reveal at the end of this story.

Track 5- John Lee Hooker "I'm Bad Like Jesse James" (for the "Gratuity" story):
This song just has the proper attitude for Rebuker's incident at the diner. John Lee Hooker's ominous voice sets the mood perfectly. He's singing about justice being served, and that's just what the Rebuker dishes up in this story.

Well, anyway, I hope this is entertaining for someone besides me!

ROOK CITY #1 released!

Finally... here it is! ROOK CITY has finally been collected into print form! It's actually been completed for awhile (as you can tell by our convention posts), but it took awhile to get everything setup for ordering. You can order it now from our Indy Planet store and have an actual print copy for yourself!

But you also have another option! You can download the entire issue for FREE through WOWIO, an e-book company that we will be working with! It's free to join Wowio and free to download books, but each time someone downloads our books we get paid. So, if you like our work and would like to support us, this is a great, free way you can do so!

Anyway... hopefully you've been following our Rook City tales online over the last few years. This issue features the first five stories: In "Bullets & Bedpans", Toby Fox must stop the Rebuker (a 80-year-old vigilante) from devastating his nursing home. "Transformations" shows us the origin of the Vlad Squad, four college kids who think they are vampires. Meanwhile, Toby must solve a mystery involving his professors and an ancient mask in "Sleuth." Rook City's resident superhero, The Captain, battles his arch-rival in "Showtime"...but all is not as it seems.

And finally, the Rebuker reappears and leaves his mark on the locals in "Gratuity." This story has never appeared in other formats, and is available EXCLUSIVELY by downloading or buying a copy of Rook City #1!

This issue also features behind-the-scenes sketches, character info, and pinups. It's 36 pages jam-packed with goodness!

So anyway, it's exciting to finally get this book out there. I hope you all at least download a copy, check it out, and let us know what you think!

More sketchies

Here are some more sketches I did for some of my students that bought some of our books. It's always fun to take a crack at established characters. I slapped some color on the Iron Man. I was feeling inspired after watching the movie (which I highly recommend to all of you)!




These two were requested by a student who really likes cheese and tacos. A boy after my own heart.

Jam comics!

Free Comic Book Day was a blast today. Elton and I hung out with fellow local artists Amber Stone and Randy Rustin, sold some books, did some sketches, and gave away a bunch of mini-comics. It was great hanging out with fellow artists and checking out each other's artwork. Hopefully we can make this a yearly tradition here in Joplin!

Maybe the best part of the day was doing some jam comics with Amber and Randy. The way it worked was that we each drew the first row of a one page comic and then passed it on to the next person, who drew the middle part and passed it onto the next person, who drew the end. The results are pretty loose and fun... check 'em out! (Amber and I must have had zombies on the brain, as the two we started feature the undead.)


Created by (in order): me, Randy, and Amber...



By Randy, Amber, and me...



By Amber, me, and Randy...