Upon further review...

One of the most exciting things as a creator is getting a chance to hear what people who spend a lot of time reviewing comics think of your work. Well, some of those reviews are starting to show up for our newer books, so here ya go...

The fine folks at Pulp Secret included DUEL in their regular comic review video podcast. They had a lot of kind words and really seemed to get what I was going for with that book. Check it out right here (the Duel review starts at the 3:48 mark):


Broken Frontier took a look at both new books (they also reviewed the mini-comic version of Random Ink way-back-when... nice people). Tonya Crawford had a lot of nice things to say about ROOK CITY #1, including

"With a $2.95 price tag for over 32 pages of highly enjoyable comic book stories Rook City comes off as a bargain. Wolfshorndl has crafted an overall strong first outing and will hopefully keep turning out these stories that are sometimes witty, sometimes silly, but always entertaining. This comic is like a trip through the funhouse – a lot of laughs, some good-natured teasing, and at the end anticipation of the next time we get to go for a ride."

Meanwhile, her fellow Broken Frontier reviewer, Richard Pulfer, seemed to enjoy DUEL #1 although he would like to see it develop farther, saying

"The character designs are imaginative, especially in later characters like Cyborg Stan and Triode. Once again, it’s the execution of the battles themselves, seen in the expression of the combatants and their ultimate fate which give the book a disarmingly cinematic feel. While Wolfshorndl’s art is more than sufficient, it might be interesting to see two artists with contrasting styles duel one another in later books."

Funny he should say that, as that is just what we have planned. More on that later...

Over on her Comics Worth Reading site, Johanna Draper Carlson reviewed both ROOK CITY and DUEL. Of the two, she seemed to enjoy DUEL more and really gave me some things to consider.

I really appreciate all these people taking the time to look over our books and spread the word about them! Hopefully, there will be even more to tell you about soon.

The 1st Joplin Area Sketch Night!

Well, this was pretty dang cool... and something we've been wanting to do for awhile. Last night, a bunch of area artists interested in comics gathered at our house for a sketch night. This was sort of inspired by the CCN group in KC. It was great to get everyone together, as I knew almost everyone there, but many of them had not met. We stayed up until 2am showing each other what we'd been working on, comparing favorite drawing tools, and sketching like crazy. Eventually we started inking/coloring over each others pencil sketches, which produced some crazy cool results.

Anyway, I think this is going to be the start of something really cool. Who knows what kind of collaborations are going to spring out of this? We're going to try to meet every month like this and see what happens.

The Phoenix drawing up top is by Randy Rustin, who is a drawing MACHINE... cranks 'em out like no one's business. This was one he did for Laura (Phoenix is her favorite character). I'm helping him put together a sketchbook of his stuff for print.

This one is a portrait of our dog, Zoe, by the super-talented Amber Stone:



This is one of the guys from Evil Ain't Easy, pencilled by me and inked by Matt:



And the Rebuker, of course, pencilled by me and inked by Brad Shipp (check out his deviantART page here... amazing!)


This is just a small sampling of the art produced last night. Most of it we gave away to each other. Hopefully, this is the first of many of these sketch nights!

Read 'em and weep!

Last night, we had a little Three Trees sketch session at my house. Elton, Dusty, and Matt all came over. We got to show each other what we were working on, which was cool. All three of those guys are cranking out some great stuff you'll get to see in the coming months! This was the first time all four of us were together, and it was quite awesome.

We decided to make some jam comics, so Elton came up with some story seed words to get us started. We all picked some out of the pile, and then got started on the top third of a page. Then we would pass it to the next guy, draw the middle section, and then pass it again and finish it. I got a lot of grief for taking too long on the first two sections. Dusty was really hardcore... straight to ink, no pencils.

Be warned... these are really loose, quickly-drawn, and crazy!

This one was done (in order) by: me, Dusty, and Matt:


This one was Matt, me, then Dusty:


This one was Dusty, Matt, then me:

Revamping the sketches

Just so you all know, we've redone how we are organizing our sketches for this site. From now on, we'll be using our deviantART galleries to display our work. For those of you that don't know, deviantART is the largest collection of art and artists on the web. They make it simple for us to display, sort, and even sell our artwork in a really easy, streamlined way. Dusty was the first to sign up, and then he finally kicked my butt and got me to do the same. You should definitely check it out!

We'll still mention new sketches we put up on this blog. For instance, here's a couple of scratchboard pieces I finally scanned in:

DUEL #1 released!

Here's yet another new issue for your viewing pleasure... DUEL #1!

What is Duel about? Well, two young boys with overactive imaginations are hanging out and drawing one day. When one of them sketches the image of a mighty warrior...the challenge is on. Before long there is an all-out artist's duel raging to see who can create the toughest character. We are soon sucked into the world of their imagination, a world filled with tremendous battles between cybernetic cowboys, secret snake ninjas, huge gelatanous creatures, and much more! Who will emerge victorious? You can preview some of the pages HERE.

This book started out as a 24 Hour Comic (24 pages created in 24 hours) I tried to do at the end of last summer. I tried to come up with something fun and loose that would be a lot of fun to draw. I only got a few hours into it before I failed the 24 Hour challenge (should've remembered I was a new dad), but I liked the idea so much that I wanted to finish it. So here it is!

You can order it now from our Indy Planet store and have an actual print copy for yourself! But, just like Rook City #1, you can download the entire issue for FREE through WOWIO in electronic format. Remember, it's free to sign-up on WOWIO and a great way to support us.

By the way, Random Ink #1 is also now available for free download through WOWIO! For those of you who might now know, this was our first published book. It's an anthology that features some of the Rook City stories along with a wide variety of other tales about everything from blues musicians to martians to time travel. You can check out a PREVIEW, if you want.

This will be our last release for a little while (although several are in the pipeline right now), but it's nice to have three finished comics available. I hope you all at least download some copies, check them out, and let us know what you think!